Google punished my website ?

[qeo50000]

i think that google punished my website !
but how i can understand that its happen ?
in google webmaster wizard i see any things ..
but how i can be confident ?

[tedster]

If your Google Search traffic goes away, then you can be confident you have a problem. Work your way through each section of Webmaster Tools and check on what it says. Yes, sometimes the information is old or buggy, but if you hagve a problem then it's time to take it all seriously until you rule out something.

[Lorel]

If you don't see a problem via webmaster tools let us know why you think you are penalized and maybe we can help.

[qeo50000]

my traffic droped ...

[Godratious]

i have a similar problem, though mine is a bit confusing. i have almost doubled in traffic and referrals, however rankings for all my major keywords have dropped massively. The only thing i picked up is that there was quite a cut in half of pages indexed by Google. Can this be the reason for drop in rankings?

[tedster]

Hello Godratious, and welcome to the forums.

i have almost doubled in traffic and referrals, however rankings for all my major keywords have dropped massively

I'd say your traffic numbers mean more than whatever you might see on the rankings at amy one time. Search results can be different for different visitors, or at different times of the day -- but a visitor from Google search is a real data point. Rankings can be will-o-the-wisp.

my traffic droped ...

There are all kinds of complexities that can be behind traffic changes - up or down - and lower traffic does not necessarily indicate a penalty. You really need to drill into your traffic data and see what terms are now generating significantly different traffic and study your situation at this more granular level.

[qeo50000]

ok.this is last question:
Google exert penalty by auto robots or he do that with humans always?

[Godratious]

hi tedster

Thanks for the welcome

i know that searches and traffic are different points of reference, in this case i monitor both, using both webmaster as well as analytics. i do not rely on the one to determine the other in this case. What i need advice on is the number of indexed pages and ranking, as these have dropped significantly. I monitor both these on a two week basis at the very least...

[Quadrille]

Google exert penalty by auto robots or he do that with humans always?

Probably 99% of penalties are by the algorithm - if not more.

Even when a problem is identified that requires a penalty, it may wait until the algorithm can be updated to accommodate it.

[tez899]

Without seeing your site, for anyone to give you a real insight to whats happened is hard. I've dealt with one penalty in my four years of studying SEO and I hope i never come across one again aha. You'll find some helpful posts in the forum, but firstly you'll need to note down the characteristics of the 'punishment'.

[edited by: tedster at 3:50 am (utc) on Nov. 13, 2008]