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No, you do not need to use the word 'condos' in each breadcrumb but it is necessary once in the highest sub-folder possible to prevent duplicate URLs.

Having it as your H1 will indeed be enough for search engines to recognise that for what the page is about, however you will get an extra ranking boost for it appearing in the URL also.

If you leave 'condos' or 'homes' out of your URL all together then you will end up with duplicate URLs as they will both be something like this for both homes and condos:

http://www.honoluluhi5.com/oahu/honolulu/hawaii-kai/hahaione/

This will break the functionality of your site and you won't rank, of course. The reason I use this example:

http://www.honoluluhi5.com/oahu-condos/honolulu/hawaii-kai/hahaione/

is because it incorporates 'condos' into the URL whilst keeping the URL as short as possible and using your keyword as close to the top level, which is the most optimized way of doing it for your keywords (Condos in 'location').

Nice, tidy, short and clear URLs that explain what the page is, whilst hitting your keywords are the goal

I currently have two real estate clients with this format for example: www.domain.com/new-homes/location/property/. This usually results in higher ranking for 'new homes in 'location''

If you don't think it works for you that is fine, it isn't a huge deal providing you are succeeding with other ranking factors, but it has had proven success for me in the past.

Oh I see.

If you are keeping the URL structure the same then it would have to be in a different format. As you only have 2 top level folders (Oahu and Honolulu) you could do it like this:

http://www.honoluluhi5.com/oahu-condos/honolulu/hawaii-kai/hahaione/

http://www.honoluluhi5.com/oahu-homes/honolulu/hawaii-kai/hahaione/

You can change all other anchors to 1 word, providing you have different top level anchors such as the example above.

Sorry for the misunderstanding!

At the moment it looks like the word condos is necessary as it is only in there once. However the higher up your hierarchy the keyword 'condos' is, the more importance it will have.

I would have it like this:

http://www.honoluluhi5.com/condos/oahu/honolulu/hawaii-kai/hahaione/

http://www.honoluluhi5.com/homes/oahu/honolulu/hawaii-kai/hahaione/

Search engines would still interpret that these pages were about condos in honolulu etc. because that is the subfolder that they are in.

Search robots read left to right, start to finish just like us, so the higher up your URL structure your target keyword is the better.

Hope this helps.

I think you would be correct to take the word condos out of all of your lower level pages, Providing your top level page has 'condos'. The shorter the URL the better and having condos repeated when a search bot would know it has gone into the condos category already would not add any value.

Having the same URL structure after your top level page is fine as it is within a different category. If it is the exact same page however, make sure your canonicals are correct and functional.

There are many ways you can use internal anchor text. I do agree that you shouldn't have the same anchor text pointing to different pages when you are linking from the main body text, but in a navigation menu it is fine. If I had my choice based on the structure above I might do it something like Home > Condos > Island > City > Region > Neighbourhood. That is purely at matter of preference as it would allow for a good cornerstone top level Condos page to rank well and link to.

Snap on the Searchmetrics! Amazing software.

Short answer no, I don't believe so.

The best way to try and gain an insight into a competitor at a point in the past is use Google Trends and input the relative keyword and narrow it to your competitors location (if necessary).

Then use software such as Searchmetrics (you need an account but you can sign up for free) and type in your competitors URL relevant to the keyword.

This will at least give you a rough idea of how well they were ranking at the given time in the past. If there is anything else out there that does what you are asking I would love to know!

I hope this helps at least a little towards the info you are trying to get.

Whilst it is possible that Panda had something to do with your ranking drop I don't think so looking at your site. You have well structured text although it could certainly be thicker on your main pages. Your homepage current has 264 words including headers. Understandably it is challenging creating 100% unique content that is actually high quality whilst being a good length to optimize for Panda.

I would say that where you have disavowed links it is possible that you have disavowed some links which were in fact helping your ranking as opposed to hurting it. This has happened to a number of my clients and the solution is simply to work hard a building natural links.

Alternatively, your homepage is very media heavy (despite being well optimized for page speed). This wouldn't explain such a dramatic drop but it would certainly improve your rank as well as your bounce to bring that load time down. Sliders and videos on the same page even with deferring the JS still add a large data load. Yoast explains this better than I could.

Hope this helps!

I think you would be correct to take the word condos out of all of your lower level pages, Providing your top level page has 'condos'. The shorter the URL the better and having condos repeated when a search bot would know it has gone into the condos category already would not add any value.

Having the same URL structure after your top level page is fine as it is within a different category. If it is the exact same page however, make sure your canonicals are correct and functional.

There are many ways you can use internal anchor text. I do agree that you shouldn't have the same anchor text pointing to different pages when you are linking from the main body text, but in a navigation menu it is fine. If I had my choice based on the structure above I might do it something like Home > Condos > Island > City > Region > Neighbourhood. That is purely at matter of preference as it would allow for a good cornerstone top level Condos page to rank well and link to.

Whilst it is possible that Panda had something to do with your ranking drop I don't think so looking at your site. You have well structured text although it could certainly be thicker on your main pages. Your homepage current has 264 words including headers. Understandably it is challenging creating 100% unique content that is actually high quality whilst being a good length to optimize for Panda.

I would say that where you have disavowed links it is possible that you have disavowed some links which were in fact helping your ranking as opposed to hurting it. This has happened to a number of my clients and the solution is simply to work hard a building natural links.

Alternatively, your homepage is very media heavy (despite being well optimized for page speed). This wouldn't explain such a dramatic drop but it would certainly improve your rank as well as your bounce to bring that load time down. Sliders and videos on the same page even with deferring the JS still add a large data load. Yoast explains this better than I could.

Hope this helps!