Should I change site link structure? Will that make things worse?

[TEGS]

I've got an Exact Match Domain that has just started to do well in Google for say the past year. I've always received good rankings from Bing and Yahoo but I love the traffic levels that Google sends.

Long story short on the 25th according to webmaster tools, my impressions on their search engine have been destroyed. No problems, not de-indexed, just not showing my site anymore.

I like this site and have been careful, built some links and the anchor text is suspect but also not suspect because its the same as the domain. What I feel the problem may be is the site structure. I set it up a long time ago like this:

Exact-Match-keyword. com/ Exact-match-keyword.php/state

I thought it looked kinda spammy at the time but also thought it may help. Now I'm wondering if I shorten all the page titles to the state name and 301 the old links if I will regain rankings, or if I may lose some from other search engines.

I used to think Penguins were cute......

[TEGS]

Thank you Moosa,

Yes, I think your right. Ironically after the last pagerank update today, the site in question actually increased by 1. I don't know, I think I'll add some new content and try to find a few quality links before I do something drastic.

I think its good to let things settle before reacting.

Your help is appreciated!

[Boodreaux]

Domain keyword and keyword again is spammy.  Thanks for input!

[MoosaHemani]

I still believe that Penguins are cute but the only point they do not like you is that you are not a nature love but they are!

Yes Google with Panda of Penguin is trying to kill the websites that looks SPAM in search results…from the description you have provided, here are few things that you can change on your website and it will provide a good impact in SERPs…

1. The kind of URL structure you have mentioned, it clearly seems like you are pushing the keywords in the URL to get ranking benefits… this is not natural and Google at the other hand does not like stuffing… you do have an exact match domain that’s fine but try changing you URL structure and make it look natural…
2. Obviously redirect the old URL to new one, update the sitemap in GWT and wait for new URLs to crawl.
3. Re check your basic on-page across the website… recently I have encountered a website that lost its ranking just because of un-natural and excessive internal linking… see if you have any on-page problems consider fixing it.
4. Check your link profile and see if you have any SPAM looking links in your link profile… consider removing those links.
5. If you cannot remove those links consider building high quality links in your profile.. (Guest blogging in that case is a great idea!)

[Boodreaux]

TEGS,

I am also VERY curious to hear answers to this question also.

I too have the exact domain and was trying to decide if I should restate the exact keyword again in the URL after the exact keyword in domain name. I also plan to either but a subcategory and state in the url but not sure which to put first.  ( Lets keep in touch by private message to share updates on our URL changes.)

I will not have to 301 redirect my URLs  because I had no links to any of my other pages. I currently rank #2 for my main keyword in Google but expect a drop in my temporary drop in rankings after the change. (I have very bad rankings in Bing and Yahoo for some reason)  In order to be re-indexed quickly I have read on this site that it is a good idea to leave your old site-map up with the new one until the new one is indexed.

Just curious.. on your backlinks what alt text did you use...your domain name url or just the keywords?

I am eating popcorn and hope answers are forthcoming from the experts!

Boo