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Search Engine Ranking dropped over night

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  • Search Engine Ranking dropped over night

    Posted 13 years 4 months ago
    • my search engine ranking for my targeted key phrase "hawaii Wedding Photographer" dropped over night. Someone on google help forum suggested the following and I don't know how to fix this.

      "zihara has posted an answer to the question "my ranking for my targeted key phrase " Hawaii Wedding Photographer" dropped over night from 24 to somewhere below 100":

      It is a beautiful site but it seriously violates the "30% rule." The 30% rule allows up to 40% of the opening screen (above the fold) to be filled with logos and navigation arrays, etc. This index page opens with at least half the screen filled with the beach image... then comes a navigation bar, then a photo carousel. Below the rotating photos is the first textual content. That area above the fold also needs to be perceived by the bot as being at least 30% filled with searchable content.

      I'd see about somehow changing that opening layout so that some textual content comes closer to the top of the page and perhaps put the carousel below the fold. (And Google really doesn't seem to like carousels... possibly because there's a shortage of textual caption, possibly because no one fills out the alt tags - alt="image" just doesn't cut it - and so many folks completely miss out on the SEO possibilities in the alt tag, especially when you're thinking about "accessibility" (every accessibility validator on the planet will fail alt="image").)

      Perhaps if the beach scene were relegated to a fixed background with a transparent div floating above it bringing in some text (<h1> title</h1> plus something else (h2-h6) tastefully scattered/spaced around, but enough for the searchbot to grab onto and place in that pixel void). Then let the rest of the content scroll over that fixed beach background in an opaque div series...

      When reading anything sourced from Google it is at least equally important to read what isn't indicated as what is. That's why I throw the 30% rule in there: it spacially defines every other element it looks for above the fold on any page. You can preserve the look and feel of what's there now with a bit of coding creativity... but you do need to know what to look (and program) for. Hopefully Joomla will allow you to do that without any major problems."

      The canonical problem is a huge issue. I'm seeing you on page 2 for your search terms, so you do not have a penalty, but your canonical issue is hurting you. I'd fix that pronto. That might just be your problem.

      Any advice would be great. My domain name is www.vip-wedding-hawaii.com

      Thanks Angy
    #762612

  • Re: Search Engine Ranking dropped over night

    Posted 13 years 4 months ago
    • Not sure who advised you on the changes that need to be made, but that's a load of rubbish. The googlebot is more than capable of seeing where your content is within the page and determining which is important content and which isn't.

      Alt tags have no affect on rankings within Google now, they are purely used for accessibility so adding things in here won't have any affect on your Google ranking, but 'may' help with other SE's such as Yahoo, Bing.

      From a visual/design point of view, the huge open space at the top doesn't work well at all well, but I am 100% positive that will not have any impact on your rankings. If you've seen a drop in rankings don't panic and change things without working out a strategy first, rankings do fluctuate sometimes so give it a few days and see what happens.

      If there are no errors within the site itself, focus on content changes, not structural changes. Your copy needs to read naturally and repeating the phrase "Hawaii Wedding Photographer" at the beginning of 4 of your sentences is not at all natural, this is where you want to look at 'tweaking' things.
    • CMYKreative : Graphic Design , Web Design , Printing , Banner Ads , Branding and more.
    #762615

  • Re: Search Engine Ranking dropped over night

    Posted 13 years 4 months ago
    #762680

  • Re: Search Engine Ranking dropped over night

    Posted 13 years 4 months ago
    #762686

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