My friends site was doing good, after penguin , he lost all ranking. he approached Google and there are 'no manual spam actions'. What could be the reason?
So, there was no warning from Google in Webmaster Tools, right? If you're certain it was tied to Penguin, then your friend probably is being penalized for what Google might consider bad link-building. Get rid of any paid links, any links resulting from malware, excessive 301 redirects, and links that might be in bad neighborhoods ... porn, gambling, etc. Once you've eliminated as many of the bad links as possible, check to see if the rankings are returning. If not, you'll probably need to use Google's disavow tool.
If you have already checked your onpage SEO and thats fine then its got to be your backlink profile. Its best to analyse your backlink profile to see what could be causing the problem using the free version of SEO Spyglass/Opensiteexplorer/GWTools to build a list of all your backlinks OpensiteExplorer (free account) can help you diagnose the problem by checking your anchor text keyword density. Once you have your backlink profile backlinks you can analyse the links to see if you have a large keyword density. So for example if your main keyword is dog training and the main % is high or a non realistic anchor text profile as below example shows you will be penalised. dog training 50% or higher dog collars and training 20% brown dog 5% dog.... 1% etc... A lot of people who use backlinking services like Fiverr etc.. will be only using their main keyword to backlink their homepage. This needs to be varied up by using naked URLs, varied anchor text and trying to get backlinks that are niche related and are indexed in Google. Let me know if this helps you out
"No Manual Action" simply means a Googler didn't "manually" apply a penalty to the site. But most of Google's actions are called "filters" (they are essentially penalties applied automatically by the algorithm when the algorithm detects certain violations). Manual actions (penalties) have to be manually removed by a Googler as a result of a Reconsideration Request. Filters "typically" will be automatically removed by the algo when it detects that the violation has been corrected. Penguin and Panda are both examples of filters (though there seems to be a slight difference)... If Google detects that a particular URL on your site has too many backlinks with the exact same link text, the algo will often filter that individual URL for that specific keyword phrases, preventing it from ranking. So if you're hit by Panda, you have to correct the problem(s) and wait for the next Panda update (possibly two more depending on timing) before you'll notice a recovery. Very few have recovered completely from Penguin filters. You have to identify the your low quality links pointing to your site and get them removed - take down all that you can, disavow the rest. Of course, what you might think of as low quality and what Google sees as low quality are two different things. This often means that you have to throw out the baby with the bath water (i.e. you'll likely end up removing and/or disavowing some links that Google was actually counting). So even if you manage to recover, your rankings will likely not be quite as good as before being filtered. Once you've removed the low quality links, you have to submit a Reconsideration Request. Penguin seems to be one filter that "can" be manually lifted... thus the reconsideration request. I'm guessing Google is offering to manually review sites hit by Penguin because either they know there was a lot of collateral damage (innocent sites hit) or because Penguin updates come so infrequently, that it is hard to expect businesses to wait that long. Typically you'll have to go through this entire process of link removal and RR multiple times before the filter is lifted. So unlike Panda which is a pure filter, Penguin seems to be a bit of a hybrid where the site is automatically filtered by the Penguin algo when a Penguin Update is releases, but can be manually lifted by a Googler as the result of a Reconsideration Request.