One Keyword Penalty

[nezona]

Hi There,

Quick question for everyone. Is it possible to get penalized a keyword level not page level. I have a site that only seems to be penalized on one keyword which is currently at page 22, whilst the rest are on page 1 or page 2.

I came to the site late so I have no idea when the site lost its ranking for this keyword after a site redesign but the onpage is almost the same.

Kind Regards

Neil

[David_ODonnell]

I've seen keyword specific penalties applied when people have been overzealous in linking with specific link text too often. Lesson: vary your link text.

[ThompsonPaul]

Yes, it's absolutely possible to lose rankings on specific keywords while other keywords continue to do well.

I have a client who lost massive rankings and impressions for a couple of specific head terms as a result of the Penguin update, but other very closely related longer tail version of the same phrase actually improved.  This is basically a case of the algorithm determining that a site may not have appropriate content for the broader, more general term. Is the term that is at 22 a shorter, more general keyword phrase?

Keep in mind that these are not "penalties" unless you have received a warning in Google Webmaster Tools. These are just overall algorithm adjustments that have affected you specifically.

As always, the important concern here is not so much with rankings, it's with conversion. Have you assessed whether the term that dropped was actually bringing significant conversions? If it was, you'll want to work on some new content and link-building to try to get some of that traffic back. If it wasn't, then the traffic didn't have much value anyway and the issue can be ignored.

Rankings and traffic only indicate potential value - only conversions can determine true value.

Paul