My site.. WWW.TheSarasotaDeed.COM was doing great being on the second page of Google "Sarasota Real Estate" search.. Out of no where I was bumped back to page 13! It stayed on page 2 for about 3 weeks, then one day it got hammered back to page 13.. Why would this happen.. I have a number of PR3 & 4 Link exchanges and tons of keyword rich content.. My site got to page 2 when it was just 1 month old.. I was posting articles everyday, I was doing link exchanges and its like they rewarded me for that.. They gave me a PR3 after it was only 1 month old! Then I stopped posting and exchanging links, and 1 month later I get pushed out.. Did i get punished for lack of activity on the site (not posting articles to the blog?) or did a high PR drop my link from their page?? Why would google punish me after rewarding so well?? Any advice would be great.. I'm new at the SEO, but obviously thought I was diong a great job, now I'm pretty bummed.. Thanks in advance for your advice.. Justin
Link exchanges are a bad idea; google hates any kind of paid link or link exchange. Instead, try to focus on more one-way backlinks to your site, with whatever keyword you are targetting in the anchor text. The more often you post and build content the better, but unless you stopped developing content for several months you shouldn't get pushed back because of that; unless, of course, you have a serious competitor who is working harder than you in your niche market. Also, you may try focusing on more long tail keywords rather than just depending on "Sarasota Real Estate".
I understand.. I just don't know what happened.. It was there, now its gone.. I was thinking the more focused the keyword phrase and title, the better.. Should I get rid of my entire "Links" page.. These are reciprocal link exchanges that I've done.. It was there when I was put on page 2, that's why i was thinking it coudln't be the reason it got pushed back.. Would Google go in and re-evaluate my site and then say, "Whoa... We must've missed this.. He's got too many link exchanges going out.." and then penalize me?? Thanks for your advice.. I'm going to make changes, just want to make the right ones..
More and more Google are penalising link exchanges. Sites which once were neck and neck are now all over the place because some invested heavily in link exchanges - meaning that they were penalised. Looks like you are going to have to do what I call the "plod" method - SB.AD.NRD.DFB Social Bookmarking, Article Directories, Non-Reciprocal Directories, DO Follow Blogs!
Absolutely.. I agree.. I understand why they do that penalizing though.. I guess its a cheap way to win "points" and isn't a true reflection of the quality of your site.. It all comes down to quality traffic from good content I guess.. The best sites have tons of links coming in from other sites referring to the quality content, and don't have links going out.. So I should probably only exchnage with really high PR but keep that to a minimum of only a couple.. should I "nix" my links page? this page has tons of useless sites on it, that I've done link exchanges with.. They are in the same industry though (real estate).. www.thesarasotadeed.com/linkage is my links page if you want check it out. Thanks again!
If you do have any paid links you could put rel="nofollow" on them. It just tells Google not to check them out. The company I work for our site was on page one in Google.ca and then it was bumped to page 4. You should research Black Hat SEO and White Hat SEO.
Justin, how long has your Web site been up and running, and why are you using link exchanges to promote your Web site?