How do you know if your site is Google Slapped or just Google Dancing?

[kIwOk168]

I have my site ranked in the first page (number 8) for a certain keyword (via linkwheel). After a week it went to around number 400+ (used market samurai rank tracker for this=) ). Then after another week, without doing anything, it came back to number 8. Now, it got lost again somewhere beyond the top 100. This happened around 2 weeks ago.

How do you know if you are simply dancing with Google or have been Google slapped?

If you're Google slapped, is there still a chance to salvage that website to return to the first page?

[Tom Goodwin]

Originally Posted by kIwOk168

I have my site ranked in the first page (number 8) for a certain keyword (via linkwheel). After a week it went to around number 400+ (used market samurai rank tracker for this=) ). Then after another week, without doing anything, it came back to number 8. Now, it got lost again somewhere beyond the top 100. This happened around 2 weeks ago.

How do you know if you are simply dancing with Google or have been Google slapped?

If you're Google slapped, is there still a chance to salvage that website to return to the first page?

Its the Google dance. Keep on building links to your site. People throw around being google "slapped" or google "banned" willy nilly on IM boards when it either really doesn't exist, or at least only exists in very extreme cases.

[freetraff]

The real slap is when you are deindexed from Google.

And if you can see your site for this search query in Google:

info:yourdomain.com

then everything is ok.

This blog post can explain more about SERP dancing - Google Search Engine Ranking - Up and Down - it has 2 videos that explain a lot in terms of certain kind of backlinks.

[Daniel Molano]

Slapped is when it's completely gone, rather sandboxed. If you do a search for the URL and it isn't there, you're screwed.

The dance happens mostly to new, low PR sites. It seems that's what you're experiencing.

But there's also a high chance that one of your backlinks got deleted or went nofollow, one of your strong backlinks that is. If that's the case then your rankings will drop until you create another backlink of that strength or higher.

[bgmacaw]

Originally Posted by Daniel Molano

Slapped is when it's completely gone, rather sandboxed. If you do a search for the URL and it isn't there, you're screwed.

There are manual penalties that are applied short of deindexing, such as PR and ranking penalties that were applied to certain blogs and real estate sites for selling links a while back. These ranking/PR penalties were more common a few years ago but deindexing a site entirely is the most common penalty today by far.

[RedEvo]

If you've been doing something dodgy and see SERP changes there's every chance your site has suffered as a result of your actions.

d

[Brad Callen]

"Slapped" is in regards to "Adwords" (i.e. paid listings) and doesn't have anything to do with Google's natural search listings.

Brad

[RedEvo]

So if you engage black hat techniques, get found out and lose your prized page one result what's that called?

d

[kIwOk168]

Cool, thanks for the replies...

I guess I have to keep building backlinks then=)

[jasonmorgan]

But there's also a high chance that one of your backlinks got deleted or went nofollow, one of your strong backlinks that is. If that's the case then your rankings will drop until you create another backlink of that strength or higher.

Great point and something I think many people overlook when they are using shadier backlinking methods. It's a house of cards that can easily be knocked down.

[HCLee]

What you are experiencing is the google dance. Usually for new site getting settled in rankings take time or quite unpredictable. It can take months to settle to a more permanent position especially if your site is new.