My site was hit too as were some of my competitors though there are some other competitors who remain strong, why? Beats me... they participate in the same type of SEO I do.
I haven't received any google webmaster tools alerts or messages, just vanished from 95% of all my keywords I was ranking Position #1 and or Page #1
I think it definitely is... I'm doing my best to find the common denominator between penalized sites... As far as I can tell it's either websites with a lot of links from directories or websites with a lot of links that don't have a lot of on-page content, as in the type of short description link you would see on a directory...
Do you know how long penalization will be in effect? My site was in top 5 for some competitive keywords, now vanished from the first 4 pages.
This is the cause of Penguin 2.1 update. I am an amazon affiliate, and yeah I saw some changes in the serp. Most affiliate type of sites just vanished, but my site did not and still most of the keywords are in top3. I did some searching for other keywords, the affiliate/IM type of sites that stayed mostly had their own high pr blog network. which means, the outbound links where their backlinks are placed are mostly less than 5. Just wanna know more, do you guys have your own blog network or your sites are seod by providers?
It happens, someone would have updated better content than yours. Check the latest hummingbird updates.
What type of links did they make? Also, excessive use of the same anchor text over again could hurt but not sure. I doubt that would be the case!
That was the problem. I bought 18 blog posts with the same do-follow keyword links. Before that, my site was in 5th position. Any idea how long the penalize effect would continue?
Really don't know how long and no one could give an answer right now. I guess you have to wait or build a new site. Then be careful with offpage seo next time. I also got hit by the first penguin update last april 2012. From then on, I learned my lessons. But don't get frustrated, think of it as another opportunity because there will be more keywords with less competition since some of us quit or don't do SEO because they think quality content can rank itself which is bs.
I am also finding big crap on my work report this thing going on ..every update..need white hat tactics and fresh competitive content.
How long it took to recover after the hit on April 2012? Also, have you done anything from your end to recover from penalization? What does penalize actually means? Whether it affects the entire site or just for the keyword ranking only?
Well, I tried building high pr backlinks but it did no good. So I build new website and it is a lot more easy to seo than getting out of a penalty.