Yesterday all my major sites (inlcuding sub pages) dropped 40 - 60 results in Googles SERPs. All the affected sites are hosted on the same server and all sites on this server are affected by the problem. Only my sites are hosted on this server. Could this be a penalty of the IP adress? Or do you think it's just a temporary drop i SERPs? Previously I've experienced the same thing happening for just a single site (including sub pages) but this time it happened to all sites on the server. How do I find out what the problem is?
All these sites are all part of a portal. One of the sites work as the "homepage" and links to all the other sites. But they don't link back. Could this still be a problem? I just found out that 3 of the sites on this server aren't affected by the problem - even though the "homepage" is also linking to these sites. Does that tell us anything?
I think this MIGHT be the problem - "homepage" may look like a link farm as all the sites linked to are on the same server/IP. I cannot be certain though
Okay, that is a possible explanation then. But why does this happen now? My sites have looked like this for years without any problems. Did Google change anything yesterday? Why aren't the 3 unaffected sites affected? The "homepage" also links to these sites. Could there be other explanations? And what should I do about the possible link farm problem? Should I delete links to the other sites from the "homepage"? Some of the affected sites are subdomains of the domain that contains the "homepage". Is it okay for the homepage to link to subdomains under it's own domain?
If Google believes you are interlinking and using subdomains to manipulate the serps then they will penalize you.
I'm not using subdomains to manipulate the SERPs. I use subdomains because one of my websites has different categories of content. So I use a subdomain for the content about travel and a subdomain for the e-cards section. That should be okay right?
And why isn't all the interlinked sites on the server affected by the drop in rankings? Isn't that weird?
I have now removed all the interlinking. If interlinking in fact was the reason why my sites got a penalty, how long do you think it will take before the penalty is removed and i get my rankings back? Will it happen automatically or should I file a re-inclusion request?
Just wait and watch for a few weeks. No point filing for re-inclusion as this is only for if you are removed completely - which is not the case here. May come back once the pages have been re-cached/spidered
Okay, so given that interlinking was in fact the problem, it's likely that the penalty would go away once the sites get re-cached/spidered? Or is it more likely that the penalty will last for a longer time?
I had a similar thing a while back, I just changed the links to "no follow" and that seemed to solve the problem reasonably quickly.
Nobody can answer for sure, but often these things come back reasonably quickly after the problem(s) have been removed ffrom the site(s). Unfortunately all you can do is wait it out
No, I haven't made any changes in a long time. I recently bought som backlinks to one of the affected sites. They weren't bought through TLA or other networks. I contacted the sites directly. They are all relevant links and they are all "in content". I believe they look like natural links. I only bought links for one of the affected sites. The site is more than 4 years old and has thoussands of backlinks. I bought less than 40 links which links to about 10 different subpages of the site. That should trigger any penalty should it?
Anyone having any idea why only some of the formely interlinked sites on my server are affected by the penalty? Whouldn't it be more logical if they all were affected?