How much does editing a page/meta affect ranking?

[piplewis]

I was ranking well for a phrase on one of my sites and thought I'd try to improve it (me=idiot)
I didn't change the phrase I was ranking for but added a few more phrases/keywords relating to the initial phrase in the metas and in the index.
Now I've dropped massively in google (9000 odd places according to the DP keyword tool) for the initial key phrase.
Have I screwed up or is this google reassessing my site?

[minnseoelite]

meta keywords and meta description wont really do much maybe loose a place or two

on page editing can kill your site depending on the changes you make if you dont have a solid backlink profile for your keywords, also editing the title tag can drop you a few pages as well if done wrong and you dont have a good backlink profile.

[piplewis]

Thanks for the advice.
Should I wait a while to see if there's any recovery/improvement or immediately revert back to what I had before?

[minnseoelite]

sometimes changes will give you a temperary drop in ranking i would give it 3 or 4 days

[MKInfo]

Google is all over the place for the last few weeks but seems to be settling down a bit now.......it may just be that.

[piplewis]

Thanks guys, learning this seo stuff is making me bite my nails away.

Also just noticed that i'm up to no1 in google uk for those old and new keywords so hopefully it's just a blip!

I'm not going up the pub this weekend, gonna find a good seo book to look over.

[layoutstuff]

There's absolutely nothing wrong with tweaking, but generally you need to make sure you have the weight and authority to pull it off. If you don't have any real importance in google, they will probably see it as an attempt to gain quick rankings and drop you instead.

What you wanna do is set a theme, and stick by it. Tweaking can be done, but be sure to crosscheck with your stats to see that you're not removing some vital traffic generator and be careful not to make it appear spammy. Before you do any of that tho, have a link strategy thought out. A plan, so to speak.

Metas are not alfa omega, but they still count. I don't know exactly what you've done, but removing them (is that what you did??) is probably not the best idea. In any event, I'd not panic just yet. Give it a week and see if you bounce back. If you don't, tweak back ;)