Sudden Ranking Drop Is A Good Sign?

[bluemanhand]

Just had one of my SEO providers email me saying that a sudden drop in ranking for a keyword (separate from a Panda algorithm update) is a good sign because Google is re-evaluating my site's backlinks. Is this true?

The site has not been penalized, just dropped 10-20 places for a very competitive keyword.

[yukon]

Maybe If their running junk link blast.

They tend to bounce back after a while.

[bluemanhand]

Bounce back higher than the original position?

[chasiffareed]

May be it is, I tell you my experience.
One of my site dropped its ranking from 1st page to last of the 3rd page,I didn't build the links during this period, after a week when it turned back had a 4 positions up than previous one and now it is still there.I am shocked but happy to see this.

[bluemanhand]

Hope this is what happens to my site as well.

[jahangir87]

It is a normal situation and no reason to worry.I even found my site vanished for my keyword and after 2 months I got it back in second place of Google.

[dotgirish]

It should be back to normal, wait for a week or two, if it is not back, it could have hit with some filter, try your backlinking with a different set of keywords, and IP diversity is the key. Also it is good to try backlinking your deeplinks

[stellaandreapark]

Google panda is just analyzing your website. Give it a few weeks and you will be fine.

[Cyber Rankings]

It often comes back and achieves a higher ranking. The only time this doesn't happen is if link spamming is involved i.e. tools like xrumer are being used. If your website is new this is an extremely common scenario so as long as your seo providers are not building awful links you will be fine.

[krishacetravison]

If you think you have done the right thing in optimizing your site, expect a good come back on the following days.

[FredJones]

It could be a ddance, and it could be a slap. Depends on whether Google is happy (if yes then the page will dance) or is angry (if yes then it is a slap).

What do you remember having done over the past few days?

If you have blasted or bombarded links to a new or even a slightly old (not too old) site then it has a decent chance to be a slap.

If not, and if it has got nothing to do with Panda (since you said that, I am taking that as a holy grail which need not necesssarily be the case), then it could be a dance.

[mosthost]

It seems to me a 'sudden ranking drop' isn't really that great of a thing! Sure, it might be a sign that things are about to get a whole lot better. It also might be a sign of impending doom!

[webdevpro]

Look at the number of backlinks in your Google webmaster account. If these are the same as before then it means your competitors are getting stronger comparably over the time.

[MikeFriedman]

It is a common thing if someone is building low quality backlinks in large quantities. It often comes back, but just as often is not sustainable unless you keep throwing more backlinks at it.

[bluemanhand]

UPDATE: The site has now completely dropped from the search results. It is still indexed, but does not rank in the top 200 for any of the keywords.

[thebitbotdotcom]

It may be the Google dance.

Usually this is good.

But don't hold your breath. Sometimes it takes a while.

[MikeTheBuilder]

Just sit tight for a few days and see what happens. Once the dust settles a little bit, start building quality links.

[bluemanhand]

Originally Posted by thebitbotdotcom

It may be the Google dance.

Usually this is good.

But don't hold your breath. Sometimes it takes a while.

Dropping out the SERPs COMPLETELY is a good thing?!

[solarwarrior]

Be patient. You have to take into account that your competitors are probably doing the same things.

[bluemanhand]

Competitors would not push the site completely out of the SERPs.

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by bluemanhand

Dropping out the SERPs COMPLETELY is a good thing?!

No it is not a good sign. Your intuition that what you are hearing is not correct is good. It may come back but its an indication that your provider may be using very low quality links. I suggest you find out what links they are using. You also may not see the site come back for months

[bluemanhand]

Hi Mike, thanks for your input. Does receiving low quality links mean that my site has been penalised by Google? Or is it simply a case of losing any benefit from those links and having to start again? Basically, should I change domains?

[RevSEO]

Actually, this could be normal.

Its surprising how many guys on here have never been through
a Google dance, have you actually done SEO?

I've been doing it for years and monitor a ton of rankings, mine
and others. You can see this happen all the time. Sometimes
you'll see drastic fluctuations positively as well.

This is part of the game of SEO, you'll see Google doing a variety
of algorithm updates and tests at any given time. Don't sweat it.

[AToZ]

Wow the people on this forum really do live in a fantasy world.

It's a terrible thing, your site may show some bounce after a penalty expires, but it's just as likely your site will never return, but I'm sure you would sooner believe the fairy tale posts above.

[vjslav]

If it's 20-30 places drop then I think it's the dance. Recently I built too many links to one of my web sites, it dropped 600 places, now that's a penalty.

I wouldn't worry too much if I were you.

[braincandy7]

I wouldn't worry about it too much. This has happened to a few of my sites as well. They creep up the rankings to p1/p2 then just vanish for a few days. Usually when they reappear they are in a better position.

Make sure you continue building links to the site even when you cannot see it though. I know it's a bit of a bitch when you see it vanish but best thing is to ignore. All part of that jig they call the Google Dance.

[braincandy7]

I wouldn't worry about it too much. This has happened to a few of my sites as well. They creep up the rankings to p1/p2 then just vanish for a few days. Usually when they reappear they are in a better position.

Make sure you continue building links to the site even when you cannot see it though. I know it's a bit of a bitch when you see it vanish but best thing is to ignore. All part of that jig they call the Google Dance.

[riysoft]

May be yes because sometimes your site goes down for a day or two and then it will come again in ranking that means google is re-evaluating your backlinks.

[diyakapoor]

No, if your website is actually stable in search engines because of its domain age, content, quality back links then your website will never be dropped from current position. Make sure that you are regularly doing SEO for your website.

[braincandy7]

sorry just noticed i double posted. not sure how that happened.

[Daniel Wilson]

There is nothing in your power to do but wait and see what happens. If you were doing things that Google likes (natural backlinks and quality content) you will bounce back on higher rank.

[jaredrasc]

May be this happen because of updates in search engines. it reflects on ranking .

[Jerome15]

this is current happening to my site now, yesterday it was on 1st page then after couple of hours i couldn't find it. today i can't find it again then i check the other browser it's ranked 1

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by RevSEO

Actually, this could be normal.

Its surprising how many guys on here have never been through
a Google dance, have you actually done SEO?

Probably longer than you have. Since I started focusing on quality links I have rarely had that happen on as grand a scale as the OP is suggesting. Does it happen with quality links still? sure but more often its caused by poor quality links placed in abundance. So theres no point in just sitting around and saying it will coem back even if it will because its still good to be int he know as to what your SEO is doing

[RevSEO]

Originally Posted by Mike Anthony

Probably longer than you have. Since I started focusing on quality links I have rarely had that happen on as grand a scale as the OP is suggesting. Does it happen with quality links still? sure but more often its caused by poor quality links placed in abundance. So theres no point in just sitting around and saying it will coem back even if it will because its still good to be int he know as to what your SEO is doing

Likely not, but this isn't a place for debating.

Does it happen as a result of no added links? Sure.
Does Google run tests constantly to determine the best algorithms? Of course.

If you monitor rankings closely, as I have for thousands of simultaneous SEO campaigns, you will see massive fluctuations in rankings, naturally.

Nothing to do with linkbuilding. Simply algorithm changes and different datacenters displaying different results when checking the SERPs.

Heck, I've seen drastic changes occur for a few hours, to then "bounce" back to the previous rankings.

If throwing junk links was all it took to remove the competition, then you can bet you'd see negative SEO services out there as well.

Then again, you've been at this longer than I have.

[TheSwedishAffiliate]

As long as the site is still indexed (google>site:yoursite) I find that it will always come back stronger than before.

[creationz]

My Site got down from page 1 to page 2.
i did my normal link exchanges.
did not over do it.
now it is back to page 1 along with up 2 rankings than it was before.

[mrshades]

Its just google dance agreed with people above... the cool thing is google is trying to go to more manual reviews so good bye spammers hello quality content

[bluemanhand]

Originally Posted by TheSwedishAffiliate

As long as the site is still indexed (google>site:yoursite) I find that it will always come back stronger than before.

Yes, it is still indexed and the homepage is at the top of the list when I do site:domain.com in Google. It dropped 3 pages last week (hence the original post) and 2 days ago it disappeared completely. All pages are still indexed, but that is it. Personally, I think it is gone for good. I will update this thread in a week or two, anyway, so you will know who was right and who was wrong. :P

[Drewry_Media]

if the overall number one Alexa has dropped, then that's a good thing :-)

[Chucky]

Originally Posted by bluemanhand

Yes, it is still indexed and the homepage is at the top of the list when I do site:domain.com in Google. It dropped 3 pages last week (hence the original post) and 2 days ago it disappeared completely. All pages are still indexed, but that is it. Personally, I think it is gone for good. I will update this thread in a week or two, anyway, so you will know who was right and who was wrong. :P

Don't be discouraged. I'm with Rev SEO on this one. If you haven't seen the Google dance, either you have not done any SEO or you have been extremely conservative.

If you haven't done anything black hat, I'm willing to bet it's going to come back, typically within 1-2 weeks.

Build some good quality backlinks (e.g. PRs), add some unique content about 4-5 days apart, and may be even change the homepage set up. If you think you have done any 'over' optimizing (on page SEO), deoptimize a little as well. This could be a penalty, could be just another dance, thus deoptimizing will take care of that too (I know deoptimizing is not the right word, but you get what I mean). I won't be surprised if your site makes a come back within 48 hours after you do the above. A new post/page and a ping is a nice way to tell Google, I've changed some stuff, come take a look!

Keep smiling!

[jalicia18]

Originally Posted by TheSwedishAffiliate

As long as the site is still indexed (google>site:yoursite) I find that it will always come back stronger than before.

You've made me feel not to worry on it. This is the same in my site case where rankings suddenly gone after Google updates last Nov.18

[bluemanhand]

The site ranks #95 on Google AU for "Results only from Australia" for its site name which has 20,000,000 results (699,000 exact results when I use ""). It does not rank in the top 650 (yes I checked 65 pages of results manually to be sure) for "general" non-AU only results (if you know what I mean).

So, this makes me think it was just low quality backlinks that have disappeared and if I build some more links it will come back.

I have seen dances before but usually not complete drop from Google for all of the keywords.

[Marc_L]

Originally Posted by bluemanhand

The site ranks #95 on Google AU for "Results only from Australia" for its site name which has 20,000,000 results (699,000 exact results when I use ""). It does not rank in the top 650 (yes I checked 65 pages of results manually to be sure) for "general" non-AU only results (if you know what I mean).

So, this makes me think it was just low quality backlinks that have disappeared and if I build some more links it will come back.

I have seen dances before but usually not complete drop from Google for all of the keywords.

I don't know if this has been asked but, how old is your site? If it is newer then it is more prone to these jumps and spikes.

[bluemanhand]

The domain is 1.5 years old, however, the site is only about 4-5 months old.

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by RevSEO

Likely not, but this isn't a place for debating. [

Then don't

Does it happen as a result of no added links? Sure.
Does Google run tests constantly to determine the best algorithms? Of course.

ah come one. this is no algo change Rev. I thought you said you knew SEO? If this were an algo change the whole joint would be buzzing and the datacenter thing is whack. Did anyone say they were checking from somewhere different?

Anyway my point is simple. Its a good time for the OP to check and see what the SEO is doing. Can the site come back? sure. Is it a GOOD SIGN when it drops? Nope not at all. Even after the Op stated that it fell out for ALL the keywords you still think thats a good sign? and I don't know SEO LOL. Fun Ney.

I'm telling you but you guys live in your own little world with the backlinking thing. Think I can have a business client paying me a few thousand a month and tell them hey your site just disappeared but don't worry it will be back.... in a week, well maybe a month or maybe three or four. LOL. I 'd get canned.

So no matter how many people say it your site does NOT have to jump around like a yoyo. Sure your site will move around a bit but hundreds of spots down then hundreds of spots up you haven't stabilized your site with some good links and your on site might need some serious looking at too.

If you are doing thousands of simultaneous campaigns we all know you aren't working the quality links on all of them. So you spilled the beans on exactly what I was saying.

Anyway your a good guy Rev I just think that the OP should look into things a bit. Every time a site drops theres always people coming in talking about the Google dance and guess what we have had quite a few where the site was gone for months and some never came back as far as we knew. So who knows??

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by bluemanhand

So, this makes me think it was just low quality backlinks that have disappeared and if I build some more links it will come back.

I have seen dances before but usually not complete drop from Google for all of the keywords.

Yeah that last sentence is the kicker but I think you have an EXCELLENT chance at getting the site back up. It still sounds to me like its had some spammy links pointed at it (unless the SEo made some on site changes and then all bets are off). That CAN be stabilized by some quality links so you don't have to go through anything this drastic again.

[Royalking]

I have one of my website in the same situation and all pages are indexed but rankings have completely disappeared for all the previously ranked keywords.

Will wait for another week in the mean while i m adding content and building links from related sites.

Will post on this thread when the rankings are stable.

[bluemanhand]

UPDATE: One month after the website dropped from page 4 to nowhere it is back on page 4 in #39 spot! Let's see how long it lasts.

[RevSEO]

Originally Posted by bluemanhand

UPDATE: One month after the website dropped from page 4 to nowhere it is back on page 4 in #39 spot! Let's see how long it lasts.

Thanks for the update.... I wish people would trust me I
do have a ton of experience in SEO.

While the experience wasnt fun I'd recommend using this as a
learning experience. This stuff happens in the real world of SEO.

I'd recommend building yourself a solid foundation of quality
links as well. It wil help reduce these sort of fluctuations
and will help increase your rankings.

Anyhow, thanks for the update.