mmavnn

I have a personal blog (mostly dev related); it's been going for a while. On a couple of specialist subjects (F# type providers being the main example) some of the posts are reasonably popular and linked to by many other people. Although it's a small site, on these subjects it tends to show up in the first page on Bing, Duck Duck Go, etc for searches like "Type provider tutorial" and right at the top if you use a specific phrase (like the title of my most popular post, "Type Providers from the Ground Up".

Google hates it. Basically, however specific the query, my blog never turns up unless you actually put the base url into your query. Ironically, plenty of spam sites' copies of the posts appear quite high in the search results.

What do you do in these types of situations? I've done no SEO beyond writing content, so I'm pretty sure I've used no "black hat" techniques. I've no ads, no duplicate content. Google webmaster tools claims the site is not blacklisted and that there is nothing wrong with it.

It feels wrong and possibly pointless to start again several years down the line with a new url just because Google doesn't seem to like the current one; but on the other hand, the lack of organic search results will always be a limit on the readership. For a personal blog this is irritating and disappointing - if I was freelance or this was my company blog, it would be a real and immediate financial hit.

Thoughts or advice for people facing this situation?