Thank you for your answers everyone!

[ChristmasGifts]

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[KarlBantleman]

HI Susan,

First of all, I think this is something that many of us can be empathetic with because we all face the same issues with the on-going changes.

1 problem that you may be having, and possibly why you are struggling with rankings is because you have an EMD (exact match domain). EMD's have come under a lot of scrutiny in recent months and the fact that your URL is a keyword might be hindering you slightly here. When you look at the distribution of anchor text in your back link profile, Christmas Gifts (understandably in your case) is the most used, but Google may see this as keyword anchor text rather than a branded anchor text. I think you need to start using the URL more as the anchor text.

Looking at your backlinks as well, there does seem to a few low quality links in there. Have you done a full research of your back links, this may help identify which ones you need to omit. Remember that if you have paid for any, you should have no-followed the links. Be honest here because Google is looking for paid links that are not no-followed, this includes press releases now.

Did you get a message on Webmaster tools about spammy links or an unnatural linking profile? Where was the site ranking before Penguin 2.0 was released?

[creativemay]

Hi Susan,

Sorry to hear about your problems, it's something we've experienced too as an ecommerce company working with several sites. Although we haven't been hit as badly as you, we have experienced a drop in traffic but luckily some of our sites are recovering now.

In answer to your question, I think Google has made a bit of a mistake by promoting Amazon and eBay listings and we're still hoping that they're working on a fix. However, I'm slightly concerned that you've spent so much money, including your savings, on trying to get your site back on the first page without any results. I'd be interested to hear what you've done because, for that amount of money, you should have at least experienced some gains.

I would say the number one factor working against you is your exact match domain. You may have had it for years but having that as your domain probably hasn't helped, especially with Google punishing EMDs recently. Maybe it's time to consider a change?

Secondly, I'd really work on your meta titles, meta descriptions and on-site content. Remember it's not all about keywords, so make them user friendly and really appealing to people in SERPs. I've also seen the meta keywords tag that is stuffed with keywords on your home page - I'd clear that out too.

Third, what's your backlink profile link? It might be time to have a thorough clear up, fishing out any bad links and disavowing the ones you think are hurting you. Any good, honest SEO company should be able to do this for you. Once you've done this, focus on getting really good, natural links to your site through social sharing, writing content etc.

With the amount of money you've spent, I'm concerned which companies have been working for you and whether they've followed best practice. Anything you find here on Moz is really useful and I'd recommend doing as much as you can yourself so you know it's right. And make sure you know exactly what your SEO company are doing so that it doesn't harm you in future.

Hope this helps!

[Chris.Menke]

Hi Christmas,

I glimpsed briefly at your site and some of your social media and get the general impression that you have an identity problem.  An identity problem in that your business identity is too tied into your keyword, your keyword it too tied into your domain name and your domain name is too tied into your business identity.

Another way to see your issue is that Google gave you 10+ years of exclusive benefit for being the owner of an exact match domain and that benefit has now expired. With a legacy of heavy-reliance on the exact match domain/keyword to promote the company name and win search results, not only does your back link anchor text profile lack diversity but all the while you were floating at the top of the search results because of your luck of having that domain name, others were having to figure out ways of competing with you that don't take advantage of the EMD. In the far more social world of today's search results, many of those skills are helping  them and the lack of those skills may be holding you back.

In addition to all that, the overall quality of your back links is really pretty low. In fact, reviewing it in comparison to current competitors provides insight into just how powerful your EMD was.  One wouldn't think today that such a profile is strong enough to rank highly for a competitive keyword.

So, the question is, what to do now?  I say start scrapping.  Turn two of your employees into branding and social media experts and begin hammering away publishing and promoting content that defines who you are, what you stand for, why you sell the specific gifts that you sell, who your specific audience is, why they need what you sell.  You should also put some resources into cleaning up your back link profile. You might even want to change your business name to distance yourself a little from the "christmasgifts.com" anchor text (but keep the domain name).

If you're not up for all of that or don't have the resources to carry out a year or two long campaign to (re)brand yourself, right now might be the time to sell.

[mark_baird]

I own centralsaddlery.co.uk and I have been hit by the same issues. We have been working on content and video work. I have also been getting rid of all my dead products. cleaning house!

I have added category descriptions, up graded product descriptions, improved blog plus found gust expert bloggers, added a tips and advice section containing articles and videos, I have hired an actor to make product, category and informational videos and I have also added brand descriptions. I hope all of this will have an effect but as yet 6 months on I have had no increase. Costs have rocketed and the site is much better and improving on moz yet no sign of google liking us more.

Im not sure this will below you but hopefully it will let you know your not alone.

[ChristmasGifts]

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[ChristmasGifts]

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[ChristmasGifts]

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[EGOL]

It is not cool to delete questions and change titles after people have generously given you their time to provide an answer.

I think that you should go get the google cache for this question and post it back.

[ChristmasGifts]

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[ChristmasGifts]

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[EGOL]

The title used to be... "Would I survive, as a "small business owner" of ChristmasGifts.com? Or Google has given priority to Amazons of Internet for good?"

[KeriMorgret]

I'm a staff member at Moz, and would like to better understand why sometimes people edit their question content and question name. Can you share why it was changed in this case, so we can help make our system better? Thanks!