Falling Off Of Google!! HELP!

[lenzcrafter]

So i had a basic site, my sister updated it and supposedly cleaned up the text and made it "google" friendly!!! Now i have checked on google today and i am no where to be seen!!
What the heck has happened? Im still on things like yahoo and dogpile etc but no the most important on - Google!!!

All help would be appreciated.

Thanks

Matt.

[ktaylor310]

I have you #5 on Google for "driving school bristol, #10 for "driving schools bristol" (plural), and #4 "driving lessons bristol". It may be that your regional Google is dancing, but you are fine here. Take a deep breath and give it a day. By the way, the site looks excellent - way more professional

If you click on the link below your listing for Google you will see that the cached copy of the site is still the old one. It does not look like it has even been crawled since the update, so go easy on your sister.

All that said, however, you may take a hit. Looks like repetitive keywords (especially "driving") is still important in your industry. You've cut out a ton of text/keywords and may want to add a little back in. See #1 site, your old site, your new site. I'd try to work "Bristol" in again as well.

[lenzcrafter]

Thank you for your response. I have said this to my sister and her husband but they seem to think that if the code is "clean" it will be picked up by the bots better etc!!! But i have told them its all about keywords and density and titles and other bit and pieces!!

I AM really worried we will take a big hit! i can see it coming, but they just wont listen!!!

AGGGHHH!!!!

[Limozine]

Clean code IS better, but you are correct too...other things like keyword density, proximity, etc. are all important.

[Logan]

I would just sit tight with where things are now, and give Google some time to update, etc. Don't keep switching things further, imo

Regarding clean code, i'd hope that is referring to css. There seems to be a lot of talk about the importance. My opinion, consider it worthwile if you are creating a new site. But with current sites I wouldn't start changing things if doing well in google.

My opinion, from an seo standpoint the css has benefits with positioning text in a order within the source code (as the bot reads) it. Outside of that, tables are a standard I doubt will be invalid for the foreseeable future.

Good advice from Kim and Limo above. Thanks!!

[ktaylor310]

I think when your sister refers to "clean code" she is talking about the html code itself. Her code is VERY clean, no extra code, no white space, etc. ... you had a lot of that on the old site. Clean code doesn't mean you have to have less text, though. Like Logan, I am a firm believer in "if it isn't broke don't fix it". Changes to text need to be made slowly if you are already ranking well. I checked Google again and, at least in the U.S., they are still showing the old site in their cache. If I was faced with this situation I would probably keep the design (which is more professional), but restore the text and work on making it sound more professional without reducing the quantity. I would usually agree with Logan about not making more changes, but since it looks like Google hasn't spidered the new site yet it may be worth it.

[Logan]

looks like Google hasn't spidered the new site yet it may be worth it.

I understand your logic there, but my perspective is that cache date doesn't always equal a representation of spidering activity. For example, one scenario off the top of my head would be where you are viewing the cache/results from one datacenter while another datacenter might have a more recent version.

[T.I.M]

Originally Posted by Logan

I would just sit tight with where things are now, and give Google some time to update, etc. Don't keep switching things further, imo

Regarding clean code, i'd hope that is referring to css. There seems to be a lot of talk about the importance. My opinion, consider it worthwile if you are creating a new site. But with current sites I wouldn't start changing things if doing well in google.

My opinion, from an seo standpoint the css has benefits with positioning text in a order within the source code (as the bot reads) it. Outside of that, tables are a standard I doubt will be invalid for the foreseeable future.

Good advice from Kim and Limo above. Thanks!!

I agree with sitting tight and keeping things where they are now. Solid advice.

[bhartzer]

There is definitely something happening, as I am only seeing one page indexed at this point for the www. version of your site. The non-www version of your site has more pages indexed.

Looks to me that you have canonical issues, you have duplicate content on your site: there's one version at www and another version of your site at http://aandmschoolofmotoring.com/

You need to pick one version and redirect the other one with a 301 Permanent Redirect. For example, set up a 301 Permanent Redirect from aandmschoolofmotoring.com to www.aandmschoolofmotoring.com. I have a feeling that all of your links are to the www.aandmschoolofmotoring.com and Google has decided to index the non-www version. The non-www version doesn't have many links so your rankings are dropping.

Also, you need to make all of your internal links so they use the full URL. Instead of linking to prices.htm you need to link to http://www.domain.com/prices.htm. This will make sure that Google and the other search engines index only the www. version of your site.

[ktaylor310]

Originally Posted by Logan

I understand your logic there, but my perspective is that cache date doesn't always equal a representation of spidering activity. For example, one scenario off the top of my head would be where you are viewing the cache/results from one datacenter while another datacenter might have a more recent version.

Ok, good point. Spidering dates can be found in Google's webmaster tools...