Sudden drop in rankings

[Katja123]

Hi there,

I've been working on this site for three or four months (it was a brand new site), and we were seeing some really great improvements in rankings. I've concentrated on writing lots of good quality content and building a network of links through blogging and social networks.

Then, last weekend (6th October), we got completely wiped off of the results. We went from rankings 2,3 and 4 for our target terms to not being in the top 100.

I assumed we'd been given a penalty from Google as we'd been SEOing too hard and removed a reciprocal links page we had and asked Google to reconsider. I just got a message back saying there hasn't been any manual penalty, so it's just down to the algorithm.

I'm running am SEOMoz analysis, but so far it's just coming up with things like page titles too long and too many links on pages, which I can fix, but don't seem like something that would completely destroy us so abruptly.

I think we really have the most and best content on the subject of becoming a model, which has taken a great deal of effort to put tgether, so this is crushing. If anybody can shed any light, I'll be extremely grateful, and I'd be interested to knwo if anyone else has experienced anything similar.

Thanks in advance!

URL: www.modellingadvice. info

Kat

[AdamThompson]

I will add my two cents to whatever Irving will answer, while I'm here.

It is possible to get out from under a penalty, but it is difficult and usually takes quite awhile. This is especially true when the penalty is related to backlinks, as it is difficult to remove backlinks to your site. There is certainly merit to Irving's suggestion to simply start over with a new domain.

It is typical for drops from a penalty to be immediate and abrupt.

I will also mention that I disagree with Irving's suggestion to "never point to the homepage". I understand why he is suggesting that, but a website with no links to the homepage doesn't look very natural to Google. Also, there are many instances where you'll have to link to the homepage, such as if you are submitting to a high quality directory. I would just say to be very careful, and don't build links you might need to delete later.

To be honest, I think you will find it nearly impossible to build really good quality links as long as the site has that thing that looks like a squeeze page across the top. Very few  high quality websites will want to link to a site where the real content is buried underneath an aggressive "sell" like that.

[Katja123]

Hi Irving,

Many thanks for your comments. Are you saying that even if I fix the over optimisation of the site (which I'm doing now) this domain will always be penalised?

The thing I'm most confused about is how abrupt the drop was, pretty much overnight.

Kat

[irvingw]

You killed the site with bad linking and over optimization. Fix the over optimization on the site, then deindex www.modellingadvice. info and buy a new domain and start over. Get a .com and not .info since .info domains have been primarily used as spam sites.

Don't engage in link building on the new site, allow it to gain some trust. Read up on link building before you do it, and never point to the homepage unless you are prepared to go to all the webmasters and get your links removed if penalized.

[Katja123]

Many thanks Sergio, I'll read these articles as well.

[sergio_redondo]

Hi Kat,

Unfortunately, I agree with Adam. The website has been clearly penalized, due to wrong SEO performance. I'm not going to give you a list of things to do, but you can consult these two excellent posts by Jason Acidre, where you can find a lot of good recommendations.

Anti-Penguin Link Building Plan

20 SEO Strategies for Sites Affected By Google Panda

I hope to be helpful.

Sergio

[Katja123]

Thank you Maurizio, I appreciate your input.

[Katja123]

Thank you Adam,

This is really useful - I'll get on it, and hopefully Google will start to like us again!

Kat

[AdamThompson]

Hi Kat,

I would continue to educate the client on why having the site setup like that is a huge barrier to success.

Here are some resources on building links that won't get bitten by Penguin:

http://www.searchenginejournal.com/anchor-text-optimization-case-study-whats-natural/43404/

http://www.searchenginejournal.com/post-penguin-seo-link-building-the-naked-url-truth/46936/

http://www.searchenginejournal.com/10-types-of-unnatural-link-building-tactics-10-quality-alternatives/44287/

Hope that helps!

~Adam

[malecce]

Hi

without evaluating your back link I went to see your home page.

i think that you must change something and  for this can help you Semoz Tools , On page in your campaign.

First your Title seems a Keyword tag

Second, the description is too long , max 150-160 characters

Third, in the tag keywords , the words are separately by comma and newlines, if you want inset keywords just put commas but Remember that Google does not consider the tag Keywords.

Ciao

Maurizio

[Katja123]

Hi Adam,

Many thanks for your reply. I'll make the changes you suggest - reducing the occurances of the keywords in title, links and in general.

I can't remove the call to action from that position because the client is insisting on it.

I'm not sure what to do about the backlinks - do you have any suggestions?

Do you think if I make those changes, we might recover our previous rankings? I really was trying to have good quality content at the core of my campaign, and am gutted to feel penalised like this without really knowing what I've done wrong.

However, I want to do things right, and make sure the SEO is solid and future proof!

Thanks again.

Kat

[AdamThompson]

Hi Kat,

You may have been hit in the Penguin update on Oct 5th.

1. Your site is definitely way "over-optimized" or keyword stuffed. The keyword "Modelling" appears 77 times on your homepage, plus 4 times in the page title. Your internal links structure is also keyword stuffed.

2. Having the page content under the huge big call to action and form on top of the site is not good for users or search engine rankings.

3. A quick check of your backlinks shows they are mostly keyword anchor text links from directories and other lower quality sources.

To be honest, it looks to me like you're headed in the wrong direction SEO-wise and have likely been hit by one or more algorithmic penalties.

Sorry to be so negative.

Hope this helps!

~Adam