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I'm trying to determine right now whether it's been an issue of this particular post being the symptom of a broader discrimination against our site or whether there has been competition introduced for this page. All the peaks and valleys of the site's organic traffic are exactly the peaks and valleys of popularity for this post. Graphing other major (organic) landing pages for our site (the top three of which have much less traffic than this one stupid page) does not indicate that the other pages have been similarly affected — their popularity is far more undulating, and subject to far fewer crazy movements. So I'm pretty sure at this point that it's the one page.

And, yes, this particular blog post accounts for about 1/2 of our site's organic traffic. We've reduced the bounce rate on this blog post down to the low 80's, percentage wise, which I think is respectable for what the blog post is & it's relationship to the site and the site's purpose as a whole, which is commercial and not immensely related to the post's content.

I suppose that's a new question, isn't it? How much should we care about the fortunes of one page that has a high bounce rate? Obviously, we should reduce the bounce rate (and there are some things we haven't done yet to do that) but the nature of this particular post is just not a super strong match for the content and direction of our site. The bounce rate will always been fairly high, it's just the way it will always be. Yet it has so. much. traffic. Another site I work on has a similar page, similarly somewhat-tangential to the site's content: the "when to use spray foam insulation" page. Thus I always want to call these the "spray foam insulation pages."

I've got very little information about these backlinks since they precede my time, but I know that there was never any Google warnings about it. I think you're probably right, though — that the effect from the lousy backlinks is ongoing.

I graphed the decline in GA & found that the decline in traffic is exactly mirrored by the fortunes of this one ridiculously popular blog post. So while I continue to root around for confirmation for this, I'm guessing that this particular post has had found some new competition on the SERP. Yeesh.

I know dramatic losses in organic traffic is a common occurrence, but having looked through the archives I'm not sure that there's a recent case that replicates my situation. I've been working to increase the content on my company's website and to advise it on online marketing practices. To that end, in the past four months, I've created about 20% more pages — most of which are very high quality blog posts; adopted some rich snippets (though not all that I would like to see at this point); improved and increased internal links within the site; removed some "suspicious" pages as id'd by Moz that had a lot of links on it (although the content was actually genuine navigation); and I've also begun to guest blog. All of the blog content I've written has been connected to my G+ account, including most of the guest blogging.

And... our organic traffic is preciptiously declining. Across the board. I'm befuddled. I can see no warnings (redirects &c) that would explain this. We haven't changed the site structure much — I think the most invasive thing we did was optimize our title tags! So no URL changes, nothing.

Obviously, we're all questioning all the work I've done. It just seems like we've sunk SO much energy into "doing the right thing" to no effect (this site was slammed before for its shady backlink buying — though not from any direct penalty, just as a result of the Penguin update).

We noticed traffic taking a particular plunge at the beginning of June.

Can anyone offer insights? Very much appreciated.

As someone who worked as a professional journalist for almost fifteen years, I can attest to what an enormously widespread problem this is. I've heard of cases where individuals have had remarkable success simply by sending a cease and desist order to the offending company. I.e. the scare tactics work. There are some really great suggestions above, too, on how to accomplish this. Hope it works out!

Thanks for your help. What I find so weird about this, though, is that the vast majority of the information on the one site (whose backer is known) is not reviews, and only very subtly promotes their products (and then it'll be waayyy at the bottom of a page, for instance). And for the one with the impossible-to-figure-out sponsor, I can't figure out what the point is at all. Clearly it's not brand promotion in this latter case.

Proper, well-effectuated astroturfing (so that's what it's called!) makes sense to me, though it's obviously slimey. But, seriously, it took me a long time to begin to guess that either of these sites were corporately backed, and then longer to figure out who the backers were. It's so strange.

And, nope, definitely not interested in doing this myself. It's so much writing! So much energy! So little point! (Again, unless I'm missing something really major.)

I work for an e-retailer. I've noticed that at least one of our competitors (and, I think, a second as well) has set up a neutral "third party" website that attempts to provide unbiassed information about different manufacturer's products. Of course, their products always win out over the competitor in these comparisons.

But this one site (and another whose corporate backer I can't seem to figure out) is keyworded so poorly, and not branded at all. There are very few (if any) links to the corporate sponsor, or links, period. It's definitely not serving to have "Little Brand x" appear next to "Big Brand Y" in search results, either (again, really poorly keyworded). Other SEO seems really minimal.

What do you think their strategy is? Is it a dumb waste o' money or something really smart that I'm not picking up on?

Your insights most appreciated!

I work for an e-retailer. I've noticed that at least one of our competitors (and, I think, a second as well) has set up a neutral "third party" website that attempts to provide unbiassed information about different manufacturer's products. Of course, their products always win out over the competitor in these comparisons.

But this one site (and another whose corporate backer I can't seem to figure out) is keyworded so poorly, and not branded at all. There are very few (if any) links to the corporate sponsor, or links, period. It's definitely not serving to have "Little Brand x" appear next to "Big Brand Y" in search results, either (again, really poorly keyworded). Other SEO seems really minimal.

What do you think their strategy is? Is it a dumb waste o' money or something really smart that I'm not picking up on?

Your insights most appreciated!