www.inkart.net has been online since the late '90's. It has always brought in consistent sales of wildlife art. Perhaps 1-2 sales a week and rarely going more than 2 weeks without a sale. Something has gone wrong with it and one of it's related sites. I haven't had a single sale for almost 2 months. I removed quite a few images about 1.5 months ago, and that seems to trigger some kind of backlash with Google. I've replaced many of them, but several will not be replaced. Ironically, I noticed it bumped up to a PR5 not too long ago. Also, the site www.stock.inkart.net has also tanked. Again, it has brought in consistent sales for years. I checked Google Webmaster and under 'Top Search Inquires' it now lists as options only Denmark, Hungary and Iceland. WTF? And the only listed search terms are all in those languages instead of English. If someone can determine what has happened or even speculate why I would sure like to hear it.
Maybe your niche is becoming more competitive, how are your rankings in the serps, and how is your traffic?
Thanks for the reply. That's the odd thing - in my AwStats, it fluctuates wildly. I used to get about 2K hits a day, now I'm lucky if I get 200. Also, some days register a '0.' My guess is that it's a problem with the AwStats, but I have no way of knowing how accurate those are. Serps are pretty good - I come up #1 with 'wildlife illustration.' I have lots of images indexed in Google. What worries me is www.stock.inkart.net having a PR3 dropping to a PR0 and it seems like Google believes it to be a non-English site???
try checking to see if you have unsavory links coming in that are new. in some cases (and I have seen it done with my clients) competition will submit your site to less than desirable sites to purposely deflate your credibility. Your loss is there gain
Thanks for the tip. I found my site here: http://www.steelcasehealthcarereport.com/e_article000493252.cfm?x=b11,0,w http://www.freehomeimprovementinformation.info/2877.php http://www.fitness-boat.com/product/Diamondback-600U-Upright-Exercise-Bike/ Could this be the problem? These sites aren't related to mine in any way, shape or form. The last one is especially disturbing. How can I get them removed?
They may have linked to you for a reason see if you can find out what it was by going to the sites and ask them. If you do not get a response politely ask them to remove it. Give them a one week time line. If they do not respect your wishes tell them again to remove them or face litigation it is your site and your livelihood.
Are you continously populating your site with links? Google does detect if your site is getting stagnant with link building and it automatically deflates your rankings as well as removes some links that they have indexed if they get checked and if found to be burried in deep in the linking sites. If your number of links decreased, that could probably be the reason assuming that you are monitoring all your links in terms of numbers which is obviously a usual move for any business owner such as you.
About 2-3 months ago www.stock.inkart underwent a major redesign that removed a clunky java based navigation system. NOTE: On each page, to avoid duplicate content with the root site (inkart.net) both images along with their pop ups link to other sites: http://www.stock.inkart.net/birds/tropical_birds/scarlet_macaw.php The black and white images are taken from www.inkart.net and the color from www.wildlife-artworks.com. Could that have an effect on how Google sees these pages? The index pages are the same with the thumbs coming from wildlife-artworks.com: http://www.stock.inkart.net/mammals/endangered/
Are those blog packages for sale in the 'Link Sales' area a good idea? Or has Google caught on to that tactic? How can I build backlinks safely? Is that part of what an SEO expert does?
DO NOT buy links of any kind... Complete waste of money. A good SEO team can get you links the right way.
How about the free directories? Are they a waste of time? Ok, how does an SEO team get me links? What should I expect to pay?
Some SEO firms charge upwards of 5-6k for full site optimization plus monthly fees to maintain. We only charge $1500.00. Why you ask? We make you do some of the work. We will walk you through step by step and take care of the keyword as well as competition analysis. Once you have followed our suggestions, and done as we ask, you will have enough good information to continue doing all of your sites on your own. So, one time fee with full disclosure of our techniques, never pay again. We don't do it because we have to we do it because we want to help. Why contact us now? When one of your potential customers does a search via a major search engine, only one of two outcomes is possible 1. They will find your website 2. They will find your competitor's website. Which will it be? We boast a 100% success rate at getting our clients into the top ten of Google, Yahoo or MSN for at least one of their keywords. Our SEO service speaks for itself. Read Our SEO Service Testimonials
Hi Roger, Do you have a good quality analytics solution installed. Something like google analytics could give you really valuable data. It can let you track the way visitors interact with your site - looking at where they enter, where they leave, how long they spend on your pages etc All this information can provide extremely valuable insights, potentially allowing you to identify bottle-necks in your navigation that might be confusing/turning off people who interact with your site. It might also be registering for google webmaster central (if you haven't already). This can: 1. Help you set geographic/language parameters for your site (in google) 2. Identify any penalties that might be operating on your site (through the warning you can be given) From a SEO perspective it might be worth consulting a professional. However a few suggestions: 1. Make sure that your links resolve canonically - for instance many links on your page point to stock.inkart.net/index.php which is a different thing to stock.inkart.net/ 2. Build your link foundation. A quick glance through your backlinks suggest that the number/quality may not be sufficient. You have a high quality site - it should be possible to leverage that. Cheers Dylan
Hi Dylan, Thanks for the reply. Yes, I do use Google analytics and webmaster central. I work to make backlinks and keep the site fresh and updated. Again, I removed a number of images and instead now have images linked from the root site. Example: http://www.stock.inkart.net/insects_invertebrates/praying_mantis.php The mantis pictures and popups link to outside the domain www.stock.inkart.net (www.inkart.net and www-wildlife-artworks.com which is really an addon domain and is www.inkart.net/animals.) That is the only real change in the last few months as I didn't want duplicate images on similar sites. Could that be the problem? Does Google think I'm ripping off images from another site?
Also, would like to perhaps hear some ideas as to why I got busted down to a PR0 when the site had been a solid PR3 for years. It has been penalized for some reason, and I don't know why. I haven't sold links but I have found some links to it from some questionable sites that are unrelated to illustration.