Woahhhhh Penalty for SOME keywords only

Ok something very strange is going on. There's a site for real estate in Boston, Mass. ...... that was coming up 1st page for a bunch of keywords and phrases. I would say 20 keywords... such as "boston lofts", stuff like that,,, and it was ranking 1st page for the year 1 year or so....

Now, its coming up 1st page for only 1 keyword,,, and like #150 for the other 19 keywords

Does anyone know how this is possible? Did Google only penalize the site for certain keywords?

I checked to see if there were any lost backlinks, and there arent,,, but the site does have a bunch of NO-FOLLOW backlinks to subpages that have the same keyword in the Title Tag,,,

Anyone ever heard of this, a penalty for some keywords only? If so, does anyone know how to avoid something like this? Maybe they keyword stuffed?

If anyone wants to see the site, message me and I'll send the link.

 

Sheez i spoke too soon, looks like #75 for that keyword too!

This stinks!!!!!!!

Anyone ever hear of a penalty like this? I wasnt totally kicked off, just penalized BADLY which is basically off!!

 

Perhaps its the penalty of the keywords.... but its possible that google updating its database ...... your keywords will be back soon ..... but you have take in mind ..... that other companies are also trying to get ranking in a particular keyword(Like you have).... so you need to do proper linkbuilding of ur site with particular keywords.... To GET BACK

 

You can build quality back links with anchor text, you can use target keywords.

 

this is first thread where I heard about this kind or penalty.
I agree with Robben, that this might be the result of recently google update or the competitors who try out their best to grab the top position.

 

I hope this is a temporary thing and you will be back on first page, but its highly possible that some of your keywords might be penalized. And as you say your only keyword which was ranking on 1st page is no more there, so this can be minus penalties from Google.

 

You have probably been hit by an over-optimisation penalty if Google is not updating its index. What sort of link building do you do?

 

Maybe you overused the anchor texts for the keywords you are targeting and made your link profile look unnatural. Do you have a lot of paid for, footer and sidewite links?

 

That could happen if you have been building mega back-links in short period of time and didnt vary your anchor ...

thx
malcolm

 

Please send me your URL. I had experienced similar problem with few of my sites and I had found some solutions for overcoming the loss of rankings.

 

Now the thing is, I thought incoming links can't effect you..... otherwise someone would sabotage you

I didnt use any reciprocal links, anything like that....

I wrote some articles, blogs, and submitted to directories.... and got a couple "authority sites"

 

You can still get keyword penalties for over using a single anchor text I think.

Also, check the authority of any site you are linking OUT to.

 

I dont have any outbound links.....

All inbound links....

 

Google tends not to trust sites that don't have external links. If you are a part of the web you should give as well as take. Try linking to some relevant authority websites.

 

I've heard Google is changing it's algorith for search rankings. Not sure if this has something to do with it?

 

Just read your post -

Like renoir said, it's about give & take. Google like's decent sites that have something to offer, so don't go crazy linking to otehr's sites, but link where it's relevant to do so.