Rankings Dropped Overnight, but No Penalty!!! HELP!

Uhm, sometimes sites come & go. Drop off the phase, then come back stronger etc..

BUT, could you elaborate what kind of links you were building? This could actually clear some air

How old is the site? if it is a new site and a month old then it could be the 'honeymoon period ending' which is where new sites get an artificial boost for a while to give them a chance to gain some exposure.

Hello, Online Only and nicktyler. Thank you for the fast replies. Well, this domain in particular is more than 2 years old and has never been dropped. So i doubt it is any new website honeymoon issue. All of my links are high PR, but aren't the most white hat in nature if you catch my drift. But I acquired them very slowly to stay under the radar.

Thanks Randy. They are high PR domains that I own. Between 10-20 of them. PR ranging between 3 and 6. Nothing elaborate about my approach with them. They are not interlinked, but they are pointed at several posts on my blog. I hope this is helpful enough. If not, what kind of backlink/ other info do you need?

I've had plenty of sites that seemed to vanish for a few days, only to come back at the same spot or a little stronger. I wouldn't worry just yet.

Hey,
If you where using a PBN (P is for Public). Its a complete waste of time trying to drip feed links in to stay under any type of radar. Its a fast churn and burn, whack the links in rank, bank and tank. The shelflife of the average PBN is very short, so theres absolutely no point in thinking of any prospects long term.

If you are using a PBN (P is for Private). There is always the possibility that a competitor sniffed out the network and reported it. Leads to IBL devaluation or de-indexing of the network.

Cause 3 is that you said you where working your butt off for a month. So how long has this site been live? Seems hitting 250 UVpd is decent enough traffic, but would seem alot after only 30 days work, unless you found some really low comp high volume keyword wins.

Cause 4 could be what JS said.

Thanks Mr. Maguire. I suppose there is no harm in waiting, as nerve wrecking as it may be.

I find it strange that you mention other search engines have also dropped, maybe you were hacked and they redirect the traffic to your site? Basically shaving off some, but not all traffic?

It is very possible that is the cause. However if it's because of SEO then you were penalized by a recent algo update. Start by cleaning up your links.

I'd like to confirm whether my site was hacked or not, but cannot be certain. I have done the Sucuri scan and installed the wordfence plugin, but I've seen no sign of hacking so maybe I am in the clear in that regard. I just wish there was a way I could be certain.

I will examine my link profile and remove what I believe are the "weakest links." I'll do whatever it takes to get my site making money again. It took much time and effort to get to this point.

Are there any other suggestions? I am VERY thankful to all who have contributed to this point!

maybe you got some bad links coming in, you need to find out if there is any spammy links added to your site.

What previous SEO work and/or link building has been done for the website?

Hey, I just want to thank everyone who has participated in this thread. Too often while searching on the net do we see what I consider "uncompleted threads." Threads on forums that are FAR from being helpful or not followed up by the OP. This particular thread will not be the case, if I can help it.

Two weeks ago I lost MOST of my search engine traffic and was frantic in trying to figure out why. I went from thinking that my Wordpress site was hacked, to thinking I had a manual google penalty, to thinking I was experiencing THE Google Dance and everything else under the search engine sun, but alas, as I type this post, traffic on my domain is at pace to exceed previous highs! To maximize the resourcefulness of this thread I shall tell my experience.

First off, do yourself a favor and link your money site to GWT. This helped me out immensely as Google is being more open these days, alerting webmasters of manual penalties.


Secondly, fiverr dot com can be a great resource when seeking the right services. I paid a hacker to search my site to determine whether I was a victim of hacker attack and was cleared of that concern.

Because I had no manual webspam messages from the mighty G, I wasn't too concerned about being hindered by sites linking to me.

This left me thinking that Google sited me as a "thin affiliate site." My response?Nearly two weeks into my traffic drought, I started posting more unique and useful content. The first day I posted two articles, then the next day I posted a single article and half an hour later most rankings were restored and several rankings improved beyond prior first page highs.

Was the fact that I stopped posting content the reason my ranking dropped / collapsed? Was it the fact that ALL of my affiliate links were do follow? Was it the recent AND Top post widgets I activated that week? I do not work for Google so I cannot say with certainty, but what I believe from this experience is that Google loves unique content and I believe they wish most sites to aspire to become authority sites rather than a clump of sleazy reviews.

Other than rejoicing my good fortune, I hope that several years from now people reading this thread find this information insightful and helpful. Thanks guys, and good luck!

Just because you don't have an unnatural link warning doesn't mean your links aren't the reason for the drop.

Algo penalties don't show up in WMT, my guess is your backlinks are the issue.

Interesting. I had the same exact thing happen to one of my sites. Except rankings haven't been restored. I haven't posted content to the site in like 6 months, but have been doing SEO on it and its been ranking top 3 till this recent update where I lost 70% of my traffic.

I still have no idea what has caused the loss in rankings, but I might as well try posting some new content to see if that has any effect.

Also, I very much doubt that 1 link can destroy a sites rankings. Perhaps a 301 redirect from a penalized site could tank a site, but if its 1 regular backlink.... I doubt it.

Panda is quite aggressive and can tank you hard yes, but it's indeed easy to fix by adding more unique content and reducing affiliate links.