Greek Web Masters

I have read the FAQs and checked for similar issues: YES
My site’s URL (web address) is: http://compoundbowchoice.com/

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Background:
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Our website (http://CompoundBowChoice.com/) went live in April 2010 and since then was doing very well. We have been creating very useful content and adding very useful tools for archers including: unique bow selector, editor reviews, consumer reviews and ratings from trusted archers, researching and publishing accurate bow specifications, information about brands, comparing prices, adding unique archery tools. We definitely want to be the leaders in the industry. We never used black hat techniques to promote our website. In fact we recently discovered that people started linking to us naturally because of great content.

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Problem:
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Having introduced a few very useful enhancements over the last 2 weeks, we have just discovered today that our rankings dropped significantly in Google. Some pages dropped by 7-11 indexes while others went away completely from the first 100 pages (although still in Google index).

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When occurred:
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Yesterday (October 22-d) everything was fine. Today (October 23-d) rankings dropped significantly.

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Previous rankings vs. Dropped rankings
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1) According to Google Analytics average number of user visits dropped by 5 times overnight.

2) Phrase: compound bow reviews
Target page: http://compoundbowchoice.com/
Previous ranking: #1
Current ranking: #8-#11

3) Phrase: Mathews Z7 for sale
Target page: http://compoundbowchoice.com/brands/mathews/z7/for-sale/
Previous ranking: #2-#3
Current ranking: #7

4) Phrase: Martin Firecat Review
Target page: http://compoundbowchoice.com/brands/martin/firecat/review/
Previous ranking: #4-#5
Current ranking: #7

5) Phrase: compound bows for sale
Target page: http://compoundbowchoice.com/for-sale/
Previous ranking: #24-#25
Current ranking: out of 100 (although another less relevant page is approximately at #70)

6) A lot of pages (‘reviews / specs / price comparisons’ for specific models) that used to be on page #1 are out of 100 now (here is where our main loss is I guess). For example:

Phrase: Hoyt Maxxis 31 review
Target Page: http://compoundbowchoice.com/brands/hoyt/maxxis-31/review/

Phrase: Mathews switchback review
Target Page: http://compoundbowchoice.com/brands/mathews/switchback/review/

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Changes we made recently:
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Here is a list of recent changes we made over the last 2 weeks:

1) Structural changes:

1.1) 2-3 weeks ago we added a very useful and unique tool for comparing bows side by side (http://compoundbowchoice.com/tools/comparator/).

On this page java script is used to select 2 or more compared bows without reloading the page. Once the ‘compare’ button is clicked, a side by side comparison page is generated (the generated page contains a hidden block of text to switch from one mode to another on clicking a radio button).

1.2) 2 weeks ago we introduced 40 new pages at once to our website without adding them to sitemap.xml (because we just injected them into our structure a bit differently).

These pages were integrated into the overall structure a bit differently. Normally for each bow we have 1 parent page (Bow X) and three child pages: (Bow X review, Bow X specs, Bow X For Sale). This time we were only creating 2 child pages (‘bow X specs’ and ‘bow X for sale’) without the ‘bow X’ and ‘Bow X review’ pages. We ensured these new pages were only accessible from the relevant pages and we don’t have broken links for the pages we have not added (main & review model pages).

Specifically, we added 20 pairs like that:

http://compoundbowchoice.com/brands/mathews/outback/for-sale/

http://compoundbowchoice.com/brands/mathews/outback/specs/

Once again, while the new pages can be reached through existing pages they are not in our sitemap.xml. So, our sitemap.xml is now out of sync with real content (it lacks 40 pages introduced by passing our normal publishing process.)

2) Look & feel and content changes

2.1) One week ago we added new content to 30% of our pages. I refer to ‘Bow X for sale’ pages. We simply added 3 Google Affiliate Network merchants in addition to what we had had there before (eBay & Amazon). So now, users can compare prices from 5 merchants instead of just 2.

Example page: http://compoundbowchoice.com/brands/pse/bow-madness/for-sale/

2.2) Yesterday (before our rankings dropped) we changed the look & feel of the same 30% of pages mentioned above. Not only did we change the look and feel for these pages but we also added some new content to each page.

While some content remained the same on each changed page (listing from merchants with product titles, images, prices, etc.) this is what we changed exactly:

2.2.a) Completely redesigned the layout of each page: we replaced structured lists (HTML <DL> elements) with HTML <TABLE> elements. However 70% of content on such pages remained the same. It’s just layout and a few other things described below.

2.2.b) Added more supporting info for users: number of listings extracted from multiple merchants, listing types (auction of fixed price, number of bids, listing expiration time, etc.)

2.2.c) Changed anchor text for some price links. For example: instead of displaying ‘US$ 300.00’ as an anchor text we now use ‘$300.00’. A bunch of links like that are affected on each changed page.

2.2.d) Added the ‘Search’ box to allow for sorting and filtering listings by many useful parameters (sorting by listing type, price, sellers, etc.).

Example page with recent changes: http://compoundbowchoice.com/brands/pse/bow-madness/for-sale/

To summarize, we made a number of changes that are extremely useful to our users and the archery industry in general. We are very proud of what we delivered over the last few weeks. However, our rankings dropped significantly overnight for some reason.

Please help us to identify and resolve the issue – this will help thousands of people looking for quality content / tools in our industry. We have been working very hard to deliver great content and services for the industry and we believe we should not be penalized for what we have done.

Thanks for reading this post. We are very serious about complying with Google standards and will be happy to fix the issue although we can’t see what’s wrong here. Many archers need your help. Thanks very much in advance!

Dave