I got a few sites that were ranking page 1. All sites were exact match keywords domain with multiple page 1 for subpages also. Four days ago, I believe i got slap by google, either a penalty or just a goolg algo changes, or a devaluation in backlinks. All my page 1-2 are now ranking in position 40-70. Now, for the last 4 days, i have been dancing, multiple times a days, between 40 and 70 position. Sometimes, in a matter of minutes, i change from 53 to 65, back to 52, back 64 for example. According to you, what could be happening ? Has someone experience something similar ? Whats next, and what should i do ? Thanks for your input.
Hi, In my own experiences, your sites might be put in Google Sandbox if you have built a lot of inbound links from unrelated sources to your sites. Increasing backlinks stably would be helpful for this purpose, especially from niche relative high PR sources. all the best,
Have you changed anything at all? Done anything different then what you were doing before, if anything? Did you change keywords, description, title, content, backlinks, update a page, add a page and so-on... These can all affect your rankings, of course, but that's not all.
it happens, is your site relatively new ? google tends to boost new sites up the rankings for a short period and determine if users stick
It happened to some of of my sites, not just one. I did not make any changes, if anything, i didnt update them in while, that might be it.
I suppose this is something Google ought to start doing instead of leaving website owners in the dark wondering if we've been penalized...
If you have used trick or something extravagent to get top rank in Google then, never expect to get good rank again but, if you have written normally without doing anything I believe, it would get good rank soon.
Someone at Google once told me that even if they gave you that minimum information, then it would be enough for people to test exactly what level of black hat seo they could get away with and what would tip them over the edge. So they give you nothing! If you own a business they should give you at least 1 grace reply, after all they could be the reason you end up laying off staff. Is Google responsible for (contributing) economic downturns and job layoffs because of also changes that benefit large business when most countries are supported by small business? I personally think so.
Google has made a lot of changes in the past few weeks so it is hard to say with any certainty if you have been hit with a penalty (without knowing the domain names in question). A drop from 1-2 down to 40+ and fluctuating does sound like a penalty to me. As for what to do next, figure out what you did wrong and rectify it. There are a number of indicators which would help a webmaster figure out if s/he has been hit with a penalty. The site being deindexed is the most obvious, the site having PR and then being grey-barred is a good indicator that something is wrong and lastly the site not ranking for it's own name is another good sign (this is obviously a bit harder for keyword match domains). As for Google confirming a penalty or telling a webmaster what type of penalty has been imposed, why should they? It will just make the lives of the black hatters easier as Gazzerman pointed out. Most web sites which get hit with a penalty do so for a reason: they have broken Google's rules. They do offer the reinclusion request system via GWT and the whole idea of that is that if you know you have done something wrong, you admit to it and Google gets to collect just a little bit more information about you Wow Google being blamed (contributing to) for the economic downturn, thats a first. Don't you think it's more likely the fault of the banks who consistently offer people what they cannot afford and then charge them extortionate rates and penalty fees. As I said above, most sites which get hit with a penalty usually deserve it for one reason or another, so as the webmaster / business owner of such a site it would actually be his responsibility for allowing the use of practices which are against Google's rules. So the lay-offs would be the responsibility of the owner / webmaster not Google. IMHO.
Thanks for the update. A few read in the google webmaster help pages seems to give a constant on this problem: october 22nd 2010 seems to be a date were it changes, as far as my site, it drop in ranking after being cached november 4th 2010 some say wordpress site are more easily affected by this. (which i doubt, but i have read it twice in those pages) Another constant, is the fact that people seems to have lost about 50-60 positions and that nthe sites that replace the top 10 are site that were dropped in the last may update. So far i got response from your site is crappy MFA/affiliate, to you have poor backlinks, or just not usefull content by bionic posters of the google help forum. What i find odd, is that in the top 10, there is new mfa/affiliate site.....