I've been doing SEO myself for 2 years and recently dropped from page 1 for ALL my keywords to page 20-22 but am still indexed. Any idea why?

I've been doing SEO myself for 2 years and recently dropped from page 1 for ALL my keywords to page 20-22 but am still indexed. Any idea why? I haven't done anything different really. I put links on forums and blogs and add content to my site weekly.

Answer

Without looking at the website, I can only assume some of the important links that point back to your website have been removed or the pages that link back to your website have been unindexed OR lost value according to Google. What about Yahoo? What about MSN? Did you drop on those engines as well?

Also, I believe it has always been somewhat of a "MYTH" regarding the following:

A) Forum and Blog Links: This has not proven to be a very effective back link strategy. In fact, it's very old school to be honest. Many blogs/forums utilize the no-follow tag for this reason exactly (people trying to gain link juice). Blog links are the same but can't hurt. If the blog doesn't use the no-follow tag, it may help a bit.

B) Adding content: Adding content to your website is great. It will help you generate long tail keyword positions and increase visitor count, maybe. But adding content hasn't PROVEN to impact positions for "specific" keywords on specific pages (unless each new page of content is linking back to specific pages targeted specific keywords). Much more to it.

For example: Let's say your homepage is targeting KEYWORD X.  Then, you add more content to the site by building new pages, writing articles, etc. . . either targeting the SAME keyword, a NEW keyword or NO keyword at all (you would just be writing to add content for the search engines to find).  Adding the content has no impact on the KEYWORD X being targeted on the HOMEPAGE. It may improve the speed of your website being indexed but will not improve your ranking for the specific keyword on a completely different page.

Hope that helps.

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