Penguin Penalty?

[TP_Marketing]

The past 2 days, specific keywords Ive been ranking well for have disappeared. If I google specific with brand it still shows up.  So I havent been removed from the index. Is it possible that I was hit by penguin without any type of notice in the webmaster account? Organic traffic dropped substantialy in the past couple days without any warnings.

Any help greatly appreciated!

Thank You

[TP_Marketing]

Hi Marcus! I sent you a PM

Thanks!!

[Marcus_Miller]

There are three likely scenarios for this kind of plummet

1. Manual Penalty which comes with an email from Google in webmaster tools

2. Panda

3. Penguin

Penguin is unlikely, panda seems odd to have happened two days ago but based on how you describe the site, it seems the most likely of the options.

Hard to say much more without a link.

Marcus

[TP_Marketing]

If it were a link problem wouldnt google notify me via Webmaster Tools? I have a feeling it may be the content. It is a large ecom. site with custom up to 70,000 urls. I have been working on cutsom content on pages that will bring best ROI, should I be blocking the other pages that have "Default" content and only pull keywords? Could this cause the problem?

[nyanainc]

Hi, what about the content on your site? What about the links? Most possible Marcus have right and you got hit by the recent update...If you want to recover you will fins this very useful http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-wpmuorg-recovered-from-the-penguin-update

Thanks

[TP_Marketing]

Traffic was 2 days ago, lost alot of organic traffic. Only seeing my refferals now.

[Marcus_Miller]

Hey

Penguin is an algorithm and not a manual penalty so you will not get an email as such in Webmaster Tools letting you know anything but you can do some investigation yourself.

There has not been any chatter (or I have not seen any) regarding a Penguin update in the last few days so it may be something else entirely. As it happens, there was a panda update on the 18th I believe so if your traffic drop corresponds with that date then that could be your problem.

It's kind of tough to give advice without a URL and indication of just what keywords you are targeting but certainly, if you want drop those in I would be happy to give it a five minute once over if that helps?

If you want to do some digging into whether you have a penguin style link penalty this links are useful:

http://www.distilled.net/blog/seo/penguin-strategies/

Hope this helps and fire over a URL and will take a better look. 
Marcus