Hello all! I lost my page one ranking for one of my video game related sites. It literally happened all at once. Every single term I had a good rank dropped significantly. I used to use ZTMC link ads in the footer. I've since removed them, but it's been a month and my rank hasn't recovered. I'm trying to figure out what to do to fix it. The site really is a useful resource too so I can't understand why the rank was dropped for it (it's not like it was spammy). Let me know what you think.
The first two things I'd look for is if you've got the -30 penalty or the -950 penalty. Do a little reading on them and you should be able to fix your problems.
Can you share your URL to us? is the site new? if it is new, Google gives boost to those new sites. They give high ranking, but only temporary high ranking.
Agree with jessiejames - if it's new then you just had a bit of luck to begin with and now it's time to start building/networking with other sites. If the site is established, then it's worth registering the site with google webmaster tools as they provide you with a report of any findings. Another options could be duplicate content, buy/selling links and some black hat seo stuff like hidden text etc. like other have suggested, post the url and everyone can take a deeper look! good luck!
Alright, here it is: GamingFonts.com It's never made me much money at all (pretty much just the small monthly fee from the links in the footer that I've since removed), I just wanted to make it better by making individual pages for the fonts and when I was about to do that I got the penalty all of the sudden. Obviously the design could be better as well but I don't want to bother with it until I can restore the rankings. No it's not new either.