annej - 8:18 pm on Jan 20, 2007 (gmt 0)

Last night after trying to find why some of my pages are gone I suddenly realized it was probably related to those 950 penalty messages on WW so here I go. I have just a few pages missing so far but the fear that more will go motivates me to find the answer.

An individual page all but disappears for the most usual search term like 'ancient widgets' but if I pick something else from the page like 'brass widgets' even though brass widgets are a minor mention on the page it will rank in the first 2 or 3 pages. So it is as if the word 'ancient' is blocked but from that page only. In fact if you search 'ancient widgets' another page from my site will come up even though ancient widgets are only mentioned on that page. Also pages from other sites that have linked to my ancient widget page will come up in the first few pages of the serps.

So I think it might be a one word penalty on that page only. Since this wasn't happening earlier it could be an algo change. I'm wondering if it might be word density as in my topic it is often necessary to repeat the word frequently when writing an article. I have tried decreasing the word density on one page which made for some awkward writing. It is too early to see if it will solve the problem.

I don't think affiliate links are the answer as I have exactly the same affiliates on the pages that haven't plunged in the serps. Also I don't think it has anything to do with high-value key words as the words that are hurting my pages would only be of interest in my niche topic. My sites are not retail either. I have links from gov. and edu. sites as well so that is no protection. Also this penalty seems to have nothing to do with PR. The pages still have the same PR3 or 4 as they had before.

far more common among niche authority sites

If not more common on this kind of site the penalty is certainly hitting them.

seems to be repetition of keywords on page title and in headlines on page.

Hmm, there may be something to this. I added headings throughout my articles a while back so it would be easier for people who skim to see what the page is about or to find what especially interests them. The missing page I worked on a couple of days ago had the key word in every one of these. I took it out of all but one so we will see if it helped.

I need to go back and see how often I use the two words together like 'ancient widgets'. maybe it is the words in combination.

I agree with Andy. It's insane that people with informational sites that have been around for years now have to pick through individual pages to try to change them so they won't have this penalty. I've spent 3 days on this instead of writing an article that I've spend weeks researching. Does Google want unique and informative content added to the web or not? I'm just spouting off here. I think we are getting caught in an algo meant to catch scrapers but it's catching a lot more pages than that.