How can i know whether this is a Slap, Penalty or Google Panda effect?

[GeorgR.]

I have an old site which was always TOP in Google US for the main keyword and related keywords.

It's a site where i put plenty of new, unique quality content on it...although when i started the site i was not very experienced and put ezine articles on it. (Those old articles are still on there).

Anyway, after a long time of good earnings...exactly on April 1st this year i was slapped/penalized SILLY. Site visitors went down from about 200/daily to maybe 20-30 daily.

Now, i already had slaps on other sites, and i remember one slap i had lasted 3 months. (I still very hope that this site "only" got slapped and comes back in July.)

I just checked in Google UK (not US) and entered a keyword of the site, and i see i am on pos #3 in Google US. But i am gone from Google UK and CA.

How do i know what exactly is going on?

Yes..i did some link building and xrumer stuff...but nothing "extreme" and nothing i didnt do on other sites already.

And now i just thought...if it's Panda...maybe it would help to remove the older articles? (But those ranked actually very well)

Should i just wait til July and hope it was only a temporary slap?

[InitialEffort]

Most likely Google just evaluating your new links, be patient.

[GeorgR.]

uhm..for two months?

[InitialEffort]

Yes, I have a number of websites and when you watch the analytics on some, you have to ask, "Google, what are you doing?" because it is illogical. But usually, they are evaluating your website, especially if it is a non-business or non-reference site.

Newer sites are usually more affected than aged sites 1+ years old.

[Franksol]

Originally Posted by InitialEffort

Yes, I have a number of websites and when you watch the analytics on some, you have to ask, "Google, what are you doing?" because it is illogical. But usually, they are evaluating your website, especially if it is a non-business or non-reference site.

Newer sites are usually more affected than aged sites 1+ years old.

Are you saying that these affected sites will come back eventually? How long have you waited on average for it to come back?

[addyj672]

Originally Posted by GeorgR.

I have an old site which was always TOP in Google US for the main keyword and related keywords.

It's a site where i put plenty of new, unique quality content on it...although when i started the site i was not very experienced and put ezine articles on it. (Those old articles are still on there).

Anyway, after a long time of good earnings...exactly on April 1st this year i was slapped/penalized SILLY. Site visitors went down from about 200/daily to maybe 20-30 daily.

Now, i already had slaps on other sites, and i remember one slap i had lasted 3 months. (I still very hope that this site "only" got slapped and comes back in July.)

I just checked in Google UK (not US) and entered a keyword of the site, and i see i am on pos #3 in Google US. But i am gone from Google UK and CA.

How do i know what exactly is going on?

Yes..i did some link building and xrumer stuff...but nothing "extreme" and nothing i didnt do on other sites already.

And now i just thought...if it's Panda...maybe it would help to remove the older articles? (But those ranked actually very well)

Should i just wait til July and hope it was only a temporary slap?

I think some times keywords are not coming in local google domain and they are showing in google .com domain. It happened with my website, i contact my friend in Pakistan to check my keywords are coming or not. He use proxy site to confirm the position.

It means some times keywords are ranking but google is not showing some how. I think you need to use some kind of keyword searching tool for uk and find out the exact position....

Google panda hit the website and complete ban the website or put them in sandbox. In you case your website is appearing in .com then no plenty issue for you....

[SladeK]

I have had this happen to multiple sites of mine across many different time periods; some pre-panda, some post-panda.

When I notice a change in traffic or a sudden drop in the SERPS, I first do the initial site:domain query to ensure it is still indexed. After determining it is still indexed, I tend to perform a quick analysis of recent changes to the site that I have made via posting and or back-linking; just to rule out any freak occurrences that might have slipped past me.

Once I am confident that I have done nothing to break webmaster guidelines, I simply continue with adding new content and back-links as if everything was okay. This part can be difficult due to the fact that adding content to a site that is clearly not bringing in any traffic is logically a waste of time, but you have to try to look past that if the site was successful prior to the drop.

In my experience, all of my sites eventually reappeared. The only variance revolves around the period of time in which they were missing; some came back in less than a week, while the longest time elapsed was three months. Generally, the sites in which I found something that might have been wrong and fixed it came back sooner than the sites that I found nothing wrong with.

If you do not believe there is anything on your site that might have caused a penalty via webmaster guidelines, I would not tweak it; especially if the articles you are considering getting rid of ranked well prior to the drop. Depending on how patient you are, after 1-3 months goes by and nothing has changed, try submitting a reconsider request to at least determine whether or not your site is actually penalized.

[Franksol]

Originally Posted by SladeK

I have had this happen to multiple sites of mine across many different time periods; some pre-panda, some post-panda.

When I notice a change in traffic or a sudden drop in the SERPS, I first do the initial site:domain query to ensure it is still indexed. After determining it is still indexed, I tend to perform a quick analysis of recent changes to the site that I have made via posting and or back-linking; just to rule out any freak occurrences that might have slipped past me.

Once I am confident that I have done nothing to break webmaster guidelines, I simply continue with adding new content and back-links as if everything was okay. This part can be difficult due to the fact that adding content to a site that is clearly not bringing in any traffic is logically a waste of time, but you have to try to look past that if the site was successful prior to the drop.

In my experience, all of my sites eventually reappeared. The only variance revolves around the period of time in which they were missing; some came back in less than a week, while the longest time elapsed was three months. Generally, the sites in which I found something that might have been wrong and fixed it came back sooner than the sites that I found nothing wrong with.

If you do not believe there is anything on your site that might have caused a penalty via webmaster guidelines, I would not tweak it; especially if the articles you are considering getting rid of ranked well prior to the drop. Depending on how patient you are, after 1-3 months goes by and nothing has changed, try submitting a reconsider request to at least determine whether or not your site is actually penalized.

How do you determine what is wrong with these affected sites? Via WMT alone? So you have sites that came back automatically even when you did nothing?

[SladeK]

Originally Posted by Franksol

How do you determine what is wrong with these affected sites? Via WMT alone? So you have sites that came back automatically even when you did nothing?

WMT definitely helps point out some of the more obvious things such as bad links and indexing. Additionally, if a site does get penalized, there is a possibility that you will receive a message in your WMT account stating so. For the most part, however, if a site happens to drop out of the SERPs, it is a guessing game for the webmaster to diagnose a potential problem; if one even exists.

In my experience, some sites had minor issues that I fixed, while others had no problems that I could identify. In all cases, the sites came back over a randomized period of time.