My Google Page Rank Tanked- and I have no idea why (no spam)

Hi...I'm the new webmaster over at http://guitarhangar.com. Don't poke fun at the design- my boss won't let me change it.

Anyway, we used to have a Google PageRank of 4. A while back, a few weeks after I was hired, the CMS we used exploded and crashed the site twice in a period of three days. After consulting with a previous webmaster, we made the decision to update the CMS and some of the related components. After the updates, everything was working smoothly.

However, at the suggestion of the previous webmaster, my boss decided to change the domain name of our central website to exclude the subdomain "www". It used to be "www.guitarhangar.com", and now it is just "guitarhangar.com". He suggested this (and I went along at the time) because we wanted to perhaps use subdomains for other purposes, and not have a lengthy URL (like pda.www.guitarhangar.com), since we were considering creating a mobile-friendly version of the website.

At first, nothing happened. Our PageRank remained at a steady 4. Then...during the middle of November, it plummetted to 1. We contacted all of our dealers who had links and attempted to get them to update them (some did, some didn't, some were too busy), and I tried my best to get our website SEO'd to the maximum, and attempted to remove as many 404's as possible. For some reason, Google still accesses pages after we remove them (when we sell a guitar, we remove it from the website), but out of 751 submitted urls, 571 indexed, (why is there a difference again?) there are only 35 "Not Found", and no more Unreachable, Timed out, etc.

I have another sitemap in our home directory-but this is for Yahoo, Live, and Ask, that don't seem to accept any URI that points to a XML sitemap that doesn't end in .xml (our sitemap is dynamically generated). My SEO also won't let me redirect a query to or from any site not starting with index.php so , I couldn't redirect guitarhangar.com/sitemap,generator/ to guitarhangar.com/sitemap.xml or visa vis. However, all of these changes (including adding the Sitemap) were made "after the plummet", and the domain name didn't have a direct impact (the Page Rank stayed at 4 for a few weeks afterwards.)

Could someone explain to me what happened, and maybe what I could do to get my site rank back up? We are a high-end , custom, boutique guitar dealer, dealing in Fender's, Gibsons, Paul Reed Smiths, Suhrs, Nashes (good stuff, damnit!) we've had an internet presence for ten years, and I really think we deserve a rank higher than just "1".

Thanks.

-Stew

It sounds like your boss hasn't got a clue what he is talking about.

using www. or not, does NOT matter.

If your boss used the www redirect .htaccess code to redirect the page when someone types in the domain name without www. then it will be directed to a site with.

same too when you place the code in the subdomain for say, "pda".
and the subdomain does not look like that, it will look like this.

http://www.pda.yoursite.com

.. rather than removing the page after a sale is made, LEAVE IT THERE, and replace it with alternative advertisements.

the site also needs to concentrate on page rank bleeding, and a lot of it is being leaked from all over the place.

now as far as page rank, there was a recent one this month, you need to ensure that the quality of links you have pointing to each of these cart pages is highly optimized while controlling page rank to increase the home page, page rank.

You have far too many keywords in your keyword tag, not needed, and reduces overall onpage optimization.

you have no meta description, that needs to be worked on.

There is a lot more I would do to this site, including the design, it's hard on the eyes, and you will lose a lot of sales, and there are so many other things on the page that doesn't instill trust.

I could help suggest some things that will improve rankings for you, but I don't go for anything less than $575.00 for SEO Consultation.

All the best

Loz

Did you have paid links on your site? Google has recently been dishing out penalties.

I hope your trying to help, but that wasn't very helpful. I wasn't asking for a buisness solicitation, thank you.

This is one of my two jobs, the other job is in re-branding, and frankly, *this* boss can't afford them. I've been to college. I graduated. I also have real world experience. Your tone is a little demeaning.

Thank you for pointing out that we have too many keywords on our homepage. Outside of that, I don't think we will be needing your services. I don't even understand what you are talking about with a few things back there. We don't sell advertisements-we try to have back-links to our business partners out of courtesy, and frankly, whenever I hear "I don't go for anything less" I instantly shut my brain off. Thanks, but no thanks. We recently had a webmaster here who said that-charged us 80 bucks to fix a problem that *he caused and never resolved*, and no, no thanks, no more of that.

I'm trying to get the site re-designed. It is a lot of convincing. We run on a budget. We aren't made of money. Just because the guitars are expensive, doesn't mean the profit is massive.



Ah, thanks, thats what was more along the lines of the reply I was looking for. No, we don't. We don't sell ads, pay for links, etc.

If anyone else has some free advice, and could offer it without being insulting and perhaps understand that we run on a tight budget, considering how expensive it is to maintain high quality merchandise in a controlled environment, please chime in.

Like I said, use it with or without, for you to say it's not helpful is you just not understanding what I am saying. Or you need to re phrase your question again.

Any ways, no worries, don't want my services, no probs. I'll let you struggle on your own then.