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By that, I mean that does Google just devalue spammy links, or does it devalue the links and penalize your site on top of it?

Does it hit specific keywords, or does it have effects site wide?

Does penguin run constantly, or only on specific days?

If spammy links are removed, how long does it take to recover?

One of customers provides IT Support for a municipality. The municipality's website (1000+ pages) has a footer link with the anchor text "IT Support" linking to our customer's site. The link is there for employees to get help. In mid summer, our customer's rankings tanked for "IT Support". It looks like a hit by Penguin. The question is, could removing the links bring the rankings back? Does Google's penguin algorithm penalize you for the footer links, or are they simply de-valued? Should we pull them down or no-follow them? If they aren't truly hurting their rankings, we would just leave them

EGOL:

If Google decides to drop your rankings instead of sandboxing your site, do they send you a warning?

I have a customer, a Psychologist, who put up +/-20 websites many years ago. He has 1 main site (with his name as the domain) with hundreds of pages of quality content. The other sites are all exact match domains - anxiety counseling, couples counseling, etc. Some are single page sites, others have a good amount of quality content. Many of the EMD sites were getting ranked on the first page, as was the main site. The money site was ranking on the first page for the best keywords

All of the EMD pages linked back to the main site, many with site wide footer links. The main site did not link back. All of the sites are on the same IP address. These sites have been in place for years. I don't believe that he has a duplicate content problem.

About 8 weeks ago, the rankings for the main site crashed, moving 10 or more SERP pages deep. The EMD sites are still ranking. He has not gotten any nasty-grams from Google in Webmaster Tools.

The Psychologist relies exclusively on organic for his business, and it has taken a significant hit.

1. Has anyone else seen this happen?

2. Is it safe to assume that Google finally nailed him for using a linking scheme?

3. How can we unwind this? The other sites are still generating business, and if those go away, he is really screwed.

4. Will taking down all of the links from the other sites be enough? Would moving the money site to another hosting company on a different IP make a difference? Ideas?

I think the white hat answer would be to take down the EMD sites, and 301 redirect to the main site. The problem is that the loss of business from this process could be catastrophic.

We are looking for a solution that will allow us to create attractive and effective PPC landing pages with WordPress. We need to be able to easily create multiple pages with no navigation. Any Suggestions?

I have 2 questions:

1. To check keyword rankings with firefox, i am choosing:

Tools>Options>Privacy>"clear all current history"

Timerange to clear: Everything

Check Boxes: Browsing and download history, form and search history, cookies, cache, active logins

Is there anything else I need to be doing?

2. Search results in my Niche are heavily localized. Is there any way to check rankings in another area? Ex: By default, our rankings are for Northeast NJ. Is there any way to check Baltimore, for example?

I don't want to give details, but a competitor's site ranks ahead of us by a spot or 2 for some of our major keywords, and we can't figure out why. We have more content indexed, we have better content (my opinion), we're better optimized, we have significantly better MozRank and Majestic rankings, we have more links, we have better links. They have a plain Jane Wordpress blog, and their pages don't even have 300 characters. They don't have any awesome links.  There are plenty of other sites besides ours that should outrank them.

When I am using the various tools at my disposal, I can see why a competitor outranks us. I'm not obsessing, but this one, I just don't understand.

Has anyone had this experience?

Great Answer Linda - Your Article was awesome! One of the best I've read in a long time. It really cleared up a lot.

Based on my "expert" assessment, we are much stronger than the top listing in the 7 Pack. So at some point, according to your research, we should hit that top spot.

Our niche is a little different than the typical 7 pack. We have a large service area essentially a 90 mile radius, and growing. What is fascinating is how our rankings change depending on where I'm connected. We are in northern NJ, not a large geography. Some areas don't pop 7 packs at all for the same keywords. Looking at the rankings in our Niche for keywords that don't pop a 7 Pack, the results mix is actually similar to the 7 pack. There are some locals, some articles, and some nationals. For one of my treasured keywords, (non-7 Pack) my ranking at home is #4, and my ranking at the office (35 miles away) is #134. (I've checked and double checked...) Bizarre.

What was really interesting is that for a few days (about 60 days ago), the 7 Packs were all over my keywords, and then many of the 7 packs disappeared. Google must have been testing something.

Your AOL trick is the answer to my biggest frustration. My rankings reports vary wildly based on where I sit. AOL clears that up.The only real way to control rankings is to be 1-2 in AOL. Who knew?

Thanks for your response!

Can you tell me why?

Some of our generic, non localized keywords (ex: "Information technology services") are triggering Google+ 7 Pack listings with local results. We are ranking on the first page for those keywords in organic. The companies listed in the 7 packs have worse link profiles, mediocre SEO fundamentals, fewer citations, and no +s or reviews. Our Google+ page has been up for a few weeks, and we added content: images, videos, a detailed profile, and articles. Our competitors have nothing but a blank site. We did our research, and we also built well-optimized pages for each of the keywords that triggers a 7 Pack.

Assuming Google decides we deserve to be there, how long should it take for Google to place us in the 7 Packs?

Our vertical is a little different - IT Support - the 7 packs are localized within a 40 mile radius, and the organic SERPs are a mix of regional and national (ex: IBM) players. Are the results totally geocentric?

Does it pay to build legitimate backlinks to our Google+ page or link there from content on our corporate site?

One of customers provides IT Support for a municipality. The municipality's website (1000+ pages) has a footer link with the anchor text "IT Support" linking to our customer's site. The link is there for employees to get help. In mid summer, our customer's rankings tanked for "IT Support". It looks like a hit by Penguin. The question is, could removing the links bring the rankings back? Does Google's penguin algorithm penalize you for the footer links, or are they simply de-valued? Should we pull them down or no-follow them? If they aren't truly hurting their rankings, we would just leave them

We are looking for a solution that will allow us to create attractive and effective PPC landing pages with WordPress. We need to be able to easily create multiple pages with no navigation. Any Suggestions?