QUESTION:

My rankings have gone haywire, I use to get top ranking on phrases like ‘sales recruitment’ and ‘specialist sales personnel’ and now I’m nowhere to be found.

My web designer says its something to do with Jagger (I know its nothing to do with Mick, here’s been nowhere near the site!). I jest, I know this is something to do with the latest Google update, but is there anything I can do to return to normal?

Incidentally, your readers may like to know we’ve had extraordinary success in recruiting and retaining sales people for our customers, just visit our site to find out more www.highgrowthltd.co.uk (sorry about the blatant commercialism but Ive been jaggered!)
Peter Hills, HighGrowth , Manchester

ANSWER:

Glad you can retain a sense of humour. The web forums are awash with people suicidal since their rankings have disappeared. Some claiming they are rapidly going out of business.

Yes, Jagger is the name given to the latest Google update. Their stated aim is to eliminate spammers – those guys cheating their way up the rankings – but inevitably there is collateral damage with some innocent bystanders getting caught in the crossfire. Word on the street is that it should right itself in a couple of weeks (if you are not actually spamming) so hopefully normal service will be resumed. Let me know if its not.

The main specific transgressions the update is trying to address seem to be as follows:-

1. Hidden text on your pages. In particular if you use CSS check the stylesheets that contain visibility: hidden;. It may be that these are considered spammy.

2. In bound link structure. Too much artificial use of the same keyphrase in the anchor text. If you use anchor text then you need to vary the keyphrases used and link to a relevant page/content on your site.

3. Link farm issues. Too many non-relevant sites linking to you. Make sure the sites linking to you are as relevant as possible (non relevant sites shouldn’t harm your rankings but if you have many of them, and they appear very quickly, it may be that your are considered a link farm spammer.)

Incidentally we’ll address the last two points in our ‘link strategy process’ in the next issue.

This, I also believe, indicates the importance of not becoming reliant on any one search engine for your business.