Pages that were ranking now are not?

[ocelot]

Hi Folks

Noticed something strange just now pages that were ranking on position 10 on Google for searches such as 'ufc trainer kinect best price' at the start of this week are no longer ranking?

Is what has happened to the site the famous google dance or sandbox effect as the site only officially went live on Monday

If this is the case what is the recommended course of action to get back ranking competitively again?  as I have no idea on what has gone wrong as I has always tried to follow best practice from these forums and the SEOMOZ and YOUMOZ articles

My site is www.cheapfindergames.com

Many Thanks

Ian

[ocelot]

How can you check if your site is in the google index and how many pages of the site have been indexed?

[SteveGerencser]

When building links yourself think like users. Users don't link to homepages all that often, they deep link to actual product pages or content pages. So always be sure to build targeted links to deep pages whenever possible.

The content is fine for a site like yours. Although I think that you are going to be in for a long haul with this one since not too long ago the nice people at Google decided that price aggregators weren't all that great and began ranking them less and less high.

[MRCSearch]

Google SERP displays the title tag as the domain, indicating that it either hasn't been re-crawled or wasn't indexed in the first place.

There are some matter-of-opinion items that hit me, but nothing huge. Just truck on down your SEOMoz error list and you'll be good.

[ocelot]

Not indexed?

Anything else onsite that you feel is a little weak that could be affecting the site?

[ocelot]

I know I thought that was unusually quick!

I am trying to build a good range of inbound links and strong social signals.  When building links should I target the homepage or the actual long tail pages with the target keyphrase in the anchor text?

For example on one of the long tail pages http://www.cheapfindergames.com/games-F1-2011-/B004U4AFXE

I feel that the title is strong, good internal links and URL structure

But what are your thoughts on the copy?  weak? and what onsite optimisation could improve it?

[MRCSearch]

That looks good to me. The existing is just...really long and saturated. And not indexed.

[ocelot]

Yes good point is the title tag on the homepage too long?

It was going to be changed to

Computer Game Price Comparison - Cheapfinder Games

[SteveGerencser]

First, for the record, the is officially no longer a Google Dance and there is no Sandbox. Forget you ever heard those terms.

When this happens with a new site we tend to refer to is as "new site bounce". Many new websites will see instant rankings, especially for long tail terms like yours. But they rarely stick. You will see them slide back down to a more natural position and then slowly climb back up the rankings as you continue to work on the site.

[MRCSearch]

Went live on Monday? Chances are you received a huge brand-new-shiny-ooo-look rank bonus. Happens a lot.

Also, some of your title tags (like the home page one) could use some work.