A "keyword-level" penalties?

[valentinb13]

I know this is theoretically possible, but have you ever seen a "keyword-level" penalty and importantly, if you did, how would you try to recover from it?

Client has completely disappeared from SERPs for "pest control" — prior to the Nov algorithm update they were at #2 relatively consistently (tools would show them drop out for a day but then consistently come back) — since early November they cannot be found for the keyword "pest control" but this is not the case for other keywords, including other variations of "pest control" (e.g., "pest control + city"). Prior to the updates we have not done any major changes, edits, etc...I don't believe there's a keyword stuffing issue, etc...but it's just mind-boggling and I can't really figure out what to do moving forward.

Example of pest control keywords:

Pest control specific recent history:

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Have you confirmed that it's not a filtering issue? The local filter can impact specific keywords and not others.

 

[valentinb13]

Have you confirmed that it's not a filtering issue? The local filter can impact specific keywords and not others.

Does the filter affect organic SERPs? I always thought the filter affects just the local pack and they're not being affected in the maps/local pack.

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Thought you were referring to the local pack. My bad.

 

[rgblocal]

Who goes up when you go down? Google has been rolling out changes the last months.

 

[valentinb13]

Who goes up when you go down? Google has been rolling out changes the last months.

In the past a competitor slightly below us would pop up — also national companies like Orkin and Terminix would rank higher. In some cases a directory site would show up in the SERP on page 1. The thing is it's not that we've dropped some spots. We're not in the results at all. If you go to 100 you do not see them — but only on this keyword. Other related keywords (such as "pest control city" they still rank fine. It's as if they have been taken out of the index only when "pest control" is the keyword.