diberry - 10:31 pm on Nov 17, 2012 (gmt 0)

Just found something interesting today. Before Penguin, one of my sites had the #1 page for a phrase combining a specific word with a broad, popular keyword. Let's say "widget tutorials" (neither of these are the actual word). Then Penguin hit, and I fell a few notches, then a few more, down to page 3.

The page later got virtually de-indexed. It doesn't show up for "widget tutorials" anymore at all, not even in the omitted pages. I think this may be because for a while I had a link to a good page on a site I now recognize as heavily targeting a profitable keyphrase (d'oh!). I've removed that link, so hopefully that will get me back to at least page 3, but what's happening right now is really odd.

Today I got more creative in my searches for it and tried:

-- "my domain widget"

It came up #1.

-- "my domain widget tutorials"
-- "my domain widget tutorial"
-- "widget"

Nada - disappeared for the index on all three of those.

--"my domain tutorials"

The page in question ranks #2, behind one of my other popular "tutorial" pages.

So it's something like this:

--Page ranks nowhere, not even in the "omitted" sites for "widget" or "tutorial", but add "my domain" to either and suddenly I'm #1 or #2.
--But put all 4 words together, and I fall out of the index again.

Worth noting: the word "widget" doesn't appear on my other pages, but "tutorials" sure does. All the other "tutorial" pages are ranking just fine.

So what word or words are the issue here? Have any of you seen anything like this before? Any thoughts?