My site has been online for 7 years and yesterday Google dropped 90% of the traffic it sends me (From nearly 3000 referes/day to less than 200). This has never happened before so I'm a bit lost as to what just happened. It's a totally legit site, no wierd seo tactics.. just data and content. Any theories would be great: www.spainexchange.com Thanks
I'd start with your outbound links. The links at the bottom of your home page stand out to me. I'd also check your "resources" - are those all link exchanges? Can you give us an example of a high ranking term that has dropped?
I'm in the same boat, any thing wrong with link exchange with other sites if the links are not on the home page?
I don't go after particular keywords, the traffic all comes in randomly but 'study in spain' for example was number #1 and now its at the bottom of the second page. 'estudiar en el extranjero' (study abroad -spanish) was one the first few results and now it is nowhere to be found. Stats are fine and they coincide with my AdSense channel stats (taking into account the normal large difference between them) as well as my adsense tracker stats. Yes the resources are link exchanges but most of them are very old, I don't really exchange links anymore on this site. I understand those things may incure some kind of penalty but 90% ?
dropping from #1 to #20 isn't really a "dump" by google standards. Dropping from #1 to #100 or worse is. I'd re-evaluate your linking strategy. If most your links are exchanges, its possible they are being devalued. If you are not getting new links consistently, the same thing. Your problem is minor and probably easily fixable with a little effort.
No I've never used co-op. Do people actually link to other sites now-adays without any personal gain? Or are you referring to 3-way exchanges?