OK Folks....I will start with all the details I own about 1800 or so domain names...the bulk of which are just parked. Only a handful are actual sites. I own the domain/website FarFromIt.com. It has been registered since 2009. In July I transferred it to a new registrar, so netsol shows reg date of July, but it is REALLY back in 2009(net sol always does this when you transfer a name) Anyway...obviously my keywords are "Far From It". There is a book called that, and my site is a blog about the book and the lifestyle. My domain has always ranked around number 2 in Google for this keyword search. Back in the end of August, I was working on some things with the site(it took me a couple of days as I really have no idea how to do any coding), so during this time, I did a meta refresh forward on my index page to another site for 2 days. I got my site back up and running and noticed that it had dropped from Google results entirely...which is understandable as I had that forward for a couple days. During that time, I changed my permalinks. About 10 days later VOILA!!! back to the top of Google. I was bouncing around between 1-3 on results. All was well....until mid september. In the middle of September, my site dropped off of Google results entirely AGAIN. I dont mean I dropped a bit in ranking..I mean it dropped TOTALLY off...nowhere to be found...for the search 'Far From It'. However, all of the other sites that were on there maintained their place...and the bulk of them have NOTHING to do with the term "Far From It" and just contain the words once somewhere on the page. In my place, I see someone who has a bunch of weird backlinks to their newly registered domain/site. Their backlinks are nothing but gibberish on random pages about nothing...and just contain the anchor text going to their site. They set up all their backlinks on Sept 15(I went through them and looked at dates). The very next day, I was dropped entirely from Google results. HOWEVER, my site still tops all the other search engines. It is WEIRD!!! I am just curious as to why Google would have bumped me entirely and now has this site in its place. I am a long time domain investor, but very new to websites and SEO. My big fear is that someone did something to negative SEO my site on Google. Any thoughts?
It is very possible that somebody used Blackhat SEO methods against you in order to rank their site and kick yours off positions. In this case, there isn't really much you can do, people have used years of experience to perfect this method, it's likely your site just pissed off a particular person who had the knowledge, or money, to kick you off rankings completely. Honestly, I feel for you, but there isn't much you can do.
I was afraid I would hear something like that. It is HORRIBLE that Google has a set up where someone can easily damage some else with no recourse. I am hoping though that it is just a glitch in the system and my site will be restored. I just found it VERY odd that the site that came into my place had just been registered. Had just gotten all their backlinks on the 16th of Sept, and that my site disappeared the very next day. Maybe I am just imagining things....but that just seemed VERY sketchy to me.
You can try and report your findings to Google and inform them you think this was done through a blackhat method. I highly doubt they'll restore your sites' rankings, however, they may blacklist the other site and whitelist you again so you can work again to rebuild your rank.
I have no idea of how to even go about that. Google's customer support is non-existent. no email support. I even tried calling. It just refers you to the help forums. There is no ACTUAL customer service. HORRIBLE way to run a company.
Just had a look at your backlinks far to many contain the anchor text "far from it" which is not good now. Pre pengiun this was a good thing now its a no no you need to get more backlinks that dont contain "far from it" in the anochor text. Also many links from the same domain which isnt good either DNforums and bizchickblogs. See image for example http://bayimg.com/BaEDCaaea Regards
Kevin, you just confirmed what I was afraid of. I did not make 99.9% of those backlinks. So someone has DEFINITELY Negative SEO'd my site. Can you please show me where to get to get the backlink info you got? I want to check on them and see the dates they were posted. Something tells me this blackhatter slammed my site with poor backlinks