First Page Rankings... Then POOF!

13 years ago

Can anyone help? I'd be really grateful to get any suggestions.

Thanks

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IM Pro

13 years ago

Have you tried reaching out to google directly? There might be something in their formula they could help you with. Either way it might be worth a shot.

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Kysersoze

13 years ago

Originally Posted by IM Pro

Have you tried reaching out to google directly? There might be something in their formula they could help you with. Either way it might be worth a shot.

Not the best solution! First of all they aren't gonna be thrilled about being contacted by a person that works selling SEO services, who in their eyes tries to manipulate their system. Not saying it is bad but just the way they will see it. Even if you were to say it is your website they aren't gonna just start providing answers to any person every time someone drops from their ranking.

I have had this happen where I ranked in 1st page and 1st to 3rd position for a keyword on yahoo, bing and google and then it disappears from Google to the depths. I keep linking from quality sites and I have had some come back but I have had 2 that never did. Even been teased with those 2 where I see movement to get to the top 10 and BAM gone again, meanwhile I still rank in first page in Yahoo and BING go figure.

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Matt Lee

13 years ago

Originally Posted by markowe

Do you know the EXACT ranking position of the site for the keywords? There is a phenomenon that people used to talk about, but that I haven't seen mentioned recently: the so-called Minus 50 penalty - where your page lands at exactly the bottom of Google page 50 (sometimes 60, but always a strangely round number) for its KWP.

I hadn't given that much thought recently until the exact same thing happened to a site of mine. I put it down to a definite penalty - makes no sense otherwise (plenty of other far less relevant sites above me). I believe (and others mention it) that it may have something to do with some unusual backlinking patterns that Google doesn't like (like too many identical anchor links, too many links from similar sources etc.)

Those discussions also mention it taking EXACTLY 3 months (to the day) before the site is 'released', but that some have managed to dig themselves out sooner by getting rid of junk backlinks, filing for reconsideration in GWT, improving their backlink profile, continuing to add content etc.

Not saying that is what has happened, or even that the phenomenon is real, but just thought I'd throw that out to see if anything rings true for you.

No I don't know exactly where they are, their not in the top 20 pages of listings, but I did check to see if they were banned and they are not. I'm leaning towards the second site being to similar. Once they dropped of the first page, and then added their keywords back I think Google took more notice the sites being similar.

Originally Posted by ann1986

dont wait. Build backlinks but make sure you build it accordingly. example on the 1st week 100 next week 200. next week 300.

Yeah staggering and building is good advice.

Originally Posted by hezell1989

Keep building quality backlinks like edu and gov links.

That's one thing I'm going to focus on too. Good Advice

Originally Posted by Kysersoze

Not the best solution! First of all they aren't gonna be thrilled about being contacted by a person that works selling SEO services, who in their eyes tries to manipulate their system. Not saying it is bad but just the way they will see it. Even if you were to say it is your website they aren't gonna just start providing answers to any person every time someone drops from their ranking.

I have had this happen where I ranked in 1st page and 1st to 3rd position for a keyword on yahoo, bing and google and then it disappears from Google to the depths. I keep linking from quality sites and I have had some come back but I have had 2 that never did. Even been teased with those 2 where I see movement to get to the top 10 and BAM gone again, meanwhile I still rank in first page in Yahoo and BING go figure.

Yeah I agree here, I don't think Google likes us much. We SEO guys are the only thing standing between them and total domination with Adwords.

Thanks

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AdGateMedia

13 years ago

How old is this website? Newer websites can jump around a lot, unexpectedly.

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dburk 13 years ago

Hi Mr Marketer,

Did the URL structure change at all? Are there canonicalization issues? Did the internal link structure change?

PM me the URL if you would like me to look over the site for any issues that may be problematic.
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chooch

13 years ago

I've had the same thing happen to me.

Except it was on Bing and Yahoo. I had been ranked #1 or #2 on both for months. Now...not in the top 250 sites.

All I have doing is adding content to my blog and adding backlinks to the website.

Thought it might be just a "dance"...but now I'm not sure.

I've been off the charts for about a week now.

Go figure!!!

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Giannii01 13 years ago

the same thing has happened to me a few times and I was able to get back to position 1. The only real thing I continued to do was add more unique content and continuously built links until it returned it was a definate battle though but I got there in the end.
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jameskahon

13 years ago

Since when did you optimize their sites and have maintained the keyword rankings?

The update of the site (dropping the keyword in the title) is one possible reason for this event but not a strong impact though cuz as what you've said the site were ranking in top position before meaning Google sees it as an authoritative site. The dropping down of rankings may just the result of Google dance. Give it sometime to regain its rankings. Don't do anything.

If it does not happen. Then it might something to do with the behaviour of your link building. How active are you in your link building? Did you once burst into building links and slowed down the next? This may also affects your rankings. Google sees this unnatural and everything that's unnatural with Google is a spam that has caused your site being penalized. But you can still regain the trust of Google by linking moderately and constantly for now.

Google also test websites if people are really looking and linking to it. What will happen is Google will drop your site to lower position and monitor it if there are still people who will link to it and if Google can prove this then Google knows that you site is important to the people and deserves a top ranking by then you site will be back at your current top position.

Though this might not a clear explanation (not a native speaker) but at least you get some ideas why your site has dropped into lower position.

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Matt Lee

13 years ago

Originally Posted by IM Pro

Have you tried reaching out to google directly? There might be something in their formula they could help you with. Either way it might be worth a shot.

No I haven't. Do you happen to have a number they can be reached at? =)

Originally Posted by AdGateMedia

How old is this website? Newer websites can jump around a lot, unexpectedly.

Site is about 6 months old.

Originally Posted by dburk

Hi Mr Marketer,

Did the URL structure change at all? Are there canonicalization issues? Did the internal link structure change?

PM me the URL if you would like me to look over the site for any issues that may be problematic.

They redid the content on the website, (and that's when they deleted the meta tags/title bar keywords) but as far as internal link structure I don't see any significant changes. Yeah I will pm you after this, thanks.

Originally Posted by jameskahon

Since when did you optimize their sites and have maintained the keyword rankings?

The update of the site (dropping the keyword in the title) is one possible reason for this event but not a strong impact though cuz as what you've said the site were ranking in top position before meaning Google sees it as an authoritative site. The dropping down of rankings may just the result of Google dance. Give it sometime to regain its rankings. Don't do anything.

If it does not happen. Then it might something to do with the behaviour of your link building. How active are you in your link building? Did you once burst into building links and slowed down the next? This may also affects your rankings. Google sees this unnatural and everything that's unnatural with Google is a spam that has caused your site being penalized. But you can still regain the trust of Google by linking moderately and constantly for now.

Google also test websites if people are really looking and linking to it. What will happen is Google will drop your site to lower position and monitor it if there are still people who will link to it and if Google can prove this then Google knows that you site is important to the people and deserves a top ranking by then you site will be back at your current top position.

Though this might not a clear explanation (not a native speaker) but at least you get some ideas why your site has dropped into lower position.

Thanks for your replies everyone. The site is about 6 months old. I've had it ranking on the first page shortly after it was created, making sure to build quality links stretched out over time. His primary keywords have less than 1M broad competition, and this is a very specified niche, not too much competition at all.

I haven't done any kind of linking well for over 30 days, and my client is getting pretty anxious. I don't want to rush anything either, but I'm not sure if waiting is the best way to go about this either.

I don't think it's the Dance, or the sandbox (for those believers) just because of the way we fell out of ranking completely. I've optimized over 100 sites in the passed year, and this is the only site that I've had this issue with.

Thanks

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Matt Lee

13 years ago

Bumpity Bump =)

Thanks

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markowe

13 years ago

Do you know the EXACT ranking position of the site for the keywords? There is a phenomenon that people used to talk about, but that I haven't seen mentioned recently: the so-called Minus 50 penalty - where your page lands at exactly the bottom of Google page 50 (sometimes 60, but always a strangely round number) for its KWP.

I hadn't given that much thought recently until the exact same thing happened to a site of mine. I put it down to a definite penalty - makes no sense otherwise (plenty of other far less relevant sites above me). I believe (and others mention it) that it may have something to do with some unusual backlinking patterns that Google doesn't like (like too many identical anchor links, too many links from similar sources etc.)

Those discussions also mention it taking EXACTLY 3 months (to the day) before the site is 'released', but that some have managed to dig themselves out sooner by getting rid of junk backlinks, filing for reconsideration in GWT, improving their backlink profile, continuing to add content etc.

Not saying that is what has happened, or even that the phenomenon is real, but just thought I'd throw that out to see if anything rings true for you.