Solution to "Exact Match Domain" issue?

[UhOh]

My website bayjobs.com has done well for years, then virtually disappeared from google on September 28, which is the day of the emd (exact match domain) penalty. Meanwhile, similar sites like bajobs.com and bayareajobfinder.com have fared just fine for keywords "bay area jobs". I was previously around #5 for those keywords, but now not even in top 200. Does anyone have any solution for this?

Thanks for any insight!

[MattAntonino]

Shew, this one was hard to pull apart.

I looked at your site VERY briefly then dug in. I should've looked harder at first.

1. First I did a link profile - nope, you looked like everyone else.  There's no consistency here so I think a bit of the higher DA links wouldn't hurt you but that's not the problem.

2. Then I went to see if it was keywords - I tested these domains against you on specific jobs and no, they usually outrank you so you're right, there's a problem. It isn't that one keyword.

3. I checked your actual page.  Oh.

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**The answer seems to be your registration wall.  **

You have a registration wall up here:  http://www.bayjobs.com/administrative-jobs/listings-214475.html

The same text is virtually 100% duplicated on every logged out result.   Everything from "Job search Login" to "San Francisco Bay Area Jobs" is duplicated.  Then, you have the same links on every page, the same internal link to your own site, etc.

You are also creating a big problem on anchor text.  You have "Office Support / Administrator" linked to the registration wall, Site Services Coordinator linked to the registration wall, etc.

How to fix it

I think you don't have FCF (first click free) going on here.  I would try that.

http://heelatch.com/blog/2010/12/how-to-rank-and-monetize-restricted-content/

http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=74536

That should help... I think that's the problem, though.  The registration wall seems to close off access, Google can't see it, they see anchor text with all your job titles leading to one repetitive page that has exact anchor text to your own site and they don't see much related to the actual anchor text of the job title, no description, no job there, etc.   I think the problem builds on itself.  Your anchor text in the registration wall page is probably why you got penalized on EMD day, although the setup itself is problematic.