Rank keeps decreasing - Is my site penalized

[Mjstout]

Hello,

I have run into a bit of a predicament. All of my search terms keep dropping on a monthly basis, even though I am adding quality guest posts every month. Even if I get a handful of articles on semi-popular sites my ranking still drop. I am wondering, is my site penalized?

My metrics also over exceed my rankings using both the Moz metrics and pagerank. I have a PR of 5 and domain rank of 50+ and I am still getting outranked on every term by people with lower metrics (PR 2 and DR of 30)

In the past I have done mostly article syndication through sites like ezinearticles and isnare, but that was about 5 years ago. I have also done a couple of the "pay $50 for 100 directory submissions" once but that was also about 5 years ago.

Has anyone experienced anything like this? Anyone have any advice? As you can probably tell I am getting really frustrated.

P.S. - This is happening for all pages on my website, not just particular pages. Is is possible to get a site wide penalty, and if so, what can be done about it?

[Mjstout]

Thanks for the responses. If there is a penalty, how is that penalty implemented? For example, does Google take a "fixed number" and subtract that from you, as in a -25 "point" one time penalty? Or do they limit the ceiling of your overall ranking?

The reason I ask is if it is a one time penalty then earning more links should gradually take the rankings back up. But that isn't the case with my site.

If it is an issue of google devaluing all links due to a penalty, then I will need to start to take action to remove those penalties.

[ZQBT]

Try analyzing website pages

• Improve user experience with design and content
• Add updated content

and back-link profile:

• See if there is any automated spam links
• Try to have branded anchor keyword

[dmccarthy]

sounds like you have been penalized by the panda and penguin algo updates. Checkout SEOMOZ White Board Friday videos on the these subjects.