after reading this thread I feel a little scared, good luck to you guys who were penalized hopefully things will average out
If you have incurred a penalty it is easy to check by typing in your domain into google www.yourdomain.com, if you don't rank in first position for your own name you have incurred a penalty
You think it's caused by over optimization or acquiring too many links pointing at your site at once? I had a site that dropped rank and PR after a PR5 site linked to it. I never seen that happen before.
In my case I think it's due to an over optimization, because i don't do links exchange and i have a steady number of links. I un-optimized my site a bit and i hope everything is gonna be back soon, i don't wanna see all my CES reports wasted by google's penalty...
There's both automatic and manual penalties. For the auto penalties improving the site and getting rid spammy elements will solve the problem. I don't beleive that there is an over optimization penalty. It's more of a filter and adding quality slowing should allow you to overcome the problem.
you are saying too much links in the first year , can anyone tell me whats that "too much" value , how many backlinks are considered too much in the first year
Hi ... this is bizarre, "over marketing." Does google actually tell you why you're penalized? Do you have to rummage around forums and such to get opinions to help figure it out, on your own. Is this penalty related to AdSense, in any way? Guess I was fortunate, it took 10-12 months before I began getting links and started cultivating links. Rhetorically, how can any business over market? The concept is an oxymoron. Ugh!
Same with me, one of my sites got hit the other day however it was more than a -50 it was a complete wipe out. The site went from receiving 15-20k of organic Google visitors per day to under 100 overnight. It ranked for tens of thousands of search terms, and they all vanished. The site isn't "banned" in the traditional sense, it still ranks for it's name but that's the only thing it ranks for. Upon looking in to it Google has done some major changes in the last week or so, it hasn't effected all sites but it's completely killed a lot. Personally i'm not filing a re inclusion request just yet because the site's done nothing wrong. Hopefully it's a glitch and will be corrected.
I have been through that and even have a thread somewhere here on dp It will be back within 8 weeks , well for me it was, Just don't change anything , youll see
Thanks Sundaybrew, yes the thought it will come back is the only thing stopping me from curling up in to the fetal position and sucking my thumb... But 8 weeks, that's going to hurt. Yeah i've purposely not made any snap decisions or changed anything, i'll just carry on business as usual because the SEO approach used on the site i've used on countless other sites and none are effected either now or in the past. So, all indicators point to a Google glitch or a manual edit because the site got too powerful too fast. The #1 in the niche is a Premium Adsense pubisher and i was taking SERP's off him like they were going out of fashion.
Come on people, are sponsored directory listings classed as black hat now?, its a link and you pay for it. If so then surely google just needs to go through the Yahoo directory!!!!!!!! And before anyone says it i am aware that yahoo class it as a 'revision fee' - but come on does that wording of what is plain and simply a paid link wash in todays 'Google penalty era' ??????? Come on SEO people, lets have some quality advice on this subject