Looking for input: can a bad done template send me to Google hell?

[MindTwist]

The link you posted is messed up, here is the correct one:
Category description in meta tags?

Anyway, I am positive I could improve on many ways with small steps, but I prefer not losing focus on the thread subject, I do not even have category descriptions, but if I did it would be smart to make them show up on your metas. I might check it out in case it is worth it, even that when customers are browsing categories I would not want them seeing any longer texts.

I received your email on the DNSstuff report, and the 4 errors are something more related to my host than to me, but they really would not bother me much. I'll forward them the report, but there's really not much to worry about in there.

Thanks!

[JohnW]

oops sorry, but yes that's the one.

Well, it's food for thought because it moved me up with Gogle in every category I did it in but I still don't have descriptions in all of them. The real benefit is I got great sales from it.

I understand that the dns issues are a separate issue and out of your control but don't underestimate their importance.

[MindTwist]

So, after 3 weeks of punishment, it seems Google loves me again.

I fixed my graphic template but I also switched back to a text template like I previously had, and now I am back at spot 1 when searching for "mayorista videovigilancia" while three weeks ago I was at 300 something.

Now, I am keeping both templates on the store and I might just make the one I have now nicer and just leave it there. I would not want to mess it up again as badly as I did, whatever I did to mess up (since I still have no idea on what went wrong, I am unable to say 100% sure that it was due to the template change).

I was thinking on making it so if a spider visits the web page they see the text template, and if it is a real user they see the graphic template. Would that be against Google rules, since the only differences are cosmetic, but the contents robots and persons will be seeing are exactly the same?

[JohnW]

I wondered how you made out with this.

Google definitely discourages having spiders purposely see different pages somewhere in their webmaster info. Have you looked at the Google "Website Optimizer"? It lets you do exactly what you want to do and track the results, although I haven't tried it. I do find Analytics very helpful.

[MindTwist]

I know Google discourages and even punishes that behaviour, that's why I have NOT done it. Mmmh.... yet. Events were:

- I swithed my store template, mainly went from a html/text one, to a graphical borders one.
- Noticed Google didn't like me any more :'(
- I messed up quite badly when I first did the new template, since I did the graphical boxes myself instead of using a pre made contribution. Fixed the graphical template, but I just in case switched back to the html/text template, which is the one spiders and people are seeing at the moment.
- Three weeks later, it seems Google likes me again.

Now, this hasn't been a case of slowly sliping down on search results because my store sucks, and slowly going back up later because the store is better, I get linked, etc. On some search results, I went from being first to being 300-400. Even when just searching for "Securame", my domain, brought many results before me, from pages that either link to me or that have the Securame word somehow, even this forum.

I think I have good reasons for thinking that I messed up somehow when I droped so badly on search results, and hopefully whatever I broke has been fixed again now. What bugs me is not knowing EXACTLY what I did break so badly...

I still have the graphic template in there, and I was thinking on making humans see it, and spiders see the old one. Current html/text template is, of course:

http://www.securame.com/

And you can see the one with graphical boxes by appending index.php?tplDir=securame after the URL (don't feel like posting the full URL... Googlebot might catch it from here and I could start having problems again hehe)

[MindTwist]

Oh, I will have to check out that "Google Website Optimizer", whatever that is. Never heard of it before.

I do use Google Webmaster Tools, Google Analytics, etc... And with them I never had a clue on why my search results dropped so badly.