My index page on a 5+ year old site is still PR 6 and it has been like that for at least a year. I was doing very good all summer but in August I suffered a 75% drop and it kept going down. Now I barely get any visitors at all. I did get quite a few new links after that (hoping), mostly directories but nothing stopped the slide. I have over 300 unique domains linking to me from yahoo link command and less than 5 are reciprocal, and the anchor varies a lot.

My front page shoes up for a keyword with about 400,000 search results, but with &filter=0, I'm number one. For another keyword (example: "search engine" if my domain was searchengine-com) with over 20 million I rank in the 40s, but #1 with &filter=0.

The inside pages where I make my money are another story though. They're no where to be found (between 50 and 100). Until recently, if I added an external link to one of them they would creep up in the top ten, now it seems that a link makes it worst. I have all kinds of sitemaps (by category, by this, by that), plenty of internal links but still no luck. I tried adding a new page with different templates, different link structure, linked from the front page and still no luck.

It seems like the front page passes no benefit at all and nothing I can do makes a difference or like I got a -x points, and I start way behind everyone else. In October I got a sitewide link (not at the bottom of the pages and I get legit traffic) with just mydomain.com and by the next BL update, Google caches my page only every 10-12 days. I used to get it daily.
I have tried virtually everything, even asked people to remove my links that they put (all free, many with high PR), changed wording, templates, titles etc. etc. Many inside pages still have PR5.

I'm afraid that my PR went down drastically (via a manual penalty) in Nov and I'll find out next (toolbar) PR update. Even that doesn't explain why the traffic dropped that much in August till now. I have plenty of backlinks for my industry and my SEO is in line with the rest. Did my old site go in the sandbox? Even with the new links discounted, I should be doing better compared to other people's links.

In October I noticed a meta refresh link to my site that used my site's cache but their link...it was removed right away and google updated. I also moved the domain.com to www-domain-com via rewrite and all the domain-com/pages are supplemental, but they still rank higher than the www-domain-com ones in most cases. Googlebot still visits, but much less and ALL my pages are indexed and updated fairly frequently.

This is costing me a lot of money (relatively speaking) and it has me confused and worried. If I knew what's wrong, I would do whatever its needed to fix it. Also no hidden text, cloaking etc. Any suggestions or thoughts? What does this sound like?

Any cross-linking?

Nope, no crosslinking at all. I only link to a few (not mine) sites from this one since it's my main site. However, I linked to this site from my other sites (same server, IP range if that matters).

Any cross-linking?

However, I linked to this site from my other sites (same server, IP range if that matters). That is cross-linking and could be the reason. cross-linking is disliked by Google very much.

That is cross-linking and could be the reason. cross-linking is disliked by Google very much.

this is actually news to me. I thought linking from A > B and then B > A was. I didn't know one way links are cross-linking. Either way, I removed ALL those links about a month or so ago.

If this is it, is there any hope and how long would it take?

If you own x sites, all on the same server, IP etc, and you use those sites to link to the one you are trying to artificially boost. you will likely get caught sooner or later.

In other words, you were likely getting credit passed for these links and now you are not. By removing the links I don't think you will get any boost at all. Where you are now could well be where you will stay until you do some white what SEO. This, for Google, is most likely in the main, links from relevant sites with some relevant anchor text. IMO, it is very likely that Google will only pass credit for one link per domain so don't waste time (certainly not money) chasing site wide links.

What has worked for me is to seek out sites that I believe are of use to my site visitors, link to them, then drop a personal email (no templates) stating why you have linked to them and request a link back. Forget all about the PR of the pages (unless grey bar).

"one you are trying to artificially boost"
Although I could see why Google would think that, that's not necessarily true. All my other sites were non-commercial and I asked people to support them by checking the commercial one and hopefully making me some money.

I have added a lot of relevant links in the past weeks so I guess I have to just wait. Devaluation of links from 2 of my domains out 300+ is not likely to make a big difference so I don't know....




If you own x sites, all on the same server, IP etc, and you use those sites to link to the one you are trying to artificially boost. you will likely get caught sooner or later.

In other words, you were likely getting credit passed for these links and now you are not. By removing the links I don't think you will get any boost at all. Where you are now could well be where you will stay until you do some white what SEO. This, for Google, is most likely in the main, links from relevant sites with some relevant anchor text. IMO, it is very likely that Google will only pass credit for one link per domain so don't waste time (certainly not money) chasing site wide links.

What has worked for me is to seek out sites that I believe are of use to my site visitors, link to them, then drop a personal email (no templates) stating why you have linked to them and request a link back. Forget all about the PR of the pages (unless grey bar).

I have added a lot of relevant links in the past weeks Maybe a correspondence issue, but what have you done to add relevant inbound links to your own site? It's the use of the word "I" that has my attention.

Devaluation of links from 2 of my domains out 300+ is not likely to make a big difference so I don't know.... It is impossible to say without knowing the pages/sites that were linking to you. However, rank boosting from other pages/sites is not so much down to quantity as quality. E.g one link from a relevant PR 6 page (that you have not reciprocated) that has no other links, is likely worth more (rank boosting wise) than one link from a non-relevant PR 6 page (that you have reciprocated) and has lot's of other outbound links.

"I" in a sense that I have added it to a lot of directories (not mine) and asked for links from sites that had a list of related sites /my competitors. Also it was mentioned in a few free articles (plenty of sites picked them up). No website of mine has any links to this particular site and most of the sites that link me are decent sites with good PR.

I've been doing plenty of reading on SEO...just this has got me stumped.


Maybe a correspondence issue, but what have you done to add relevant inbound links to your own site? It's the use of the word "I" that has my attention.

It is impossible to say without knowing the pages/sites that were linking to you. However, rank boosting from other pages/sites is not so much down to quantity as quality. E.g one link from a relevant PR 6 page (that you have not reciprocated) that has no other links, is likely worth more (rank boosting wise) than one link from a non-relevant PR 6 page (that you have reciprocated) and has lot's of other outbound links.

That is cross-linking and could be the reason. cross-linking is disliked by Google very much.

LOL ever look at the crosslinking in the JupiterWeb networks which sew is apart of. I think your statement is wrong.

google.com (http://www.google.com/googlefriends/jan2001.html) >> sew (http://searchenginewatch.com/awards/) >> jupiter media network (clickz.com, internet.com, flashkit.com, earthweb, photos.com...)

It's one huge PR amplifier. :D Not only that but look at all the PR dished out to the people that buy links here. Like seoinc and bruceclay.

LOL ever look at the crosslinking in the JupiterWeb networks which sew is apart of. I think your statement is wrong.

google.com (http://www.google.com/googlefriends/jan2001.html) >> sew (http://searchenginewatch.com/awards/) >> jupiter media network (clickz.com, internet.com, flashkit.com, earthweb, photos.com...)

It's one huge PR amplifier. :D Not only that but look at all the PR dished out to the people that buy links here. Like seoinc and bruceclay.
internet.com & sew are well integrated into the web too. I think that has a large amount to do with them being about to get away with a bit more cross linking than joe average webmaster.

internet.com has a far reach too and i cant imagine they would give good media coverage to the first engine that penalized their sites. it would be interesting to see what would come of it, but there is about a 0% chance of it ever happening

<goes off to make an award for google so they link me up :D >

hey, what am I chopped liver ? :)

yeah, I know CNN can get away with a lot more stuff than me and you...I think certain sites have pretty much immunity.

them being about to get away with a bit more cross linking than joe average webmaster.

Are they all on the same server?

ThouShaltSeo, you can cross-link if you like and then tell Google that seomike said it was ok :rolleyes:

Get new class c blocks for them and then see what happens

the links to this domain (from my other sites) are all removed now.
Several weeks ago actually.

Are they all on the same server?

ThouShaltSeo, you can cross-link if you like and then tell Google that seomike said it was ok :rolleyes: