Rankings for Home vs. Internal Pages - Potential 301?

[kdcomms]

Hi everyone:

A site I'm working with until recently was ranking page 1 for its primary keyword. For the last month, they've dropped to page 4. One thing we've noticed is that the page that is ranking is an internal page (http://www.example.com/keyword-string) and at this point, everything ranking above us is ranking based on the root domain (http://www.competitor.com).

We've eliminated Panda, penalties, and any other obvious causes for the drop in rankings. We have similar or better page rank, external links, domain trust, etc. in comparison to the sites still ranking page 1.

We think this may be part of our problem. Has anyone else dealt with this? What did you do to change it and how did it work? We're considering eliminating the existing internal page and 301'ing to the home page. The keyword in question is the core of the business, so this is a natural change, but we're loath to lose years of investment in promoting the internal page.

Also, the site was originally optimized with the primary keyword throughout (appears in META tags, headers on multiple pages). How important is it to clear these out to make Google see the home page as most relevant?

Thanks!!

[kdcomms]

Thanks! If we did that, would it be best then to change some/most of the links to the home page, or will that tank our chances of getting the indented listing?

[AdamThompson]

If this is their main keyword, I would optimize their homepage for it in addition to keeping the subpage optimized for it. You might even get an indented listing (both pages ranked for the keyword).