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Thanks Don! I'll look into that

Hi, we recently moved a PHP based site from one web developer to another (switched hosting providers as well).  Amidst the move our rankings drastically dropped and our citation and trust flow were literally cut in half as per Majestic SEO.  What could have caused this sudden drop?

Thanks for the replay Marc, that clears up my confusion.

I had chance to ask John Mueller (from Google) what to do about spammy backlinks and he automatically assumed I was up to no good.  I've never bought a crappy link in my life.  Previously hired SEOs and/or unscrupulous competition were likely the culprits.  We can take accountability for ignorantly hiring shady link builders but apologizing for being a victim of negative SEO is flat out ludicrous.

Great, thanks Gyorgy for the advice.

I've be tasked with figuring out how to recover our rankings as we are likely being hurt by an algorithmic penalty.  I have no idea if this was the workings of a previously hired SEO or the result of negative SEO, **how does Google differentiate between a site with bad/spammy link building practices from a victim of a negative SEO attack? **

Our site is likely suffering an algorithmic penalty from a high concentration of non-branded anchor text that I am painstakingly cleaning up currently.  Incremental clean-ups don't seem to be doing much. Google recommends I 'take a machete to them' and basically remove or disavow as much as possible, which I am now seriously considering as an option.

What do you guys recommend, should torch the earth (disavow all links with that anchor text) or keep it on life support (slowly and manually identify each bad link)?

Hi Vadim,

Thanks so much for the your time and for the great answer:) That clears up my confusion on sitelinks!

What are the best actions I can take to get our brand to show up on google with expanded site link?  Is there a schema markup for this?

Thanks Moosa, that makes perfect sense to me now

Hi Moosa,

Thanks so much for the reply to my question, that makes things a lot more clear for me.

What are some good ways you can suggest I request for natural-sounding anchor text?  Or should I just leave it up to the webmaster/blogger/writer who is linking to us?

Luckily I've built some decent relationships these influencers in my industry via networking and social media but I'm still very new to link building and SEO so I'm not sure how to approach these conversations without coming off as spammy. I feel like its awkward to ask anyone for a share/link/mention let alone asking for a specific anchor text.

Please share your thoughts if you have time, I greatly appreciate your opinion so far, means a lot that you took the time to help!

Syed Raza

Thanks for the replay Marc, that clears up my confusion.

I had chance to ask John Mueller (from Google) what to do about spammy backlinks and he automatically assumed I was up to no good.  I've never bought a crappy link in my life.  Previously hired SEOs and/or unscrupulous competition were likely the culprits.  We can take accountability for ignorantly hiring shady link builders but apologizing for being a victim of negative SEO is flat out ludicrous.