30% Google traffic drop

Mine has dropped a lot for a month and half now.

 

Maybe someone reported your site for using link spam to manipulate rankings. It appears the old theory that incoming links to your site can't hurt you has now been tossed out the window. Read this post from Matt Cutts where he is soliciting people to snitch on sites that are using link spam to improve their rankings. If your ranks have dropped, just link spam your competitors and report them. Looks like Google opened up a can of worms with this one.

Or maybe it is just Google caffeine or Google decaffeinated or whatever they are calling it these days.

 

I wonder if branding a free template you designed qualifies as link spam?

 

Absolutely. Just look at all the template sponsorship opportunities available. Many sites have been penalized because of this. And there is no way for Google to determine if the link is paid or legit, so they just wing it. And now, a competitor can get some of these links for you and report you. So it does not matter if you are legit. If you hold top ranks, you are now a target.

A whole new era of SEP (Search Engine Penalization) services will be born out of link spam snitching. Just wait and see.

 

You say "absolutely", but I wil challenge that;. Keep in mind that I am well aware that back in 2007 this "blackhat" technique was addressed by google as people used it to alter legitimate results and increase pagerank.

Being penalized does not necessarily mean that it is link spam. So, I repeat my question.... I wonder if branding a free template you designed qualifies as link spam - does it violate google's webmaster guidelines?

FYI... the article by Matt Cutts is simply requesting information from users so they have user-submitted data to test against new algorithms. Obviously, participating will help improve algorithms but it is not a means to tattle-tale.

 

that's the current rumor anyways.

 

Go over to the directory owners forum and ask them what template sponsorships have done to directories. And its not just related to that niche either. It's fact. If you choose to ignore that then that is your choice.

FYI Matt Cutts did not state they were collecting reports to improve their algorithm. Now where on that page you see this is beyond me. Living in a fairytale land?

 

Sillyme - Yahoo is updating their index. My index numbers dropped dramatically too for a week only to return two fold.

 

the same happens to me. i think there're some problems or maybe they're up to something

 

I believe you still do not understand my question. Once again, I asked if branding a template directly violates their webmaster guidelines as link spam. I am not asking if this has negatively impacted site(s) based on branding templates being their primary means of generating backlinks. If my question is still not clear to you, please do not respond.

Directly, no. The first line states that they are working on algorithms and want user generated reports. With this in mind, I believe it is safe to assume that his post is requesting reports to test the algorithms they have been working on. The feedback form is nothing new.

 

Welcome to the world of web design and marketing there is no consistency. Not recommended for those with weak stomachs. lol

 

yes my site traffic almost 60% down

 

Yesterday I saw some dramatic changes in two of my client's website ranking. One gain around 50% increase and the other saw a 80% decrease in traffic from Google !!!! It was around 6.30 IST that i saw this sudden changes in ranking. One of my website get dropped from top-5 position to 100 or 50 around for almost all top keywords and the other get a boost from 60 position to 11 position, 90 to 20 like that..

Small change in Ranking started in the end of Feb,2010(around 26-28 Feb) then it was going smoothly for 10-11 days in March and then sudden..... Its weird... For traffic, one can't just depend upon Google. But its a hard fact that 70-80% traffic comes from Google.

Presently Google is experimenting lot of new changes in its search technologies and infrastructure.

Once in a day I notice that Google take time to return search result, sometimes can't show cache, sudden drop or rise in traffic, fluctuation in ranking between top-2 and then the rest etc...

 

I'm agree with you. Maybe Google are experimenting some change on his search engine. Today I've already seen an increase of my traffic.

 

google drope 60%+ traffic for me

 

I had experienced a drop too, although its going up today.
I guess they are experimenting with search again.

 

my traffic is fine. A month ago, my traffic was decreased

 

I haven't experienced this before.

 

Hi Nick
it is result of frequently changes in google systems. you will see it will come back....also will be forward too.

 

I hope so too, Yesterday I saw my traffic come back.....while today there was 50% decrease in traffic from Google.