I seemed to have dropped almost a thousand places for most of my main keywords but not ALL of them. I ranked on the first page for most and now I am at around 987 or so for them. But I am still number 1 for one of my main keywords and still number 1 for my domain name. It seems a strange penalty if it is one but it seems that I've dropped an awful lot of places too. I've never dropped so many places on so many keywords all at once like and it was scary to see. Does anyone have any experience of penalties and what do they think this actually is?
Might not be a penalty. Maybe those other sites just went into advertising overdrive I don't know, does google even give a penalty like that? Aha..
Well it could be the -950 penalty. The site no longer ranks for any keywords in its title but it does rank for one good keyword that is not in the title. It also ranks number 1 for its domain name. I always though penalties affected your domain name ranking for sure.
Penalties do not necessarily affect the domain name, it would depend on what caused the penalty. Banning would, so at least your not banned. Its hard to tell why you may have triggered a penalty without seeing your site - it could have been for a number of reasons, but it is a bit of a coincidence that you have lost so many rankings at the same time.
I see. Well I've been link building the last couple of weeks, do you think I just did it a bit quick?
Usually 'getting links too fast' doesn't seem to be an issue - sites that are high on digg etc might get lots of links very quickly with no problem, but if too many links had the same anchor text, or were bought from sites that are clearly selling links, that could perhaps be the problem.
From my experience link building has a LOT to say when dealing with google penalty. My first example: Had a few months old directory, paid for 500 directory submission. After a week I got big time penalty. Site was always shown last when searching for keywords / the actual domain name. Even now alsmost half a year later it still ranks like crap, and didnt even get a PR rank. Its getting better and better though. Second example: Had 2 sites, 2 different domains, one band new and one 0.5 year old. Both where doing quite fine with around 50-100 visitors from google each week. Then I submitted both to one of those 50 different socialbookmark services here on DP. Both got the penalty ASAP, both domains where pushed way back in the list when searching for the actual domain name, when searching for the previous good ranked keywords, sites where alsways shown on the last pages. It been two weeks now and it seems that they are SLOWLY crawling up the list, but still ranks very poorly compared to before the submissions. Both sites now rank nr 1 when searching for the domain name, but keywords are still among the last. SO yes I'm almost 99% sure that to much linkbuilding in to short a time will get your site penalized.
My dear Friend I m facing the same problem which u had written here Same Problem from 02-10-07 ( Almost 5 months) My site was in top in google in almost all keywords But now it is only coming in domain name From 02-10-07 to till date i m waiting to come back my site in google. Well it's rankings improved alot in msn and yahoo But in google it is going worse What steps r u taking now to bring back your site..??!!
I heard that Google are doing some updates to their index by combining the main index and the supplemental index.. This has been causing a lot of SERP fluctuation.. I recommend that you wait a while and see what happens. If after a while you see that your site hasn't regained it's rankings try submitting a re-inclusion request on Google Webmasters after trying to identify the problem and fixing it.
Another thing to take into consideration is that Google is stamping out on Paid for Links - so if you buy links and Google penalise the sites you have bought the links from, this in turn will affect your own site.
I haven't bought any links. I just submitted to directories, a few were paid. I didn't do a 500 submission or anything like that, I just did a select lot with page rank on the pages I wanted to appear on. This was over the last 2 weeks or so and the penalty (if that's what it is) set in yesterday.
Well it seems a penalty either 999 or something else reasons could be the one below 1) Too many links taken on single keyword.(Link Exchange) 2) Way high Onsite changes or Sudden dropping of density and prominency in content. 3) Did too many directories for particular keyword. 4) May have taken link from some link farm kind of sites. (Bad Neighbourhood) 5) May be link is on some site which is penalized for link sales. 6) Too much of keyword Stuffing. And there are many more possiblities of getting penalties. Change the ip may it solve the problem. Send me your sitename will see if i can find anything. Goodluck with site mate
What I'll do is check if I've dropped rankings ONLY for the keywords I was trying to target with my recent link building. That could give a clue. If it is from this then it should rectify itself in due course.
Google already dance and search results are fluctuated, especially in USA for many new sites. I suggest you check site ranking with SEOChat Multiple Datacenter Keyword Position Checker to see site ranking through Google DC's directly. Otherwise you should check with other search operators such as allinanchor, allintext, allintitle to give you a clue how your site ranking would be. You may type your full domain name in Google. If your homepage don't come up in the first results and inner page or other sites which linked to your site come up instead then your homepage don't gained any trust yet.
You must be careful on submitting your site choose a related link to prevent link farming that will hurt your site.
this penalty word keeps on cropping up on the forum, good luck with your site pal - keep any updates coming
this happens to my site all the time. One day, my site is on the top for many keywords, but then after few days, it drop to the last page. But I can still see my site for the main keyword in the same old place.