Is this a normal Google Dance, or am I slowly being Penalized ?

by danb12
11 replies
  • SEO
  • |
Hey, This is quite a long story, but ill try and cut it short.

So I got a 2.5 year old money site, was doing very well manged to get it to #4 in Google for some high keywords. - Affiliated site dealing in loans.
I made this project thinking differently from other site, "a site that could be my 100% income". Because its a big keyword, I paid for the domain for 5 years, set up a loans blog on the domain for 1 year with high PR related backlinks only so get it some authority, this helped get it to a PR3.
So after the year, i had trust from all major search engines, and therefore i am good to start ranking for high keywords. I done a whole redesign, I kept my blog as my sites articles, and started transforming it into a "money site".
Like i said i got it to #4 and stayed there for over a year, adding fresh content etc.. building new backlinks etc... all the normal stuff.
I had at least 2 people working on this site per day, and it was making a few k's each week.

3rd Feb 12:
My hosting was coming to an end, and I was using Joomla, so I wanted to change this, So I changed my host, and also had a brand new WP website with all old and new content waiting for my domain with a htaccess file moving every URL too.
It all went to plan, and my site was offline for a total of 45 mins.

8th Feb 12
This is the Google Dance part...?
Feb i lost all rankings after I put up new site, thought it was normal and it will be back in a few days, weeks max.
So after 1 week, I got it to half my traffic, building new links etc....

Now it feels each day is getting worse. I went from 600,000 impressions to 30,000 and today its 15,000.
I have lost 97% traffic and anything I do is not getting nowhere.

All links pointing to this site are quality links, no blog networks, no spammy comments, no spammy forums, all good and relevant.

I have paid for more links in February, in total 10 PR7 finance blogrolls.
They are all legit and not connented in anyways.

I thought they might bring me back to where I was, but nope, its getting worse.
I can't find my site for my MAIN keyword anywhere in google, only subpages on page 13-20. My site has over 2000k pages, and about 300 are converting. I have over 1700 backlinks from unquie domains showing in my webmaster tools and more in Alexa.

This has been going on since 8th Feb, and I don't know why.

I know what a Google dance is, and not sure if its OK for it to go on this long, and feels like my site is still not thru the worst yet?

For the last week, my impressions have been rising 250 a day that's it.

My best inbound page is still holding a place at 10 but not really doing much, could be there for a hour then gone the next..... :confused:

Is this a Google dance, or am I slowly being Penalized..... How can I find out what's going on, any tools that may help me?

How long will it last? or how long can it last?

Thanks!
#dance #google #normal #penalized #slowly
  • Profile picture of the author cashcow
    Originally Posted by danb12 View Post


    I have paid for more links in February, in total 10 PR7 finance blogrolls.
    They are all legit and not connented in anyways.
    Well Google frowns upon paid links so do you think they could have discovered your source and pegged them as selling links? I'm not sure what you mean by "legit" because paid links aren't really legit unless they are no-follow, right? Or maybe I don't know what you mean by paid links?
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  • Profile picture of the author danb12
    Sure, I understand what you mean, as in paid, Well they are "friends" blogs, they helped my i help them, they are not connected in any way, not advertised anywhere selling backlinks etc... legit, i mean good high ranking sites, and real PR pages with my backlink, I am the only outbound link on the page

    Every site needs to "pay" for a link mostimes - without being noticed, not not blasting 20k links each time just 1 link at a time.
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    UK Coupon Website PR1 making £300+ per month - QUICK SALE - CHEAP SALE - CONTACT ME
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  • Profile picture of the author cashcow
    Oh yeah, I totally understand - I pay for links myself. I was just trying to figure out what might have caused your traffic troubles and that was something that came to mind. Sounds like the chances of it being that would be pretty slim though.
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  • Profile picture of the author Stack Tom
    If you have a new site, I think google will have to index the new site. This could be causing the lower impressions and lower search ranking.
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  • Profile picture of the author danb12
    Its been driving me crazy!!!! I am losing quality business, but not only that, it feels like all my work and efforts has gone to waste - eveyone gets "downtime" for a few days unseady rankings, but I have been working online for 7 years now, and this is not normal I have never had a Google dance for this long.. I don't know whats it like to be banned or penalized because its never happened to me.

    Edit: its all indexed.
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    UK Coupon Website PR1 making £300+ per month - QUICK SALE - CHEAP SALE - CONTACT ME
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  • Profile picture of the author Kal Sallam
    Well I have seen things like this before but never heard of" slowly penalized"

    Wonder if your competition has to do anything with it??

    Since you mentioned tough keywords.
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  • Profile picture of the author danb12
    I wouldn't say that - I can't find my home page at all..... not on page 1 nor 1000?
    Its in Google index, But just not ranking?
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  • Profile picture of the author boxoun
    No notices in webmaster tools?
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  • Profile picture of the author LeahRae
    Hi Danb12,

    Without seeing the site this is only based on your post.

    Normally it is a Wordpress to Joomla issue because Joomla is more difficult to SEO.

    You should check:

    Site redirect returns - does the site actually have correct redirects?

    Advertising ratio & location - Google cracked down on heavy ad sites.

    Hosting - how many domains are on your shared server (if you have one) & who are they.

    How much of your site has been duplicated by scraper sites? Google took a stance against duplicate content along with advertising during the Panda/Farmer update. Google Fight the Google Panda Judgement & Win

    For that matter, you are on Wordpress now... duplicate content is a big Wordpress issue.

    Hope I helped!
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  • Profile picture of the author danb12
    3 Month Update: Site was dead. Penalized by the big G. Ruined my life lol.. BUT, with still no link notice by Google.....
    I have now started again.... with a new domain, fresh content, and I went straight into the money site, and now #9 for main keyword and moving up very very slowly.

    Advice: If this has happened to you, don't do a 301 redirection to a new domain thinking it will solve the problem, you pass the penalty over.

    Don't waste time thinking what you have done, or whats going on, let is pass and start again, lives too short to keep asking questions, you just have to live & learn
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  • Profile picture of the author Matt.Lake
    It may make no difference now... but given the timeline of the drop, I can't help thinking that the main issue was due to the switching of Joomla to Wordpress.

    May be some more experienced guys with that sort of situation could chime in.

    Obviously we don't know your site or link profile but you mentioned that you didn't use spammy links, blog networks etc. A lot of people say they don't use "spammy" links when it reality they do, but I'll take you word for that.

    But you dropped before the whole blog network deindexing and penguin, so it's not as though either of those were obviously the culprit.

    Of course you are in a very competitive niche where I imagine black hat seo is rife.
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