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Probably not much help so I apologize in advance...

I find that I benefit more from using a range of tools. I don't particularly really have a favorite but to be honest I probably use Google Keyword Tool the most and then I use the keyword tools inside SEOmoz. Some tools do some things well but other things not so well... Each tool has its strengths.

The thing I try to do is bypass the tools as much as I can and be creative. Think as a potential customer (very cliche but think outside the box). Obviously you will still need to research search volumes afterwards but some of the best keywords (that bring in the most £) I rank for weren't found using tools.

Hopefully this helps, even if only a little!

Really admire the work you are doing here. I will obviously not be able to assist to anywhere near the level as Rand but please pop me a PM or grab me on skype if you feel you would benefit from a couple of links from any of my sites... I would be privileged to provide them and would also be honored to let you guest post on any of my blogs should you wish to - I am only a message away.

Good luck!

Great comment. I would like to reiterate this point.

You cannot control who links to you - this provides you with a safety net but does not make you invincible. You should be OK if there are one or two links which come from spammy sites (obviously if you have 2,000,000 links then you could get away with more than one or two bad links). The issue would come around if you have lots of spammy links or the ratio of spammy links to good links is too high.

As Istvan mentioned, be careful who you link to.

It is more important however to not blast links at your site. If you get too many links in a short space of time then this looks dodgy to Google.

Also remember that link building is always about quality, not quantity.

I have built a website for a pharmaceutical company but the problem is that my client was a trade supplier, not a retail seller - he was not interested in SEO at all for the site.

There are some important points you raise though. Obviously it would be easier to rank an exact match domain name but the reverse side of the coin is the building trust using the company name and reputation... This is vital for the market they are in if they are looking to increase revenue by using an eCommerce website - there are so many spammy sites in this market. The domain age on the old site your client has should be important and help it rank quicker.

There is no reason why (over time) you cannot rank well with a website without its main keyword in the domain name, it will just take more effort and a better/stronger strategy.

It might be worth looking at brainstorming ideas at this point... Why not keep the old domain with the company name in and use it for the main eCommerce website but then look at creating a niche domain for the client with the keyword in the URL?

One thing I would say is to be very careful with SEO in this market. Due to so many rogues in the industry for medicine there is so much spam out there. Getting good quality relevant links might be hard, just be careful where you get your links from.

EDIT: Perhaps the last sentence did not raise the point I was looking to make. The point I was trying to raise is that this industry generally uses very black hat techniques when optimising and are looking to make quick £££ until their site gets sandboxed. Just make sure you are careful with the techniques.

Great advice. If there are similar pages on both sites then why not redirect them to the similar page on your site. You can then add a link on the homepage of the new domain to pass through some juice

I wouldnt panic too much. Just prepare for some hard and time consuming work. Stick with the domain. Keep updating new content and lower the keyword density, make the content as good as possible.

Then, you should follow a good quality link building strategy which should also include social link building.

I would happily provide you with a free report and plan should you wish to take me up on the offer. Then you could use the plan to do things properly and reduce the risk of SERP drops or even sandboxing (removal from results).

Add me on Skype if you wish to discuss anything, I should be available most of the time. My Skype name is on my profile (click my name).

How many comments did he make? Did he give you a report on where he left them?

If so, go through the report one by one and send an email to the webmaster of the site - they might be kind enough to remove them. Be prepared for the worst though, they might just ignore your email!

However, if you concentrate from now on on building GOOD QUALITY links, the spammy links will become less important.

Its very hard to say why your SERPs have gone down without looking at an in-depth change log of all the amendments you have made on the website. However, I would suggest that the issue here would be with the links from the forums and blog comments. If you can, get back to the person you hired to do the work - tell them that you think it has effected your SERPs and ask them to remove the links. If they wont, ask them for the username and passwords so you can try and remove them yourself. Remember, it is important NEVER to blast links at your websites - this will be penalized if found out. Also remember that quality is more important than quantity. If you are going to use Black Hat techniques then ensure that you cover your traces.

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From now on, don't pay people to build your links unless they can be trusted within the industry.

As far as I can see, your site is not ranking at all (.com and .co.uk at least) for the keyword "Hemorrhoids treatment". Where did you rank when the keyword was performing best?

It looks like the blog comments might have impacted your SERP's. When did you hire him? Was it shortly before your SERP's dropped?

You need to add your full keyword in your page title, it currently reads "Natural Hemorrhoids Treatment", it should read something like "Hemorrhoids Treatment | RidPiles.com".

Add an image ALT attribute to one of the images on your home page. This ALT attribute should include your keyword.

Other small issues to look at:

• Reduce the length of the meta description tag to 156 characters or fewer.
• Avoid using meta keywords - they make no difference to SERPs
• Try linking once or twice (but not on your homepage) to external sites, possibly Wikipedia's entry about piles?
• Add a H1 title to your homepage and include your keyword

Moving onto the issue of links from sites using a different language - it is not always an issue, provided that the site linking to you is not considered spammy. It looks like the links you managed to gather are poor links from dodgy sites. Amount/Quantity of links should always be considered secondary priority behind the quality and relevance of the links.

Also, some of the blog entry articles have too many keywords crammed into them. As a general rule, you shouldn't really have it feature more than 2 or 3 times in an article. This can vary depending on lots of variables but safe is better than sorry as you are currently realising.

What are your main search terms that you are targeting? The site doesn't look like it is particularly optimised towards a specific keyword other than "Natural Hemorrhoids Treatment". Is this the keyword which has dropped SERP's?

Where were you ranking before the drop?

The site also seems a little "spammy". I would concentrate on cleaning it up and optimising the on-site content then look at where you are getting your links from. From what I can gather, you have quite a few incoming links from some strange and none-relevant places - some I see are in Arabic and Japanese. How did you get these links?

The site seems to have decent on-site optimisation, now you should concentrate on some off-site work.

• Build some links, looking at competition, I think between 5 and 10 real manual links should work well. (good quality, relevant link sources are a must).
• Get some social work done - set up a twitter account and tweet with your keyword inside the tweet message and a link to your landing page. Once this is done you can encourage re-tweets. There is no point tweeting at all if you don't get retweets - these are the important factors for Google. Try to get your friends and genuine customers or site visitors to retweet it for you. Remember not to cheat this step, you cannot use fake accounts. These need to be genuine and aged accounts.
• Do the same as above with Facebook and the G+

With a little time this should see you climb. Dont forget to keep your content fresh... Update your content with some well written unique content (news section maybe?).

1. Absolutely. If you host them on the same server then the strength of the links won't be great. Remember to register the domains using a different registrar too and to a different person/company.

2. Grab all the domains

3. The keyword terms seem low to me but it isn't an area I am familiar with. Have you carried out some keyword research ? It looks like it is a training dog tag collar? If so, I would build the site using a broad keyword which you can use to do more than one product review on. If you use the domain Dogtra280ncpPlatinum.com then you are limited to the one product - therefore the site wouldn't get updated often/ever and its content would be static.

Remember that time is key here. if you are looking to add some cheap links to your main domain then there can be better ways. You would have to spend some real time ensuring that the new review website you plan to build is well optimised and carries some weight in the search engines otherwise the link strength would not be powerful enough to make it worth your while.

However, if you are in it for the long run then it is a good idea/concept. Just make sure you optimise the site properly and get some regularly updated unique content. Links should follow and you can do some work on link building to enhance.

On a side note, try to link to other websites and domains as well as linking to your eCommerce site. Don't make it look like an obvious link tool for your main site.