Google SERPs Drastically Dropped

[Lauryn]

1 of my sites is not showing up in Google for a word I paid modest backlinks on (20-40) ... and another is nowhere near the top 10 pages (try not even 1st 1000) for another site that is well-niched and had a few profile backlinks upon it.

I am pretty sure it was the backlinks (profiles) that triggered the loss in rankings. The sites contain good content, strong information and are well-written.

Another site I know of has had similar things happen to them, but theres a one month old competitor with 1300 "auto-backlinks" at number 1.


I'm confused. What gives?
(The Backlink services we tried were featured on this forum - it's a profile backlink service.)

I'm not deindexed on these sites - thank God, but there's no traffic. What can I do now? More articles using LSI techniques? Focus on Bing and Yahoo? Social Bookmarks and well-targeted blog commenting?

[badboy_Nick]

Looks like you changed something or someone else did.

Best thing to do is to buy a fes more backlinks from high PR sites. Best way to get your ranking back up.

Any questions just let me know
Nick

[Lauryn]

Thanks Nick...
I'm going to put in a press release for one site. And then do a discount and press release for another site. Time to get aggressive. . . nice Benz...

I'm a Mustang driver myself. I like muscle lol.

[cashcow]

Originally Posted by Lauryn

1 of my sites is not showing up in Google for a word I paid modest backlinks on (20-40) ... and another is nowhere near the top 10 pages (try not even 1st 1000) for another site that is well-niched and had a few profile backlinks upon it.

I am pretty sure it was the backlinks (profiles) that triggered the loss in rankings. The sites contain good content, strong information and are well-written.

I doubt it was the backlinks - in the first place 20-40 backlinks is nothing and in the second place if it was that easy to get a website to drop in the rankings everyone would be doing it to their competitors.

Google is always changing it's algorithm and new sites/pages that may rank for your keyword are being made every single day, so it's actually perfectly natural for it to all of a sudden drop.

Another thing that commonly happens is that when you get a bunch of new backlinks (especially if this is not the norm for your site) it will get shuffled around often dropping out of site for a couple of days or weeks but then reappearing higher than before.

The mistake that most people make is thinking that once they have achieved a certain rank, then their site will just stay there - while this may be true with keywords that have no competition in obsure niches if your keyword is any bit competitive then the only thing you can be sure of is that plenty of people are out there trying to gain your slot.

About the only thing you can do is keep building back links, but it's best to build them from a variety of sources for best results.

Lee

[Lauryn]

Originally Posted by cashcow

I doubt it was the backlinks - in the first place 20-40 backlinks is nothing and in the second place if it was that easy to get a website to drop in the rankings everyone would be doing it to their competitors.

Google is always changing it's algorithm and new sites/pages that may rank for your keyword are being made every single day, so it's actually perfectly natural for it to all of a sudden drop.

Another thing that commonly happens is that when you get a bunch of new backlinks (especially if this is not the norm for your site) it will get shuffled around often dropping out of site for a couple of days or weeks but then reappearing higher than before.

The mistake that most people make is thinking that once they have achieved a certain rank, then their site will just stay there - while this may be true with keywords that have no competition in obsure niches if your keyword is any bit competitive then the only thing you can be sure of is that plenty of people are out there trying to gain your slot.

About the only thing you can do is keep building back links, but it's best to build them from a variety of sources for best results.

Lee

I understand that, but I think things are a little different here. I just did my research:

All the backlinks are gone from both Yahoo and Google's link indexes. None of the links purchased are in existence. Only the ones I made from article marketing and other techniques. So it's literally "start from scratch" on the search engines for site #2. Site number 1 will be okay and is doing okay, this second one isn't.

I ordered those backlinks in September - October... everything was okay until 2 weeks ago... they dropped... this is the only thing in common with both...

[Will Edwards]

Originally Posted by Lauryn

Thanks Nick...
I'm going to put in a press release for one site. And then do a discount and press release for another site. Time to get aggressive. . . nice BMW...

I'm a Mustang driver myself. I like muscle lol.

It's a Merc!

Will

[Trapped]

You have hit the nail with your last response, profile links, as usually, are crappy ones and do get removed. There is not much really can do about that, unless you are in conditions to continuously replace the lost ones with new ones.

But as you can see, these type of links are "worthless" you should perhaps concentrate you link building campaigns on more successful and worth-your-time schemes (aka, links that stick). Would that be guest blogging, article marketing, press release etc. However, one thing I would recommend is keep the link building process constant and in slow growth, if week one u gain 10 links, then week two gain 20, etc etc (this is not a myth of multiple link building, it is also a good practice to get used to building links constantly and have a "scheduled" work for your self, once it becomes a regular practice not only it will benefit your site in the long run but it will become much easier to do the same across an entire network - honestly, it is a good practice even tho it takes a little longer).

[cashcow]

Originally Posted by Lauryn

I understand that, but I think things are a little different here. I just did my research:

All the backlinks are gone from both Yahoo and Google's link indexes. None of the links purchased are in existence. Only the ones I made from article marketing and other techniques. So it's literally "start from scratch" on the search engines for site #2. Site number 1 will be okay and is doing okay, this second one isn't.

I ordered those backlinks in September - October... everything was okay until 2 weeks ago... they dropped... this is the only thing in common with both...

Oh - i gotcha - I thought you had just ordered the backlinks and thought you got some sort of penalty because of them. It sounds like you are right.

That's the problem with those profile links, they do tend to get deleted by the owners of the forums once they realize you only signed up to drop your link. But, the good news is that those are pretty low level links anyway so you should be able to replace them with better links that will bring you back even stronger.

Lee

[Lauryn]

Originally Posted by Will Edwards

It's a Merc!

Will

Ooops.... can you tell I'm a pure AIRhead today?
Going off less than 4 hours of sleep can do it to ya! LOL
Thanks Will!

[Jacob Martus]

Get more and better backlinks. That will do the trick.

[Lauryn]

Originally Posted by Trapped

You have hit the nail with your last response, profile links, as usually, are crappy ones and do get removed. There is not much really can do about that, unless you are in conditions to continuously replace the lost ones with new ones.

But as you can see, these type of links are "worthless" you should perhaps concentrate you link building campaigns on more successful and worth-your-time schemes (aka, links that stick). Would that be guest blogging, article marketing, press release etc. However, one thing I would recommend is keep the link building process constant and in slow growth, if week one u gain 10 links, then week two gain 20, etc etc (this is not a myth of multiple link building, it is also a good practice to get used to building links constantly and have a "scheduled" work for your self, once it becomes a regular practice not only it will benefit your site in the long run but it will become much easier to do the same across an entire network - honestly, it is a good practice even tho it takes a little longer).

Thank you! I honestly have done that - along with pretty decent content on site one (in my siggy even though it needs polish)... so I do see the value in it. I'm definitely going to move to more engaging strategies that last because I'm not into flushing the money down the toilet like I did within the past few months.

Originally Posted by cashcow

Oh - i gotcha - I thought you had just ordered the backlinks and thought you got some sort of penalty because of them. It sounds like you are right.

That's the problem with those profile links, they do tend to get deleted by the owners of the forums once they realize you only signed up to drop your link. But, the good news is that those are pretty low level links anyway so you should be able to replace them with better links that will bring you back even stronger.

Lee

Definitely. Thank you so much! I realize there's a difference between penalty (sandbox ) and "link loss". I'll work on improving traffic with short term and long term strategies that are more stable and continuous. Ay yi yi ... the work is long and arduous but this is good old IM!

[Matt Ward]

This is almost exactly what happened to my site as well. I would like to believe that it isn't due to profile backlinks, though, because that would mean that if you see new competitors going for your keywords, you could just "give them" a bunch of profile backlinks and send them to oblivion. Doesn't make sense...

[Lauryn]

Originally Posted by mattward

This is almost exactly what happened to my site as well. I would like to believe that it isn't due to profile backlinks, though, because that would mean that if you see new competitors going for your keywords, you could just "give them" a bunch of profile backlinks and send them to oblivion. Doesn't make sense...

Yea, that would be crazy. However, I went through Yahoo site explorer and on Google. Maybe I'll look at the excel sheet when I'm home -- maybe those forums are all "no follow" ? I don't even know, but I do know that my rankings are like.... below 6 feet deep.

I've done article marketing before, so I'll do it even further and begin writing guest posts and making relationships -- esp for one of my main sites (the one in my sig).