Hi,
I'm an amateur with a (commercial) website that was developed last year, bit by bit whenever I had time. I noticed that after a year, it still didn't rank in the top 350 in google. No surprise as I haven't really been marketing it. So I decided to be serious about it. During the past 3 months I have been getting backlinks (no paid ones), mainly reciprocal ones, at a steady rate of 4-5 per week. I soon appeard around 300 in google, and a few weeks later I was around 70. I steadily moved upwards until I was 29th (12/4). The following two weeks I retreated somewhat, being in the 40s and 50s, being 41st 2/5. The day after I was 101. Now a couple of days later, I am in 106th. A few things changed just before this big drop:
1) I made a major update of the index page, making it more detailed (from 300 to 600 words), containing more keywords (but still no more than the average density for my main competitors which rank 1-5). I can't see why this should be penalized.
2) I had requested the dmoz editor to change my site title from BlueWidgetStuff to Blue Widget Stuff. My request was granted (I know, sounds amazing to those that still are waiting to be included 1 year on...).
3) Logging on to google webmaster tools (which I sadly haven't done for the past few months), I see "URL restricted by robots.txt" for links.php and links.php?show=more (links.php?show=more was last disallowed 20/4 it says). It turns out that there is a slash missing in my robots.txt. My directory "link" is disallowed, but so is also links.php and links.php?show=more. This is where I have all my outgoing reciprocal links. What is odd looking at it now is that google found links.php?show=more, as it is only linked to from links.php, which was disallowed.
So 1) doesn't look likely (correct me if I'm wrong) to be the reason fro the drop. I don't know about 2). What about 3), would google penalize for hiding outgoing reciprocal links?
If I search for BlueWidgetStuff (my url - .com), then I am no1. Does that mean that I have not received a -60 penalty? If so, why have I dropped so dramatically, and how can I fix it?
Comments?

First if you see your site listed when you search for your URL you aren't banned at all. Odds are you aren't penalized either. Most sites aren't penalized. Just because your rankings drop it doesn't mean there's a penalty associated.

There could be all sorts of reasons why you aren't ranking as well as you were. You changed things on your site. Changes occurred offsite like people who were linking to you no longer are. Google changed something in their algorithms that used to favor you and now doesn't.

It sounds though like most of your efforts have gone into reciprocal linking. That's not the most effective way to optimize. In very general terms Google would like to consider a link from one page to another as a vote for the page being linked to. Reciprocal links aren't votes in any way. There's nothing specifically wrong with two pages linking to each other, but if the majority of your links revolve around that exchange of links then from Google's point of view there's not much reason to display your pages in their results.

I suppose it's possible that once you changed your robots.txt file it helped Google figure out all your links were reciprocal links and the links that may have once helped you rank were no longer helping. Maybe the timing was just coincidence and Google was about to figure it out on its own.

Either way I wouldn't suggest that as your main method of marketing.

Originally Posted by vangogh

I suppose it's possible that once you changed your robots.txt file it helped Google figure out all your links were reciprocal links and the links that may have once helped you rank were no longer helping. Maybe the timing was just coincidence and Google was about to figure it out on its own.

I suppose it makes sense. Once google had a look at the links pages (though shouldn't, as they were disallowed) a lot of my links no longer really counted for much in serp terms.

Originally Posted by vangogh

Either way I wouldn't suggest that as your main method of marketing.

which leads me to this question... if reciprocals aren't the answer (I suppose I knew, but I just didn't know what else to do...) then how can I market myself (improve serp)? I have read all this about content is king and write one page a day etc... but that would not really work for me. At most one could write 4-5 pages, and that would be to really stretch it. There isn't really a lot to say about the product... beyond those few pages. And also, it is a commercial site, so it is rather difficult to gain those inbound links.

What should I focus on instead?

I think that will be the generic kind of answer - build links.

Although gradually building up a site seems to be a highly desirable practice, it's not the only thing. If a particular site is underpromoted, it doesn't help if it has tons of content added every day. Naturally, there is the common maxim "build quality content and people will start linking to that spontaneously and on their own". It can be the case for blogs, whereas for most of the commercial sites, it is just not relevant. Therefore, keep your content tidy and credible, but do serious promoting. That includes social bookmarking, posting on related blogs, forum participation, article marketing, a bunch of techniques actually.

The easiest way to know if you are not banned is check if you are still number one if you search your domain name..

Another thing... I just had a look in "google webmaster tools", and under "Pages with internal links", only a fraction of my pages show up. I'm quite sure they were all in there in the past. Why would they be gone now?

if reciprocals aren't the answer (I suppose I knew, but I just didn't know what else to do...) then how can I market myself (improve serp)?

Hard to answer specifically without being able to see the site itself, but some general ideas.

Focus on bigger picture that is marketing instead of trying to focus solely on search engines. SEO is a subset of marketing, not a substitute for it. Often if your marketing is good your search results will follow.

I think you've probably done this, but learn the basics of seo and do what you can on your site where it makes sense. Build a search friendly site and put up no roadblocks to search spiders.

At most one could write 4-5 pages, and that would be to really stretch it.

Are you saying you personally couldn't write too many pages or the topic of your site only allows so much? I think you mean the latter. Odds are you could write more than 4-5 pages. It's rare that there isn't more than that to say. I'd have to see your site and know your topic to give specifics. If there is truly very little to say about your topic then there likely isn't much competition and you shouldn't need many links to rank well. Sometimes you have to think creatively to find the angle to allow you to create more content.

Why are you passing up on easy opportunities for links? Why no forum signature with a link to your site? It'll be a low quality link, but no lower than the recips. You could submit to some general directories and if they exist some topic specific directories. Again not necessarily the greatest links, though some will be pretty good, and something you don't want to overdo.

Assuming you are correct and your site is one where there's not much to say and it will be hard to gain links then maybe your answer is more along the lines of pay per click advertising. As long as your site can convert visitors to customers you shouldn't have a problem spending money to bring in new customers. You simply need to make sure your ROI on the ads is positive.