Google penalty for one keyword?
-
Is it possible to get penalized by Google for a specific keyword and essentially disappear from the SERPs for that keyword but keep position for the brand (#1) and some other keywords (#4 and #7)? And how would you find out that this is what happened if there is no GWT message?
-
Thanks, you two. Lucky you were able to identify the cause and work to repair. It doesn't seem to be an exact match anchor text problem for us and nothing with a site mixup. I am happy for you!
I have investigated a lot, and I am still irked at not knowing what happened so I can remedy.
We have lost a lot of potential business and calls from this. We are local and it's the main local terms we've lost position for.
I am focusing on doing the recommended stuff now and its been great. I pulled back on the on-page optimizing. I am reading, learning, participating, content building, content marketing, local, social etc. but still occasionally still trying to figure out what happened so that hopefully, I can get us back for those critical keywords.
Still looking for more info, please.
-
I have experienced the same situation with specific keywords where there were too many external exact match anchor text links. Removing these links where possible is slowly fixing the problem.
-
I have experienced it personally, on one ofmy sites, it dropped ranking for one keyword and still maintained for others.
There wasnt any message in GWT, the reason was that two of my sites were on same hosting server and some how one site had its all home page mixed up with in other website pages. It was something like hidden text. Now the issue is resolved and ranking is coming back.
Another possibility could be too much exact match anchor text links. There will be i guess an algorithmic penality for this and your keyword along with traffic will be dropped.
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
-
Have you ever changed the logo anchor text from "logo" to "keyword"? How Google considers?
Hi all, We know that generally logo with the website homepage link is the first link crawled by Google and other search engines. Can we change the anchor text from "logo" to "keyword"? Have any one tried or seen others doing? How Google considers it? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz1 -
What Ranking Factors Impact Google News Visibility?
I'm just at the beginning of a new analysis involving Google News visibility and ranking factors, and thought I could put the project out to you, dear SEO geniuses, to get your ideas and perspectives. Backgrounder: My company operates over 50 niche, disease-specific daily news sites, covering science, research and advocacy news about specific diseases. Virtually all of them are in Google News. They range in age from 3 years old to 3 months old. Varying degrees of page rank / authority Content on the site is completely niche to specific diseases, and we have a lot of sites for rare and orphan diseases. Most of the content is news, but we also have info/resources pages, blogs, and some short-form posts made for use in social media. The Project: I want to do an analysis of keywords in our news headlines and see how certain keywords correlate with articles that do well -- both in terms of search traffic and overall with users. Going to use our Multiple Sclerosis News Today website. Most of our search traffic comes from Google News. What I hope to gain: I'm curious to see if certain sets of keywords that relate to the disease, to therapies, etc. drive the most traffic. I want to compare these keyword lists to how well we rank in organic search for the same keywords (via news articles or info pages) to see if there is a connection. I want to also create a working keyword list of the best-performing keywords in the news as a way of cross-pollinating content production on our blogs, info pages, social content, etc. I want to increase my knowledge base of ranking factors specific for Google News. The last point is really something I wish I knew more about. I feel like there aren't many knowledge resources out there about Google News. Is it safe to assume that the same on-site and off-site SEO best practices that govern organic search engine visibility are at play in Google News, or are there independent factors as well? I'd love to get your thoughts. Thanks!
Algorithm Updates | | Michael_Nace0 -
Missing Keywords in Google SERP
We just got this attached image from one of our partners - has anyone seen Google putting 'missing' keywords in SERPs like this before? They said that it was not a plugin or anything and this is a screenshot of their organic search results. google%20screenshot_zpsgmwaf9e2.png
Algorithm Updates | | ReunionMarketing0 -
If Google Trends Doubles?
If google shows a search trend doubling in a time frame, does that mean the amount of searches doubled? As in: 2006 was ranked at a 50 on trends and the 100 is 2013 and in 2013 10,000 searches were made, does that mean around 5,000 searches were made in 2006?
Algorithm Updates | | JoshBowers20120 -
7 Pack Google Serps?
What is the best way to get into the 7 pack of google serps? I have a site that ranked well before this changed but not was pushed back to page 2. I have Unique content and I currently have provided my info to all the standard local sites, like Yelp, Manta, Local.com and others. I already have a Google Local page and I also have links from local sites. What else can be done?
Algorithm Updates | | bronxpad0 -
Classifieds and Google Panda
It seems Google's Panda update is targetting low quality sites with little unique content (I know there's more to it than that). It makes sense that they may want to do this but what about classified sites. They may use some scraped content as well as unique ads, and the ads may lack content as they rely on the users writing the ads. However, they are helpful to the people that use classifieds. Because of these factors, these sites are suffering with the release of the latest Panda update. Any advice for classified sites and how they can combat the rankings drops???
Algorithm Updates | | Sayers0 -
Google changing case of URLs in SERPs?
Noticed some strange behavior over the last week or so regarding our SERPs and I haven't been able to find anything on the web about what might be happening. Over the past two weeks, I've been seeing our URLs slowly change from upper case to lower case in the SERPs. Our URLs are usually /Blue-Fuzzy-Widgets.htm but Google has slowly been switching them to /blue-fuzzy-widgets.htm. There has been no change in our actual rankings nor has it happened to anyone else in the space. We're quite dumbfounded as to why Google would choose to serve the lower case URL. To be clear, we do not build links to these lower case URLs, only the upper. Any ideas what might be happening here?
Algorithm Updates | | Natitude0 -
Anyone have stats on numbers of Google users searching while logged in?
In light of Google's recent "social search update", I am curious to know how many Google users perform searches while logged into their Google account thereby showing "social results".
Algorithm Updates | | Gyi0