My website ranking has fallen the recently and I don't know why.

[camcamcz]

My website was number 1 or 2 on first page organically for "keyword + city" for the past 3 years and after the new penguin rolled out we suddenly dropped down to 5. I don't do black hat seo and another thing I noticed is a crappy site or 2 above me now. I just don't get it!

I write blog posts with unique content 1-3 times a week and do everything white hat, but I suddenly dropped and I don't know whats going on. Anyone have any advice? It's hurting my small business

 

[Linda Buquet]

There can be so many reasons for a rank drop and it may have nothing at all to do with any black and white animals. Timing could just be coincidence. The algo is constantly changing and new penalties roll out all the time.

One attorney I consulted for dropped from #3 to #26. There was a new penalty most folks didn't even know about. I spotted a link that I though could be the problem. Had him remove the link and 2 days later he popped back up to #3.

 

[camcamcz]

Thank you for the quick reply. I sent you a PM.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Sorry, please see this post about why I can't help everyone for free privately and only help for free on the forum where my efforts might help others as well.

NOTE: Limited Free Consulting from Linda

 

[camcamcz]

That is fair!

My website is Junk Removal Atlanta - Advance Junk Removal and my keyword I was talking about is junk removal Atlanta. My website is my pride and joy when I'm in the office. Well, I like to call my bedroom my office

 

[Eric Rohrback]

opensiteexplorer found a few questionable linking domains for your site. One of them is malware. I would check that out, because I have a feeling if you get rid of a few of the garbage links OSE found your rankings will shoot back up.

*.summerhost.info/ was one of the bad ones I found. There were a few others with somewhat thin content as well (looked like blog network link-building), so it's possible you got dinged for some of those links as well.

I looked at this real quick, so it's possible I missed something. Hope this helps to get the ball rolling for you.

 

[camcamcz]

opensiteexplorer found a few questionable linking domains for your site. One of them is malware. I would check that out, because I have a feeling if you get rid of a few of the garbage links OSE found your rankings will shoot back up.

*.summerhost.info/ was one of the bad ones I found. There were a few others with somewhat thin content as well (looked like blog network link-building), so it's possible you got dinged for some of those links as well.

I looked at this real quick, so it's possible I missed something. Hope this helps to get the ball rolling for you.

wow, thank you so much for taking the time to look at it. How would you suggest going about asking them to remove my link? I don't know why they have a link of my site on their page in the first place. This is horrible.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Moving to help and support since link was shared. Thanks for letting us look in more detail.

Question. Were you always in organic only, not blended local results? Do you only want to get back up in organic, or do you only want to rank in the local pack style listings?

The reason I ask is I think you may have some Place page problems.

And according to my calculations you are #4 in PURE organic. So if Google was showing a 7 pack instead of only 3 and if 1800gotjunk.com didn't have a double, you'd be #3 or #4 or so in the 7 pack which would put you up higher than you are now.

 

[camcamcz]

Thank you.

I was ranked high in organic.

I don't understand how I fell below this link: Atlanta Junk Removal .Com | $25 Budget Hauling Service | Ga Trash Appliance, TV, Furniture, Electronic, FREE Offers And More
I understand that their URL is basically the keyword but the page itself is all keyword stuffing with barely any content.

I'm assuming what the above poster said about the bad links might have gotten me to drop in rankings. I wish I can tell google that it isn't my fault that they linked to me, and I have no idea how to get my link off their site.

 

[Linda Buquet]

I don't deal with links at all and don't know much about it but I think that may be what the Google disavow link tool is for - bogus links you can't get rid of.

I'd research before using it though. Have seen pros and cons.

 

[Tony]

camcamcz, are you using google's webmaster tools? If so, you can see backlinks there and then utilize the disavow tool.

My own, quick look, opinion is that you probably weren't hit with a heavy penalty so much as the other guys just jumped you. Your rank is hardly indicative of a Penguin slap. If Google punishes you, it is usually more noticeable than a couple/few spots.

In related news, it looks like you have citations with two distinctly different addresses. Fix those, clean up any other off-site issues, and see what happens.

 

[camcamcz]

Ok, is it safe to use the disavow tool because I heard different opinions on that.

Also, the website that EsR said that had malware on it isn't even showing up under my links in google webmaster.

Some advice I heard was to wait it out for a few weeks because of a google dance?

 

[camcamcz]

Another thing, do you think the front page of my site is over optimized?

 

[Tony]

Another thing, do you think the front page of my site is over optimized?

That's probably a better exercise for you to learn by researching, understanding, and tweaking. As an observation, "junk removal" appears 21 times in your home page file, with 16 of those being as content.

 

[camcamcz]

That's probably a better exercise for you to learn by researching, understanding, and tweaking. As an observation, "junk removal" appears 21 times in your home page file, with 16 of those being as content.

Thank you Tony.

I went ahead and changed a couple of them to "junk hauling" instead of "junk removal" and deleted the unnecessary "junk removal" keywords because I personally think I had too many of them on the page. I hope google likes that!