Does changing page title, lose position in the Serps?

[whitehat]

ok guys, my site (2 years old, 6 months operational and 3 months focused SEO on this site).
jobstopia dot com
was until last week, at the top of page 2 for our main (competitive) keywords ... after coming up the ranks pretty quickly for our keywords...

we are now halfway down page three for one of them (overnight and seemingly related to the factors outlined below!

After buying IBP Pro 8 I retitled my main page to fit the criteria it suggested, as well as a bunch of other page titles on the site (not page names, but page titles) and some keywords and descriptions....(still got a few to do, I know!)

Im guessing that this may have caused the issue unless there is anything else obvious anyone can see wrong on the site that I have missed?

What should I do to try and get to page 1?
My current focus is ?
1/ more content
2/ finish the career tools section and upload it (very nearly done)
3/ Submit to yahoo directory and DMOZ when that is complete
4/ improve PR and inbound links
5/update our blog with new content daily (original content)



Seeing as it is a dynamic site there is an SEO friendly section atjobstopia.com/list in addition to lots of rewrites already in place!


Thanks for your input

[beu]

The act of changing the title doesn't cause a decline but, the words changed can cause a decline.

Maybe unrelated but what did you change in your robots.txt recently?

[AussieWebmaster]

Did you add the keywords in the title? or put other ones in their place?

[Ryan L]

Make #4 your #1 priority

forget about dmoz...its a lost cause.

[whitehat]

The act of changing the title doesn't cause a decline but, the words changed can cause a decline.

Maybe unrelated but what did you change in your robots.txt recently?

Thanks for the reply Beu

Hmm. Maybe it was the title I changed it to :confused:
I have now retitled it with the most optimised title I know how! If this doesnt work.....I will have to revert to what it was before.

Can anyone tell me please, can changes in google literally be seen within days if you are lucky (or unlucky if you go down!) looking at the recent evidence I have seen with my site?

Like we were P5 one day, p3 a few days after, and then a week later P2, then back to P3 again (title and keyword tweaking is the only thing I can think of)

My main competitor has got the same Page title and keywords for a lot of their pages :confused: although on page content is different of course!
I have always read that it is much better to title each page rather than (with a dynamic site) have same page titles and different content on them?

Does Google not count the pages as 'the same page' or does it allow it as individual content even though the titles are the same?

Thanks for any info guys (and gals)

[AussieWebmaster]

different keywords and descriptions for each page is a huge plus

[whitehat]

@beau

Nothing changed in robots.txt recently that I can put this down to :confused:

Make #4 your #1 priority

forget about dmoz...its a lost cause.

Good point Ryan. problem is its that same old catch 22...no one wants to link to you unless you have a good PR, and you cant really get a good PR without quality relevant links (or I cant at least!)
yahoo is a definite for us but I want to be as sure as I can that we give it our best shot!
Why do you say dont bother with Dmoz though? it seems to me their category editors (for commercial categories) are often heavily biased as a few of the sites in my category are utter tripe... incorrect English (translator style, etc)..but I could be wrong

Did you add the keywords in the title? or put other ones in their place?

All I did was jiggle the keywords in the title around to be honest! However I do now recall having optimised it in the past and I may have unintentionally unoptimised it!!!

different keywords and descriptions for each page is a huge plus

thanks for confirming this.

So, do any of you guys see daily or weekly fluctuations in Google positioning? I know algo changes etc can sideswipe a site but until now our position has been relatively stable (and lowly!)

[Marcia]

Sometimes changes can show up at Google within days: sometimes yes, sometimes no. It depends on the site and the page.

Every page should have a unique page title and meta description. And yes, a title change can make a huge difference one way or the other. In your case what kind of changes were made on the page itself and in the internal navigation?

[expertseobug]

The keywords rankings keep on changing with the updations, you have to keep your eyes on your competitors, what they are doing. As you already lost your top rankings for your main keywords, now to achieve your rankings back you should -
* place your keywords on the basis of priority in title and description meta tag (watch the top ranking site)
* update your page content, make it keyword rich (take care of the keyword density)
* try to get some quality inbound links for higher PR (dont go for paid links in any case)
* submit your site to yahoo directory and DMOZ as an when possible (also to other search engines if possible)
* Always have different title & meta tags for all of your pages (dynamic title meta tags for dynamic pages)
* try to get back your PR by submitting your site to the relevant directories (check correct category)
* and ofcourse keep on update your blog with fresh content (post your blog to some blog directories)


all the best...

[whitehat]

Sometimes changes can show up at Google within days: sometimes yes, sometimes no. It depends on the site and the page.

Every page should have a unique page title and meta description. And yes, a title change can make a huge difference one way or the other. In your case what kind of changes were made on the page itself and in the internal navigation?

Thanks for the input Marcia.
It seems the title can indeed make a huge difference one way or the other! :eek:
No on page changes apart from the normal ones of new adverts rotating around the homepage. Internal navigation was not changed either that I can think of :confused: (certainly nothing that could cause this?)

expertseobug

thanks for the input and suggestions.
The different meta description for dynamic pages is not possible at present (page title is changed) with the site we have (custom php script a few years old now) but I am building a new site from scratch that will incorporate that and a lot more into it. But it wont be done for another 8-10 weeks so until then I have got to manage with what I have !

[Ryan L]

dmoz is not a total lost cause, I would still submit....just don't waste a lot of time with it. I think that the editors are roughly two years behind on updating categories.