Dropped 12 after following SEOMOZ Tips

[sansonj]

I changed up my on page stuff via SEOMOZ tips, and I dropped like a rock in water 12 positions from 29 to 41 over night for homes for sale in casa Grande AZ. What did I majorly do wrong?

[googlemonster]

They 'Google' have patents for rank modifying using seo techniques. It means they can identify what you are doing is aimed at modifying your rank. You need to wait and wait then test again. As it has a time delay.

[DonnaDuncan]

Sansonj,

Did you ever figure this out?

I was wondering if the changes you introduced made the keyword density too intense in the headers.

I clicked on your link, but got a 404.

[sansonj]

When I do this search I see it is other sites pointing back to me, so I confused.

[EugeneF]

I would be concerned about some of your outbound links in your SEO text block at the bottom of the page.  You may be linking to sites google doesn't trust.

Here is a text block from your search result

:Homes for sale in Casa Grande AZ Casa Grande AZ real estate is now more in demand than ever considering the benefits

When I use this text as a search phrase, I am finding a bunch of other sites with near identical text.   You need unique useful content.  Your site seems cookie cutter and spammy.

You could easily by making to high a density of keywords on the page.

[BobLongman]

Google Webmaster Tools shows when G reads the sitemap indexes; it may take a day or two to digest once it does read it. Until then the changes only matter once the viewer gets to the site.

That's not always the problem. I too have made recommended changes, and have gotten clobbered.  In my case, one such problem came with reducing the number of times the keyphrase is found in the document text. SEOmoz's page analysis is based strictly on count, not percentage. So mentioning it at least 4 times but no more than 14 is not a help on longer texts, or for that matter on some short ones. There's only so much I can do to use certain core words less often; beyond that, it becomes poor English, which would drive away users who come to the site. I would think Google accounts for that with some sort of text (not file) length keyword/phrase percentage in their algorithm, otherwise it would weigh solidly against authoritative pieces.  But on keywords in document, what's good for Google seems not to be good for Bing, and vice-versa. And recent changes in Google's algo (as reported on the SEOmoz monthly top 10 recently) may well make it even more sensitive to supposed spamming on keyphrase in document.

That's just one of several such problems. The engines have their own internal contradictions, too (Google re Google services and page speed, for one). You can't get rid of them all.

[sansonj]

I have no control on this part. It comes with the search stuff. I would love to have it stripped down.

[Mcarle]

http://azbestlistings.com/casa-grande-az-real-estate-homes-for-sale-in-casa-grande-az

Look at your page.

Look at where all your maps are, where your search is,

Look the copyrights info BOTH at the middle & the bottom...

_The ARMLS logo indicates a property listed by a real estate brokerage other than Sonoran Properties. _
_All information should be verified by the recipient and none is guaranteed as accurate by ARMLS. _
_Copyright 2012 Arizona Regional Multiple Listing Service, Inc. All rights reserved. _
_Data last updated 4/5/12 10:09 AM PDT._ 2012 Diverse Solutions IDX

Do house buyers want to read all that rather then read about casa grande?

[sansonj]

I have been for weeks doing blogs for links- nothing spammy.

[sansonj]

Can you cut and past it, so I can see if it mines or the app.

[Mcarle]

SEO is a tricky beast.

If you shift one keyword up others shift down, as well as if ANOTHER person does shifting all sites jumble around as well.

I have seen my own pages shift down then back up again right after making changes.

Although looking at your page I might recommend having that great block of text towards the top & your copyright notices at the bottom. Make the page agreeable to humans as well as robots...

[mytouchoftech]

Did your changes coincide with anything else?  Like a push in backlink generation?

[sansonj]

Nope. I made the small changes the system said to do.

[mytouchoftech]

Did you remove any actual content, or change the url of the page, or use rel='canonical' links?

[sansonj]

I looked, and the background is white and the IDX is blue.  I have no control on that.

[sansonj]

Yes, I checked that and I did it on other computers at other locations.

[stubby]

check to see whether you have personalized results turned on

check to see what location google says you are searching from.

Both factors affect what is shown to YOU.

[SanketPatel]

Hi Sansonj,

Can you please check  " 2012 Diverse Solutions IDX" in your article.

IDX anchor text link looks like a hidden text because of background. Is it same as earlier or you have modification in that also ?

[sansonj]

I used the grading feature. I did not change the url.

Off the top of my head:

1. Added an image with Key phrase Alta Tag

2. add in some

tags of the key phrase

3. Removed some of the internal links trying to get down to what seomoz wants- still shy

4. cleaned up my meta decription

5. Removed one of my search widgets from the right column of the page

I think that is it.

[sansonj]

I went right to google.com and did the search

[SanketPatel]

What specific changes you have made in landing page ? SEOMOZ provides suggestion but its important how you have implemented them on your website.

[danbocain]

Without seeing more details, as Steven Macdonald stated, I don't think anyone can really help you out.   When you look at your page vs the pages ranking above you, how do they vary in terms of keyword usage, page content, rich media, title tags, URL structure, etc? One item in the Moz "Page Grader" that can hurt your rankings is the page structure. If you adjusted that, search engines would have to re-rank your page.

If your page was domain.com/keyword and you change it to domain.com/keywords then you are technically ranking a new URL and should setup a 301 redirect from the old URL to the new one.

[polarking]

I use rank checker for Firefox and sometimes it does the same thing, Big drops on keywords I didn't even touch. Where are you seeing the biggest drop I mean what rank tool? Unless you did something crazy your rank should not drop that fast. I would try a few other ranking tool. If you are using Semrush the update their database every month not daily.

[sansonj]

Off the top of my head:

1. Added an image with Key phrase Alta Tag

2. add in some

tags of the key phrase

3. Removed some of the internal links trying to get down to what seomoz wants- still shy

4. cleaned up my meta decription

5. Removed one of my search widgets from the right column of the page

I think that is it.

[Steven_Macdonald]

I recently improved my on-page SEO and saw a drop in one or two keywords due to changing the title tags and URL. More than a week later, they had regained their original ranking, with one increasing its position.

Although, if you could list two or three changes you made, I'm sure we could provide further help.

[sansonj]

I just check the cache with google and it is my newest version. How would following SEOMOZ do the opposite of my goal?

[sansonj]

No message from google. Just checked. Now checking cache

[danbocain]

Without knowing what you really did, it would be hard to tell.  I would suggest going to the page that dropped and checking Google's cache of the page.

If Google's cache still shows your old content (pre-Moz suggested changes), then something else is the problem.

I would also be sure to check Webmaster Tools to ensure that you haven't been sent any type of messages / warning notifications.  That's a pretty big overnight drop to be purely content-related in general.