Rankings dropped off a cliff. Webmaster tools message: No manual spam actions found. Now what?
-
A week ago my rankings for http://www.top-10-dating-reviews.com (some adult content) dropped and I'm now getting now impressions. I submitted a reconsideration request as I was sure I hadn't violated any rules and today the reply was that no manual spam actions were found.
Te email goes onto say there are a variety of other things that could affect rankings such as site architecture, not being able to crawl and algo changes. As far as I'm aware all these issues are fine. I'm not aware of any algo updates last weekend.
my question is what can I do now? I need to get my rankings back but there's nothing wrong with my site or practices.
-
Thanks for your reply. I've done quite a lot of link building since the last OSE update so maybe when the next OSE update happens I'll get a better overview of my link profile and see where there could be problems. The only real strategy I've used though is guest blog posts on quality sites. I always run them through OSE to make sure they're authorative and have a good link profile. I've been careful to vary anchor text too.
The keywords I'm after aren't particularly difficult to rank for ( according to the keyword research tool on here they're in the 30% - 50% range) so I thought the amount of work I'd done and the ranking positions were about right.
I think I'll just keep building links I guess and try to keep building the site. I guess that's all I can do.
-
If the penalty is algorithmic, then it could be a penguin or unnatural links penalty. Alternatively, some of your links that were powering your site could have been devalued.
Just popped your site into OSE and it can only find 73 links. That isn't many at all, so one may argue that it was quite fortunate for your site to be ranking this highly to begin with. Looking at your who.is data, I can see the site is less than six months old - there is a "freshness" factor in the algorithm that will promote new content/sites to begin with - it could be that this factor has now worn off.
Having looked at your link profile, I can see that the majority of your links are directory links, with some article directory stuff in there like SelfGrowth. It's links like these that I imagine the algorithm would have devalued last week. Incidentally, yours is yet another site with alltop links that looks to have been devalued - I really think Google are going after these directories hard.
Now, just because you have been devalued doesn't mean you have been penalised - you wouldn't necessarily need to remove these links unless they formed unnatural anchor text, which really isn't the case with your site.
I feel for you mate because it's a very hard niche to do the normal inbound/content marketing for, as many people don't want that content on their sites, while other people just blast high PR paid links to their site to rank. My suggestion to you is to replace these directory links with new ones of a better quality, but in your particular circumstance, this is easier said then done.
Hope this helps a little bit - quite confident this is why your rankings have dropped, but getting them back might be a lot more difficult.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Why does some sites rank with no seo
Why is it that some site rank with zero efforts? I have been working on some seo for a while on my main site and i have been getting more info competition analysis with sem and moz. Looking at the states from this website which tends to popup often in the searches on page 1-2 before my site. This site is not keyword optimized, meaning they arent even trying to rank.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CooperStrzelecki
There is no content, articles etc.,
6 backlinks (nothing powerful just 2 directory links and 2 from developer)
Site really isnt even designed to get traffic as its a trade only ecommerce website
I doubt they are hiding anything as far as backlinks etc. as it will get them too many visitors they dont want
The city i am searching isnt even on the page (it is a city within a city so maybe google still relates it)
PA 24 DA 15 Now my site:
Optimized reasearched keywords
175 backlinks
All my main pages have content with images, alt tags, internal linking
full of content, blogs, videos, products (probably 4000, could a site being too big be an issue?)
Site gets regular updates
I probably have 200 citations
All the social media which gets done often
PA 32 DA 20 They do get a good bit of traffic but that is probably the only thing i would see but it would be direct traffic mostly i believe as it would be people going to order regularly since it is a print reseller. They may have some age on me 15 vs 8 years. Could it be some kind of penalty i am not sure about lingering? According to what i know to check everyything looks ok, no shady links accoding to sem. I am working more and more on all the pages but this competittion site really doesnt have crap going on probably 8 pages and 1 page does all the ordering. What the hell does google want from me exactly!0 -
Hammered by Spam links
When we moved from one host to another in Wordpress engine, we had this insertion weird redirect thing happen. We 410'd the page cgi-sys/movingpage.cgi, but it hit us hard in the anchors. If you go to ahrefs, we are literally all Asian in anchors text. Anybody have any suggestions, thank goodness it looks like it finally stopped. I am looking for creative ways to repopulate our back end with the right stuff. Any thoughts would be great! Heres a example: allartalocaltours.com/tumi-tote-401.html ↳customerbloom.com/cgi-sys/movingpage.cgi ↳www.customerbloom.com/cgi-sys/movingpage.cgi ↳lockwww.customerbloom.com/cgi-sys/movingpage.cgi
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mattguitar990 -
Why Is Google Webmaster Tools Pulling Zero Keyword Data?
I just linked a Google Webmaster Tools account to Google Analytics for a client, and Search Engine Optimization reports are showing up in Google Analytics as enabled, but there is zero keyword data, landing page data, etc., in the reports themselves. Has anyone encountered this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | yoursearchteam0 -
How to do geo targeting for domain and sub directories in Webmaster tool?
Hello All, How can i do geo targeting in multiple countries on my ** root domain and sub **directories in Webmaster tool. My domain is "abc.com" and i want to target three countries UAE , Kuwait, Saudi arabia. So, Can i assign geo targeting in Webmaster tool , Root domain for UAE country and make other two sub directories for Kuwait and saudi ? abc.com - UAE (geo targeting) abc.com/kw - Kuwait (geo targeting) abc.com/sa - Saudi (geo targeting) Or Root doamain should be not assign for any country and Make three sub directories for UAE, Kuwait , and saudi and targeting them there geo locations. abc.com - Unlisted (geo targeting) abc.com/uae/ - UAE (geo targeting) abc.com/kw/ - Kuwait (geo targeting) abc.com/sa/ - Saudi (geo targeting)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | rahul110 -
How many links would you need to rank up in page rank?
White hat **** Can 20 website with page rank of 3 make your site rank higher?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | spidersite0 -
Rankings Issue
Hey guys, and gals, So our site http://www.motorcyclecenter.com/ is having the hardest time ranking in the big G. We've built links, optimized, and all the other basics. If you guys have a chance, could you take a glance, and tell us what you think, as to why this site is having such a hard time. Much appreciated!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | leatherupseo0 -
Pages that were ranking now are not?
Hi Folks Noticed something strange just now pages that were ranking on position 10 on Google for searches such as 'ufc trainer kinect best price' at the start of this week are no longer ranking? Is what has happened to the site the famous google dance or sandbox effect as the site only officially went live on Monday If this is the case what is the recommended course of action to get back ranking competitively again? as I have no idea on what has gone wrong as I has always tried to follow best practice from these forums and the SEOMOZ and YOUMOZ articles My site is www.cheapfindergames.com Many Thanks Ian
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ocelot0 -
My ranking on some keywords is getting better . Now what about geography!
Hi, I finally got a better result on my ranking on specific keyword. Now, here is what I need to do. Just to place you in context, we have acquired 2 companies in Europe since last year ( One in the UK and one in France ) and our head office is in North America. Since our servers are located in NA, I realize the ranking will be better here on specific keywords than it is in the UK and France. I actually managed to get on the first page on google North America, but I am till very var in ranking in France and the UK. Where should I start to get a worldwide ranking ? I could start on the 2 geography mentionned but is there a strategy to get ranked worldwide ? Any help would be appreciated. Best regards,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | processia0