Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
I have a relatively new website (2 months old). During the last two weeks I tried to get inbound links from web directories.
Everething was going fine. The site's position in google SERPs was rising.
My target keywords were not very competitive.
After I started to submit my site to directories I got inbound links from 45 directories during 1 week.
My problem was that I used the same anchor text and description while submitting to directories. The description contained my target keywords.
Several days ago my site got 20th position in SERPs for some of the keywords and the next day it disapeared from SERPs!
It still ranks #1 for it's unique name.
It still ranks in top 10 for 6 unique terms from it's Title Tag.
It disapeared from SERPs completely for any of the target keywords.
I suppose Google interpreted all those links from directories as spam and flagged my site somehow because the link texts was the same and they were added in several days.
I want to ask your opinions on how to revert things back.
I'm planning to change anchor texts and descriptions in website directories and write a unique test for each directory. Will it help?
Will google change it's opinion about my site if I do so?
What is the way to revert my site to SERPs for the keywords I target?
Perhaps you were caught in a filter courtesy of the many links with identical anchor text, but maybe some of the "directories" themselves did damage. There were 45 at once - I take it they weren't all Y or ODP calibre.
For reverting it: Take a good look at each of the "directories". If possible, have your site removed from any that seem dodgy. And next time you go looking for links, avoid "directories" - most of them exist for no other reason than to scoop traffic from legitimate websites, and the SE's are on to their game.
There's also the chance that it had nothing to do with the directories, and you just benefited from freshness at first.
<added>Sorry, man - just noticed it was your first post. Welcome to WW.</added>
[edited by: Stefan at 1:49 am (utc) on Oct. 5, 2007]
Finding it hard to understand why a penalty is necessary for this. Discount such links sure but a penalty? I just don't see a need for a penalty.
I can understand that ranking because of 45 directory links (all at once or whatever) then later those being discounted appearing as a penalty but to penalize a new site that was ranking because of submitting to those directories?...naw that is dumb.
That would leave the door wide open for anyone to knock out new competition simply by submitting the site/pages to a bunch of directories/scrapers/link lists/etc. at once creating a penalty, possibly hurting short term or long term trust, and hindering "natural" backlinks occurring from serp traffic as well. See a new page/site pop into the serps...submit and be rid of em...it's spam just the same.
If Google can see unnatural link building activity (paid links, links trades, submitting to directories, etc.) and penalize they sure as heck can just give zero benefit from such link activities. This to would allow webmasters promote their site as they wish gathering links as they wish rather than "oops you passed our unknown by you threshold for X ammount of links in Y amount of time, or so many links containing certain kinds/amounts of anchor text, or links from this site and that site so we will condemn your site to the google penitentiary for Z amount of time." Heck just as easy to "no benefit" and move on.
How long did it take to rank where you did. Did take some time and links or was it immediate? (Newness of site can have good short term rankings but disappear after a month or two).
How many links you have before you submitted to the directories? Are they still there? Any more show up you didn't seek out?
Has the anchor text changed at all from those sites linking to you? Do you link back? Did those sites feature yours on a high level page and move it further down into the structure (as in linked from a front page article and filed a few clicks into the site)?
Were any links purchased?
Were any previous links directories also? (Could be a "no benefit" from the new directories you submitted to and previous directory links being discounted as well)
If you have multiple pages:
Was you whole site indexed to begin with? Are all the pages that were indexed still there? Are any now supplemental?
Does any other page that is indexed rank in the top 1000 for 2-3 keyword phrase not being targeted but found on that page? Try no quotes and with quotes. Try targeted phrases for other pages.
Do you have each of your pages target different keywords or are they targeting the same?
Also:
Did you tweak any of your pages with your targeted keywords/phrase recently? Any internal anchor text changes?
OK... what is a normal building activity for a new website then? I think just opposite - you start a new website, you start promoting it all over the place, incl. all possible one way links from directories. That seems to me a logical steps to be taken. Moreover, GG should not penalise inbound links as you can not have 100% control on all of them. Hurting your competition would be so easy then (e.g. get 1000+ links from low quality directories with identical KW and description pointing back to them within a week).
In my personal opinion there could be something wrong at a different place. Did you link back to those directories? If so, and some of those 45 directories are considered a low value at GG's eyes, that could be the reason for getting out of index.
So, recheck, clean and control whom do you link to.
Penalty, huh...?
Whee... this is perfectly normal after getting too much of the same stuff, so early and in such a short timeframe. Don't panic, you just need to normalize your link profile.
...
Either modify some of the anchor text or get more links with new vairety. The targeted phrase shouldn't appear more than like... 25-30% of the time, also use different word order, some additional words before or after your keyphrase, plural, singular, whatever variations that make sense.
Altho you should avoid relying only on directories.
They're good for refining existing relevance but...
them making a new site relevant for competitive stuff is highly unlikely.
And only consider those which you'd see visitors from... no matter how few.
If you're in doubt whether you've just submitted stuff to the wrong places...
take your time to go back, and check if they have a cache in Google.
If the pages don't, check their index.
If those don't either, get yourself outta there.
...
Not sure what kind of an area you're trying to compete in, but if there are any good sites you might want to get a few links from them as well... even if they're competitors. Any informative sites? Hobby sites? Media coverage?
...
Google says that legitimate sites attract back links slowly.
if you read carefully..."45 directories during 1 week"
The homepage should rank higher than others for the same keywords as it did before.
Any suggestions on how to revert the homepage to the place it should be in SERPs?
[edited by: Smark at 1:52 pm (utc) on Oct. 5, 2007]
It still ranks in top 10 for 6 unique terms from it's Title Tag.
It disapeared from SERPs completely for any of the target keywords.
So you are targeting some keywords that are not in the title tag? That's difficult to achieve, especially on a new site.
Plus you've got 6 unique terms in one title tag and then there are other terms on the page that you want this url to rank for? Getting a new site into the top ten for 6 unique terms is already a good result. Building out some more pages is a much better way to go for targeting a variety of search terms.
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I'd say what you're seeing has more to do with the newness of your site (the end of the "honeymoon effect" or "baby bounce") than it does with the issues you are fearing. It's also possible that Google just now put a PR block on those free directory pages so they are no longer helping you - Google has been doing that in recent weeks. But even if that is what happened, it's still not a penalty.
Be very careful of jumping to a quick analysis - just because a change in ranking happened "after" you did something doesn't mean it happened "because" of your action.
Finaly, it was a real penalty!
[edited by: Smark at 11:13 am (utc) on Oct. 9, 2007]
And I also agree that we are here to learn. Not everyone is an expert with SEO. I myself is trying to read as much as I can with regards to SEO. The problem is what informations to trust. There are so many information that leads to further confusion.
