I have been trying to figure out how I screwed up in Google for five months - ever since that algo change in February, my site has been receiving half my previous visitors from Google, and since May, the amount of Google visitors has been reduced to zero. On the other hand, my Yahoo ranking seems to be doing great. But in Google, I don't even rank for my site's name, dammit! Said site is over 2 years old, so no sandbox theory applies here. I suppose it has something to do with inbound links. But it could be something else. I just have no idea what. I have e-mailed Google about it and got no answer. So, anybody have a list of things you can do to screw up your links in Google? So that I can see what I've done wrong.
I haven't got a checklist, but let's start one #1 Titles and Description dissapearing when a site: search is performed.
Same problem here although I haven't reached to zero visitors from google barrier yet (And I hope I never do)
My site got slammed on the 3feb update as well. I was able to get about half of my k/w back up until last week and now I only have about ten k/w left hanging on by a thread. I'm just as boggled and frazzled as you... my g vistitors are down to next to nothing. If it weren't for Y and msn, I'd be dead in the water. If you find the magic fix, let me know.
In no particular order: -Too many too fast. -Anchor Text too similar. -All from too similar IPs/sitewides. -All reciprocal and you got stuck in a bad neighbourhood. -All from a link sale/exchange that has been penalized by Google.
The only issues I can see, from this list so far, that may be hurting my site are the coop links (which I removed back in Feb). Other than that, my site had been top ranked in G for years. 3Feb05, a date which will live in infamy...
The only issue with my site is the coop, really, which I have removed. So I am not the only one, then. Thank god there are other se's and that I had the sense to fix my problems with yahoo before my google rankings came crashing down. So, it might be the coop, huh? Then how much longer until we're out of the ^$%^$# loop? I have an idea. If the problem is links with the same anchor text, then, I could try and get more links with different anchor text, right? But how could this be the problem, with all the DMOZ clones flooding the net? It surely would affect more sites. If anyone has anything to suggest, I'd be very happy to hear it.
Maybe sandbox. Not a penalty factor. I've seen this said a few times. Don't believe it. I haven't seen the evidence to support the claim yet. Possibly... perhaps even probably (the sitewide part)... evidence insufficient to be conclusive. Not likely. Lots of speculation but no evidence that reciprocal links are penalized. Probably true. Quite probable - see previous one.
Is the question "what are the signs you may be penalized?" or "what is likely to trigger a penalty?"...
We know if we've been penalized... what we want to know is why? The answers are not seemingly obvious.
Not sure, but as SE pointed out, that may be a handy list. We should compile and then we can publish articles...
HOW do you know? In reality, I see a lot of posts from people who think they've been penalized when actually what has happened is that they have slipped in the SERPs.
Yea, again, the checklist would eliminate a lot of this... No cache has always been a good indicator from my experiences... or lack thereof...
I am fairly certain that I have been penalized but not sure why?!?! My site is crawled daily but nothing indexed. Might be a good thing till I get enough stuff on the site to be useful to visitors