Please Help! What is wrong with my site? I am desperate!

[ptpub]

My site etravelmaine.com continues to drop in the rankings. For instance, I used to be in the top 3 on Google for "maine vacations"...now I am ranked at 154.

What is wrong with my site? I have had numerous SEO companies suggest things and have tried EVERYTHING they all suggested to no avail. It just continues to drop more and more each week. Soon I will not even be in the index. Sites with just one page about Maine show up before mine!

My site is 13-14 years old and has all original content and a decent backlink porfolio. It is also in the "Majestic Million"!

I am so upset about this! I worked non-stop to improve the site all winter and spring and dumped all my savings into the project plus borrowed money - Now I am seriously in debt! I tried to list the site with a broker and they said it is only worth $250.! Is the site really that worthless? Does anyone have any suggestions as to what I can do to try and get my rankings back? Or should I just throw in the towel? I am afraid to spend more money with an SEO firm because I would have to borrow more money and I am afraid that my rankings are never going to go up...just get worse. PLEASE HELP!!!

[ptpub]

Thanks for commenting...
Is there stuffing in the content? I had hired professional writers.

Other sites that have keyword stuffing are still at the top! How long will I have to wait several months...a year? Your thoughts?

[Brendan Mace]

First off,

Your site looks really good to me. So I don't want you to think that your site is complete garbage... It's not!

You should tell us what you've done SEO-wise, otherwise it's hard to tell why your site has poor rankings.

It's also important for you to know that search engine rankings are incredibly unstable. If you want any sort of reliable income online, you need traffic from sources other than Google.

[ptpub]

I wish I could keep adding content but I am out of money. AND I already have more content than any competitor!

[sivagopi]

Originally Posted by ptpub

My site etravelmaine.com continues to drop in the rankings. For instance, I used to be in the top 3 on Google for "maine vacations"...now I am ranked at 154.

What is wrong with my site? I have had numerous SEO companies suggest things and have tried EVERYTHING they all suggested to no avail. It just continues to drop more and more each week. Soon I will not even be in the index. Sites with just one page about Maine show up before mine!

My site is 13-14 years old and has all original content and a decent backlink porfolio. It is also in the "Majestic Million"!

I am so upset about this! I worked non-stop to improve the site all winter and spring and dumped all my savings into the project plus borrowed money - Now I am seriously in debt! I tried to list the site with a broker and they said it is only worth $250.! Is the site really that worthless? Does anyone have any suggestions as to what I can do to try and get my rankings back? Or should I just throw in the towel? I am afraid to spend more money with an SEO firm because I would have to borrow more money and I am afraid that my rankings are never going to go up...just get worse. PLEASE HELP!!!

Hi,

1. The first problem with your site is the keyword density. Maine is present 104 times and the keyword density is 2-3% but you have 9.23%. Which has to be solved.
2. Try to have 100 Internal/external links per page. Right now you are having 294 links.
3. Use alt tag and title tag for images.
4. Try to minimize the code to text ratio(CTR).
5. Try to minimize the usage of h2 tags. Instead use the CSS.

These are some on page you might follow and if you need some more feel free to mail me at sivagopi.appadurai@gmail.com

Hope it helps.

Guys please drop your comment if I am wrong.

Thanks and regards,
A.Sivagopi

[ptpub]

I have been using an SEO company for the past 6 months. I have complained to them that my rankings should not be this low. Since they took over my rankings have gone from page 1 to non-existent. They blame my drop on the penquin and panda updates.

[ptpub]

Should I get rid of the drop down menus at the top?

[OliviaSSLGuru]

I would like to advise you that go with web master tool for your website and check that any kind of bot is pinging to your website with millions of back links includes relevance. If yes then stop that bot using disallow tag in robots.txt file and also minimize your none relevance back links which is point to your website.

Apart from this check your website have any duplicate content issue, if yes then use canonical tag to solve it. Now check your website after such changes. Wish you good luck

Submit your website for redemption after those changes
Penguin Update Peck Your Site By Mistake? Google's Got A Form For That

[Richard A.Cox]

Do you use any social media to support the site?

[ptpub]

Not much...I have not had time...I have spent a lot of time rebuilding my website this year. I suppose that was a BIG mistake. Google said unique content was good so that is what I gave them then I got slapped!

[MarvyDery]

I have had look at your site and i think you don't serve to be punish like this. Your site has been hit really bad by google though you have a PR 4. i think you should submit a reconsideration request to Google and they will tell you what is the cause of your site fallen down the rankings. Good luck

[olavlind]

Your site is over-optimized. That worked until Google decided to do something about it and get rid of sites like your that are are stuffed with keyword. It is not natural to have so many keywords in text that you have on your front page.

I haven't looked at your backlinks but I would take a wild guess that you are using maine in some form or another as text in the majority of your backlinks, right? No "click here" and "read more"?

Another thing I would guess is that you don't have many backlinks from websites in the same niche either, right?

After penguin, these are the most important things you need to take into account. Having a natural social media presence with many natural backlinks from Facebook and Twitter is also important according to people who test this stuff.

~Olav

[yukon]

1. Stop hiring writers that say they write for SEO.
2. You've over optimized the keyword Maine in all the wrong places.
3. Use CSS to load that top drop down menu after the content loads.
4. Fix the <h1> keywords on the Index page.
5. Point a single keyword anchor-text backlink from the highest PR page on all your 30+ Maine sites back to your travel website in OP.

That should get you started.

[Steadyon]

Originally Posted by ptpub

PLEASE HELP!!!

The FIRST thing you need to find out is whether you have been hit by Panda or Penguin.

It is vital that you find this out.

Only then will you be clearer on what you need to do next.

It will take time to handle, but you can do it.

So look at your daily visitor stats and see which date your visitor number started to fall dramatically.

Then search on google for the dates that the various versions of Panda and Penguin came out.

Match up the two dates and usually you will see if it was Panda or Penguin that slashed your traffic statistics.

Then let me know what you found out.

Sam

[Richard A.Cox]

Originally Posted by ptpub

Not much...I have not had time...I have spent a lot of time rebuilding my website this year. I suppose that was a BIG mistake. Google said unique content was good so that is what I gave them then I got slapped!

In addition to the other suggestions, a decent social media campaign should make quite a difference.

There is no easy way for people so share articles from your site - get those social media buttons on there.

Also, have your approached local merchants to advertise on the site?

You have a ton of information on there but how do you monetize it, is it just adsense?

[jewelraz]

Please stay calm, Think quietly what is going on. Do you offer some cheap SEO Services? Did you check inbound links?

Your website is PR 4, so I don't think it's garbage. You can notify Google about your issue after that please share what they said to you.

Thanks

[eluminoustechnologies]

Hi there

Check your on page optimization. Submit article with good contain, try some new techniques of SMO.

Thanks

[Ross Petal]

Keyword density is a problem so get that sorted out. Keep adding more unique content otherwise your site is really cool

[Mr Lim]

Wow keyword stuffing...
If you were hit by the Penguin, send them a message to reconsider your website.

[adam337]

You have very nice site. Keep posting in your site and build quality related links. Hope it'll be back.

[C Rebecca]

You see, it’s normal for webmasters to experience temporary lows in rankings whenever they introduce some change in their webpages...Such fluctuations are totally normal and affect webmasters according to the changes introduced.

Make sure you aren’t indulged in any kind of webspam or link trading...Google is going really hard on webmasters employing illegitimate techniques to rank high...here’s Googler matt Cutts helping you with more possible reasons for ranking drop:
What steps can I take to diagnose a drop in ranking? - YouTube

[Steadyon]

Originally Posted by Steadyon

The FIRST thing you need to find out is whether you have been hit by Panda or Penguin.

It is vital that you find this out.

Only then will you be clearer on what you need to do next.

It will take time to handle, but you can do it.

So look at your daily visitor stats and see which date your visitor number started to fall dramatically.

Then search on google for the dates that the various versions of Panda and Penguin came out.

Match up the two dates and usually you will see if it was Panda or Penguin that slashed your traffic statistics.

Then let me know what you found out.

Sam

No reply? Are you serious about this ptpub?

[Mr Lim]

Originally Posted by Steadyon

No reply? Are you serious about this ptpub?

Guess OP has solved his problem.

[jmiezejeski]

This is really scary. I'm just beginning to build sites and I was going to use the traditional backlinking approach but now I'm not so sure. Maybe I should just stick to social media links and forget about doing backlinking. Any opinions?

[Richard A.Cox]

Originally Posted by jmiezejeski

This is really scary. I'm just beginning to build sites and I was going to use the traditional backlinking approach but now I'm not so sure. Maybe I should just stick to social media links and forget about doing backlinking. Any opinions?

I would think a mix of both would serve you best.

[jmiezejeski]

Which backlinking methods do you suggest would be safe given Google's panda and penguin actions?

[Theeban]

Lots of issues on your ON-SITE SEO setup, I strongly recommend to fix it up and make your website for visitors but not for search engine (Even search engine guidelines emphasize it)

I guess, you do not have budget to hire someone to do it, So, you can do it yourself. Just work with your ONSITE SETUP. To learn more about ON-SITE SEO, check out SEO - Frequently Asked Questions

Please note Google is against, "Keyword stuffing", it seems now you are caught. To get out of it, FIX it... then almost you may be okay

[grayghost]

Etravel Maine

What is the size of your website? (800 X 600 or 1024 X 768)

The website needs a better layout.

Home Page:
The home page is boring and it does not do anything to make you want to go farther into the website.
The sideshow images are nice for sightseeing, but they do not promote the key things that Maine has to offer.
The transparent line in the sideshow needs to be taking out it does do anything for the images.
Blue area under the head:
When first look at the site you had title in the area and they looked like they were links. I went to the site again and you have some of your main navigation buttons in the header and in the blue area. You do not need to have navigation buttons that takes you to the same page.
Main Navigation:
They look like they are hovering in the area.
The main navigation covers up the sub navigation in the drop down menu.
The wedding and real estate navigation buttons are not needed in this website. It makes the user confused on what the site is about.
The main navigation on the right side needs to move.
The main navigation jumps around when you click on the logo.

Website Images:
There are many images on this site that does not do anything to make you want go on vacation to Maine.
I would try to get images that are showing people have fun doing the many things that Maine has to offer.
Logo:
The logo is pixilated and it looks unprofessional.

Social Links:
The social media links needs to be moved into the head area.

Text Content:
The text content can modified in some areas and some can be taking out.

Affiliates Links:
Some of the affiliate links have nothing to do with the site and they should not be in the website.

If you have any question about my review of your site. Please leave a messages and I will contact you. I will also give you some of my ideas of how you can make the website better.

For all you other warrior forum members I have done user center design and usability testing for websites.
Thank you
grayghost

[julianbooth123]

Looks like yours is a case of over optimization penalty. But for better answers to this problem I would suggest you to post your problem in Google webmaster forums. You would surely get the solution from there. Good Luck.

[dmtaylor247]

Firstly there is nothing wrong with your site, I actually think it's quite good. The content is good and it looks good. It has nothing to do with the content or on page optimization despite the misinformation in this thread, Google ranked it before and it will rank it again.

This is your problem:



You can see the full report here: Ahrefs: www.etravelmaine.com - SEO Overview

You are losing links hard and fast. They seem to be good links from relevant websites. How did you build links? You have alot of them and if they were from a provider then they could be removing them. Otherwise some of the sites that are linking to you could be affected by penguin and they are removing links.. You're losing around 60 links per day.

Regarding your anchors, they are OK, but borderline, losing a few of these links could be a good thing as you could do with a few more branded etravelmaine.com links. Your most popular link should be a branded link not a keyword.

[rtysernd]

Your site looks good. One point is the key density.

[revion]

Do not compromise with links, bad linking practice is cause of penalty in these days.

[grayghost]

why do yall think I am wrong about what I said about the etravelmaine. If any yall want me to explain why I wrote what I did please so.