The site in question uk-annuity.com was doing very well for its target 
phrases “uk annuity” and “annuities uk” etc. 
 
The index page had a pr of 3 and the next level 2 and so on. I then 
decided to “improve it” as when considering the original design of the 
site I realised that I had omitted some target phrases entirely 
(annuity rates) or buried other target phrases to deep in the site 
structure. 
 
I am unsure whether I have actually improved the site, as its primary 
target key phrase “uk annuity” has dropped from 1st and 2nd in the 
search results to being unranked. However the number of pages with a 
pr of 3 has increased from 1 to 12, in addition I am aware of some 
(minimal) success in the target areas that prompted me to make the 
alterations. 
 
My question is as follows:- 
 
Why has google dropped my site from its search results for the search 
phrase “uk annuity”? 
Is the only way to re-instate the desired result to undo the changes 
that prompted it? 
 
How can I achieve my objective of maintaining the results I was 
getting for my original key phrases whilst extending the site 
catchment to include the additional phrases targeted (annuity rates 
and the first five bulleted items on the index page)? 
 
What can i do to improve its page ranking? 
 
The original (unimproved!) site made no mention of annuity rates and 
the first six bulleted points on the index page were text not 
hyperlinks.  My thoughts to improve my ranking in the additional 
search phrase target areas was to add text and a hyperlink relating to 
the omitted target phrase (annuity rates) and hyperlink from the index 
page using the bulleted text to the pages dedicated to the additional 
phrases that were deeper in the site. The only other alteration that I 
have made to the site was to add an article from the guardian to the 
“impaired life annuity” page. 
 
All help and advice gratefully received. 
 
Yours sincerely 
 
Bemused.

Hi there,

Firstly, your website is still indexed by Google, and still appears in
the search results for "uk annuity", albeit in 170th place:
://www.google.com/search?q=uk+annuity&num=30&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&newwindow=1&safe=off&start=150&sa=N

I think the problem is that Google's software has determined that your
website(s) are trying to gain higher rankings by creating a circuit of
sites that all link to each other.

Google uses link popularity as one factor in determining the ranking
of websites in the search results. It has become quite common for
websites to try and manipulate this and receive more visitors - by
deliberately creating links between different websites. Sometimes this
is achieved via a commercial enterprise that promises better search
rankings, and sometimes it is done by a sole webmaster.

Google's information for webmasters includes:

- DON'T participate in link exchanges for the sole purpose of
increasing your ranking in search engines.

- DON'T use programs that generate lots of generic doorway pages
://www.google.com/webmasters/dos.html

Google frowns upon any form of artificial linking, and tries very hard
to stop it from affecting search results. Websites that try to fool
Google can be penalised by a reduction in ranking.

I noticed that http://www.uk-annuity.com/ is part of
http://www.ukinsurancenet.com/

as are the following:

http://www.uk-travel-insurance.com/index.htm
http://www.uk-home-insurance.com/start.htm
http://www.redundancyinsurance.co.uk/start.htm
http://www.bicycleinsurance.co.uk/start.htm
http://www.uk-life-insurance.com/start.htm
http://www.insurance-pet.com/start.htm
http://www.redundancyinsurance.co.uk/start.htm
http://www.equestrian-insurance.net/start.htm
http://www.ukcaravaninsurance.com/start.htm
http://www.uk-wedding-insurance.net/start.htm
http://www.insurancecar.net/ (not working)

They all link to each other. Much of the content of each of these
sites is the same -  the About Us pages, Our Promise pages, and the
top and bottom of the index pages.

I am guessing that the links between all of these sites are quite
recent, which would explain why your ranking has dropped. I looked at
a few archived pages and the links to the other sites were missing
from the bottom of the page:

http://web.archive.org/web/20010812090539/http://www.bicycleinsurance.co.uk/index.htm
http://web.archive.org/web/20011022192932/http://www.uk-wedding-insurance.net/start.htm


SUMMARY
=======

The drop in ranking of http://www.uk-annuity.com/ is likely to be due
to being part of a ring of websites that:

1) All link to each other, from each page on each site
2) All include a lot of duplicated content
3) All have the same DNS address: 213.239.56.149

Google's software has probably determined that this is not a
coincidence, and the only reason for doing this would be to
artificially inflate link popularity.

I have a couple of remedies for you:

1) Concentrate on one site, http://www.ukinsurancenet.com/. Make it a
hub that links to the other sites, and they link back to it, rather
than a full matrix of links. Get it listed in directories like Yahoo,
Open Directory and Looksmart. Get other websites to link to it. Link
to other insurance related sites in the UK, as well as your own.

or...

2) Keep everything as it is, but rather than having individual
websites, make them sub-domains of the same site -
bicycles.ukinsurancenet.com, weddings.ukinsurancenet.com etc. This is
quite effective and does not (currently!) negatively affect Google
results.


Search Strategy:
Personal experience


I trust this answers your question. If any portion of my answer is
unclear, please ask for clarification.

Best wishes,
robertskelton-ga

---

Request for Answer Clarification by archbishop2000-ga on 02 Oct 2002 03:26 PDT

Robert, 

Thanks very much for your prompt response, however I am afraid it did
very little to address my questions and indeed gave me some
information that I had not asked for.

With regards to your answer:-

I do not participate in link exchange programs
I do not use programs that generate lots of doorway pages.

If you would like to check out the latest additions to the
UKinsurancNET property

www.uk-annuity.com
www.unemployment-insurance.co.uk

You will see that these are well composed informative product specific
sites that make no attempt to hide the fact that they are part of the
UkinsuranceNet property.

With regards to the duplicated information:-

About us
Privacy
Contact us
Complaints etc.

I have taken guidance from GISC/ABI and “Which” as to what information
needs to be included on every product specific site, in addition I
think it is good practice to make clear your privacy policy and
contact details.

I would accept that some of the earlier sites have too little unique
product specific content, however this probably explains why a number
of them do not rank particularly highly with google. This seems to me
to be fair and reasonable.

I accept that google penalises artificial methods of link popularity,
however it does not “in my opinion “ prohibit links between sites
included in the same property where it is quite explicitly clear that
the sites are part of the same property and the content of that site
is unique. You will also note that the majority of the URL’s are good
generic URL’s which were acquired 1998 onwards and I believe that part
of googles ranking algorithm recognise when an individual has taken
the time and effort to acquire good quality URL’s.

If I were trying to Spam the index I would have hosted the site on
separate servers with no reference to UKinsuranceNET on the individual
sites

Your conclusion that Google has dropped this sites ranking because of
linking is incorrect. The overall page rank of the site has increased
and traffic is up substantially. Your assumption that the links
between these sites are quite recent is also incorrect the changes
that caused “uk annuity” to be dropped to 170th place were because I
added internal links from the home page of Uk-annuity.com to third
level pages to try to remedy a design flaw within the site. Which was
that I had placed the information and resource about some of my target
key phrases on the 3rd level rather than the 2nd level and omitted one
key phrase entirely “annuity rates”. I belive the fundamental issue
lies with how I have linked the pages together.

I have clarified my question as follows:-

Why when the only changes that I have made to the following page 
www.uk-annuity.com is to add internal links has the result for the
search phrase “uk annuity” dropped from 1st and 2nd place to 170th.

How can I recover my ranking for the search phrase “uk annuity”
without losing the search results I have gained by revising the
internal linking structure of this site?
(This can possibly be read as what is wrong with this sites internal
link structure)

What can I do to improve this sites page ranking without the obvious
of getting listed in yahoo, dmoz etc. I am alreadt actively pusuing a
strategy that will result in good quality sites with a high pr to link
to my site(s)

Thanks once again for your response, but I would appreciate an answer
to the question asked.

Best wishes

Archbishop2000

---

Clarification of Answer by robertskelton-ga on 03 Oct 2002 16:20 PDT

Hi again,

Keywords within Links pointing to uk-annuity.com 
================================================

Google places importance on the keywords used in a link. Here are the
keywords within links that point to pages within uk-annuity.com, along
with your ranking in Google for those keywords:

From www.bicycleinsurance.co.uk
-------------------------------

UK Annuities.............14th
Impaired life annuity.... - 
Income drawdown plans....1st
Open annuity.............1st
Annuity quotes........... -
Flexible annuity.........1st
Purchased life annuity...2nd
Long term care........... -
Phased retirement........23rd

Internal links
--------------

Impaired Life Annuity Rates... -
Income Drawdown...............9th
Phased Retirement.............23rd
Open Annuities................12th
Annuity Growth Accounts.......17th
Annuity Rates................. -

Annuities overview...........3rd
Annuities the FAQs...........1st
Annuities optional benefits..1st

There will always be results that are hard to fathom in this business,
however what stands out to me is that the links from your other site,
and the links the appear on all the pages within uk-annuity.com (the
last three) have typically created better results than the links that
appear only on the front page of uk-annuity.com, and the
annuity_types_available.htm page.

Currently there do not appear to be any links pointing to
uk-annuity.com with the words "uk annuity" in them. This could explain
why "uk annuity" ranks so poorly. It is even possible that the Google
software thinks it is strange that no links to a site use the site's
name in the link - for example, most links to google.com would use the
word Google.

A solution would be to change the internal links labelled "Home" to
"UK Annuity Home", and link from one or two of your other sites using
"UK Annuity"

This doesn't explain why "uk annuity" used to perform well. The
obvious question is:

Did there used to be any links to uk-annuity.com that used the phrase
"uk annuity" or "annuity uk" in the link?

---

Request for Answer Clarification by archbishop2000-ga on 10 Oct 2002 03:01 PDT

Hi
Thanks for the clarification, In answer to your question as far as i
am aware there were never any links with "uk annuity" or "annuity uk"
within the link.

The event that appears to have triggered the change is the changes i
mentioned to the index page.

There is one part of the qustion unanswered and that is what can i do
to improve the sites PR (disreagrding the obvious of linking)

Thanks very much for your answer so far it has proved very useful.

Pete

---

Clarification of Answer by robertskelton-ga on 13 Oct 2002 14:56 PDT

SITEMAP: Create a simple site map, which contains links to every page
on your site. Use this when making free submissions to search engines,
and they will find all the other pages.
  
CONTENT: Search engine algorithms are secret, but as time goes on they
seem to be becoming better at judging "good content" in the same way
that you or I would. Write for your target audience, and reward their
visit to your site by supplying lots of interesting and useful
information. Write naturally - that way you will include lots of good
keywords without even trying.
 
PAGES: The more pages your site has, with more info on them, the more
Google will like your site. Sites with over 100 pages seem to rank
higher. Try to keep every page in the top level of your site - pages
within sub-directories rank lower.
  
DISCUSSIONS: There are many places where webmasters discuss how to get
high rankings. The best in my opinion is Web Master World
http://www.webmasterworld.com 
 
Also try this brand new site, Cre8asite: 
http://webworkshop.net/cre8asite/ 
 
  
Apart from the above, there aren't really any "tricks" to attaining a
high ranking. Your site is already using most of the techniques (alt
tags for images, keywords in H1 tags, keywords in links, title,
filename...) that I know of.

good advice