Major drop in ranking - what would you do?

[johncrenshaw]

I'm all for blog comments, just use your real name only and be careful about any sites allowing a lot of spammy UGC links.

Yes, I'd disavow all those links and contact the site owners and kindly ask for them to be removed.

 

[JoshuaMackens]

From just skimming this post, it looks like a Penguin penalty. Please take my diagnosis lightly as skim is even a little more generous of a word than I should use for digesting the information provided here.

However, with that being said, if you have a ton of links with the exact same anchor text, that seems like the culprit.

You say your ranking tanked. Did it tank for just one keyword or keywords all around?

 

[JustinM]

@JoshuaMackens Honestly I don't track a tonne of keywords Joshua, but I know that I tanked for my top 3. My homepage is optimised for 'Vancouver wedding photography', and the exact match anchor text I left on one blog (which turned into a pile of sitewide links) was 'Vancouver wedding photographer'.

Linda pointed out that I am number one for 'Vancouver wedding photography market' though, which is interesting. Maybe I'm being penalised only for keywords that I've very obviously targeted...

 

[JoshuaMackens]

Sounds like the case and is probably Penguin based. Penguin slapped over optimized keywords and normally isn't a sitewide penalty from what I've seen and read, just a keyword based penalty. You need a natural anchor text profile. I recommend about 20% optimized, 40% branded, 40% website url, 20% unoptimized free terms (click here, etc). Some would say 20% optimized is even too high which I wouldn't necessarily argue with.

I would get those links removed and also look into creating new content to bolster your website.

 

[Weve Got Your Customers]

Hey Joshua, I think I read somewhere that having 120% is seen as unnatural and could cause the robots to self destruct

Sounds like the case and is probably Penguin based. Penguin slapped over optimized keywords and normally isn't a sitewide penalty from what I've seen and read, just a keyword based penalty. You need a natural anchor text profile. I recommend about 20% optimized, 40% branded, 40% website url, 20% unoptimized free terms (click here, etc). Some would say 20% optimized is even too high which I wouldn't necessarily argue with.

I would get those links removed and also look into creating new content to bolster your website.

 

[JustinM]

I just wanted to post a little update on this. I created a link disavow for the website that had tonnes of exact match keyword links (due to one blog comment) and sure enough my site has come back, somewhat. I'm page three for organic, and page 2 on map results.

Hopefully with a little bit of work I can get myself back to page one!

Thanks to everyone who contributed.

 

[JoshuaMackens]

Hey Joshua, I think I read somewhere that having 120% is seen as unnatural and could cause the robots to self destruct

Haha Good point.

20% optimized, 20% brand, 40% website, 20% unoptimized. Got mixed up

---------- Post Merged at 04:57 PM ---------- Previous Post was at 04:56 PM ----------

I just wanted to post a little update on this. I created a link disavow for the website that had tonnes of exact match keyword links (due to one blog comment) and sure enough my site has come back, somewhat. I'm page three for organic, and page 2 on map results.

Hopefully with a little bit of work I can get myself back to page one!

Thanks to everyone who contributed.

Glad to hear it!

I put in a disavow for one of our sites about 4 months ago and still haven't seen any results.