So I had a ton of meta tags on my home page. My description and keyword metatags where just a long list of keywords that were sometimes repeated. My subpages all didnt have keywords. So I went in and changed the meta description to be human readable. Then I lowered the number or words I had in the meta keywords field. Then I put in keywords for my subpages. I assumed this would help my rankings. 4 days later and I have fallen drastically in all 3 search engines. Well I went down a little in msn. For google on keywords I was ranking 58th I have falled to say 170. For yahoo for the term escapesomewhere which is the name of my site I no longer show up (although a few subpages show up). And for other yahoo terms I have dropped out of the index or fallen. The only silver lining is that most of my traffic is from msn and it was the least affected.

Anyway I made backups should I restore the previous version of my site. Or should I ride it out and see what happens.

Its a little confusing since I checked all my rankings 4 days ago assuming they would go up after this change.

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Ki Gray - Austin Realtor

Working in Austin his site covers the Austin Real Estate market. If you are considering investing in Austin be sure to check out his Austin Real Estate Blog or look through some of the Austin Homes currently for sale.

Most definitely go back to the previous meta tags if for no other reason to determine if they make a difference.

I wouldn't put too much weight on Yahoo as they are still confused. For a few days Yahoo was showing 3 catched versions of one of my sites. Two versions were on the second page for my main key words but now I can't find the site for those key words. If I were to take a wild guess I would guess that someone screwed up their main data base and they are trying to ressurect it.

I wouldn't change it back until you give it a little time to see how things settle down. There are times when you make a change, drop a little then go back up and then some. It sounds like you made your site better "So I went in and changed the meta description to be human readable." so see what happens. Leave everything alone for a couple of weeks to see the results.

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My thoughts on the Sarasota Association of REALTORS actions.

I agree with Ken, give it some time.

Also, in the future you might consider changing one variable at a time. It can make chasing down cause and effect a bit easier at times.

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Just an update. I changed my site back to what I had before. I was falling further each day and I was worried it would take time to get back to where I was. Since I restored the back up I have started to move back up. I think after things return to normal Im going to make my changes piece by piece so I can try and figure out what triggered the problem. I made meta tag changes and some text changes so I am not positive what caused the problem. Hopefully by making minor changes spread over time I can figure out what triggered the problem.

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Ki Gray - Austin Realtor

Working in Austin his site covers the Austin Real Estate market. If you are considering investing in Austin be sure to check out his Austin Real Estate Blog or look through some of the Austin Homes currently for sale.

Looks to me like the keyword tag you have is very spammy...you mention Austin 35 times, home 14 times, real estate 10 times, texas 18 times, TX 9 times...this alone could get you banned from google....yahoo and msn might like it but you will get way more traffic with good ranks in google.

I have always use my description tag to create my keyword tag by removing the non-keywords.

IE: Description="MyTown MyState Real Estate brokers and agents showcase the area's largest selection of luxury homes, condos, ranches, rentals and land in MyTown My State."
Keywords="MyTown MyState Real Estate brokers agents luxury homes condos ranches rentals land MyTown My State."

The first line of my Title tag is usually the same as the beginning of my description. I will also use the description in the body text of the page...just slightly rewritten...works like a charm!

Then work on links and everything should be OK

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Ski:
Great post- thanks, I am editing my site left and right because I have recently been banned by google. not sure, but suspect because 301 re-directs were not correctly done by my host. However, after reading your post, I may have had some spamming issues. Can you advise me if my desc & tags are ok for my homepage http://www.johnsabia.com ?
example
Title: Fort Lauderdale Real Estate. Find Fort Lauderdale Homes Condos by price and location

Meta desc: Fort Lauderdale Real Estate, Search Fort Lauderdale homes and condos by price and location with photos and detailed information. Davie, Weston and Coral Springs homes and condos.

Keywords: fort lauderdale real estate, fort lauderdale home condos for sale , davie florida real estate, fort lauderdale new homes, fort lauderdale waterfront homes, weston florida real estate, fort lauderdale real estate listings, fort lauderdale mls, fort lauderdale real estate agent, fort lauderdale realtor, resdential real estate in fort lauderdale
I appreciate your help.
john

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Your tags would not have gotten you booted by G, they aren't really all that spammy compared to what is out there. You may have fort lauderdale a few to many times, but that is in the keyword area and most believe that G doesn't even look at the keyword list. Morgan has said that a few times and says he doesn't even add it to some of his sites.

Actually this is from the sorce of a site he designed for a client:
<meta name="description" content="" />
<meta name="keywords" content="" />

This site ranks pretty good for it's terms #2 of over 2 million so we know for sure that you don't need the keyword tag to rank in G.

__________________
The Suburban House Hunters Team would like to thank REW members for past referrals! We are never to busy to handle your Chicago area referrals.

Always looking for quality unique content for our real estate agent blog, PM me if interested in writing a post.

My thoughts on the Sarasota Association of REALTORS actions.

kensmithkw
thanks for the reply. I have no idea what got me banned, i have emailed and asked for re-inclusion, but so far nothing... I don't know what else to do. I am just going to keep adding good content and work on links, however, I can't imagine too many people wanting to link to my site with a 0/10 and no index in google. any suggestions???
john

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