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Hi Enrique,

Firstly, the Panda update which you mention isn't penalty, it's an algorithmic updated that Google implemented with the general aim of reducing the number of poor quality sites in the search results.

By poor quality; they mean sites that have thin or duplicate content, sites that contain excessive advertising, and sites that are poorly designed or constructed.

If it is Panda (which it sounds like it could be considering the 18 month decline), a re-inclusion request won't help. This update is refreshed periodically (roughly every 4-6 weeks), so if you had fixed the issues on your site you would see your rankings return when it was refreshed.

The main issues to fix are generally around the quality and originality of the content, however depending how excessive your advertising is this might need to be addressed to.

There are some great resources out there for finding out if it is Panda that's effecting your site, and if so how to recover. My personal favourite is here on SeoMoz by Cyrus Shepherd:

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/beat-google-panda

From speaking to many Webmasters, the one thing I have found is that the people that recover are the ones who are willing to take a critical look at their own website and really own up to it's weaknesses. For example, you say your friend tried excellent content, but by what standard was it excellent? His own standards might be very different than that of Google.

The best way to stay ahead of updates like Panda is by being your own worst critic, and constantly challenging yourself to make your website the best it can possible be.

David

Hi Astrid,

It could be argued that .com domains correlate better with higher rankings that .net domains, however there is no certainty as to whether the search engines use this domain distinction as a ranking factor (and if so, how much weight it holds in their overall algorithm)

It could also be argued that a .com domain carries more trust from a brand perspective, so there is an overall marketing case to be put forward for switching.

However...

From an SEO point of view, any potential benefit you'd receive from switching to a .com (which in my opinion would be very little) would be counter-acted (and possible outweighed) by the link juice you'd lose from 301'ing your existing domain and all the links it's received over the years. There is no exact figure on what kind of link power you'd lose, but have a read on the test on losing link juice from a 301 redirect.

So as an SEO excercise, I would say you'll receive very little benefit from switching, and more likely you would see rankings drop in the short-medium term. It could be a different story from a marketing perspective, but whoever is making the decision should be aware of the SEO consequences.

Thanks

David

Hi,

Hyphenated domains tend to look more spammy, and consequently receive lower CTR's from the search results. A lot of it is down to perseption of trust.

The 2011 SeoMoz ranking factors show a negative correlation between hyphenated domains and rank performance, and although it's hard to say if this is causation, it certainly suggests that if you have the choice between the two then it would be a smarter marketing move to go without the hyphens.

Thanks,

David