Lost Rankings In Google - Any Insight?

[dvpdvp1]

I've had a website on Google for about a year and a half now. The site is on a very popular subject and was ranking well for a number of keywords, number 1 for one particular keyword phrase getting hundreds of visits per day.

Recently the site took a major nosedive, and it's not ranked in Google anymore for the more popular keywords. It's not completely de-indexed because I do get one or two visits from people searching an obscure term that's still indexed in Google.

Recently, I found a site that completely copied my site right down to all the links. The homepage is identical to mine on a completely separate domain. Since the links point to my pages, whatever link you click on brings you to my site. There are some deeper pages that this "other" site kept on their own domain but ultimately everything points back to my site.

I know from my own SEO work that having identical content on two different domains is a no-no with Google. But the domain is owned by someone in China, and I'm in the US. There is nothing I can do.

Does anyone have any experience with this exact situation, and if this the case (why I've lost all my rankings) then anyone would be able to bring down anybody's site at any time? Doesn't seem like this should be possible and so easy.

Thanks for any insight anybody can provide.

[Voasi]

What else have you done? You need to list EVERY thing you've done to the site in the last 3 months - acquiring links, building pages, etc... - everything. That's the ONLY way to dissect a penalty of any type. It might not be a duplicant content penalty, but something else you've done. Also, what type of penalty is it? What page are you on now? If you search for you site's name, does your site still number one?

I've had sites completely fall and have had sites come back (too much black hat goes a long way).

[dvpdvp1]

Thanks for the response, in the past three months I've only built up links by writing posts and articles for other sites and directories. I subscribe to a network where you post your material with a link and webmasters can decide if they want to include your piece on their site. I have quite a few sites all using this network and they are fine.

I haven't posted anything in over three months, and again I have other sites with no postings in over 3 months maintaining good rankings.

I have a few reciprocal link pages that I've reciprocated links with other quality indexed sites over the past three months. But have only exchanged a handful within that time frame.

A few months ago, I had an affiliate link that was changed to a redirect through a plug-in that automatically redirected the page through javascript. I have deleted this auto redirect a few weeks ago and disabled the plug-in (wordpress) fearing this was considered "bad".

I'm not involved in any black hat techniques (as far as I know), everything seems legit. I'm usually very careful about who I link to on the site.

I had 4 main keyword phrases that I was targeting, I went from page 1 and 2 on all four to somewhere more than the 50th page. My software only checks the first 500 listings of Google, so I'm not exactly sure where they are located. BTW, this literally happened overnight. a few weeks ago.

[Joseph Then]

It happens to me for one of my website.

One stupid affiliate copied my entire website on another domain name, changing only the links.

I got into problems and that domain name went down the line. I lost almost $1000+ every month as a result.

When I found out, it's too late and the affiliate just say, "Sorry" but the damage is done.

It took me months to rebuild it back.

Perhaps you may want to email Google about this problem and see if they can help.

[dvpdvp1]

Thanks, I'm in the same boat. It just seems like a real easy way to eliminate your competition. Get a domain, copy their entire site, and watch them sink! Anyone else have a similar experience?

What did you do to build the site back up, did the copycat site go away?