Em's Heart Antique Linens needs your help

I am a complete newbie to the forum..so be gentle to this southern lady. I listed with google in November 2002 and debuted at 54. Three months later I jumped to number 7 for my primary keyword search.

I remained in the top ten until this crazy dance started, then dropped to 22 - 24. Yesterday, 6/14/2003 I was heavily spidered by 64.68.82 (as per usual for me) but by midnight my index page had completely disappeared from my keyword search. But when I bring up my site I still have PR4. Two of my category pages list at 38 - 39 for the same keyword search, but no homepage!!!

I am at a complete loss. I am not a spammer. I don't know how to do this. If I am doing something wrong I need to know so I can change it. I use a commonly available bill gates product, which many of you guys loathe, but it came highly recommened to us by others with on line businesses. And it's very easy for me to use since I am not a professional.


Am I spamming on my category pages or on my home page? How can I better optimize my keywords to regain my former position? Do you think the disapearance of my homepage means I've been disciplined by google? ops:

Many Thanks for your input!
Lynn

Hello
You do not have the phrase "vintage linens" on your page, so it will be hard to list well for that unless there is no competition. As far as "antique linens," you have that in many places so the recomendation I would make would be to:

chop the "Ems heart selling" off of your page title, if you must use your name place it at the end of your title.

In addition to this I recommend getting more links to your web site which contain the text you want to list well in. (Have a person link to you with the text "Vintage and Antique Linens" or something like that)

Search Marketing Info

I almost forgot, they are doing some things with the Google algorithm right now so some things might be a little bit weird for a few months.

Thank you so much for the advice. I will chop that phrase. Do you think the use of the graphic link on my home page may have been a problem? Only this morning did I add a text link above it for "Recently added items".
Thanks

Oh, forgot, all of my incoming links are text keyed to my url. Also, most of my links are not showing since the start of the last dance. I will work on getting more, but of course would like the good ones I have to show up!

Oops, and also, submitted to DMOZ 3x's but the category has no editor since I began trying (December). I even sent a message to an editor from a related category and got no reply. Hmmm.

....and just checked my listing and my dear homepage has returned on google1 and google 3. Now at #22.

New question referring to your suggestion that I remove that phrase, do I understand correctly that if I remove it from the code that it eventually will change on the google listing? Or is there a way for me to go to google and change it directly. Please be gentle with me if this is a no-brainer...

Thanks in advance for your help.
Lynn