Top ranking then suddenly dropped to page 18

[cybotron]

Hi Guys,

I have had a no.1 position in google for a highly competitive term for about a day then suddenly it completly vanished from the SERPS.

If I search in the uk then its there but way down the ranking on page 18.

The website gets cached every 4-5 days which is pretty good so I dont think it has been banned by google. It also has new content uploaded every day and has good relevant back links. The main thing is that the keyword that I am targeting is in the domain name aswell.

I cant see where I have gone wrong

Can any one shed any light on this?

Thanks in advance.

[tedster]

This sounds like you may have crossed the threshold for a -950 penalty [webmasterworld.com], something that Google does for "over-optimization". Are you familiar with that?

[conor]

Have you garnered an un-natural amount of links recently?

[SEOPTI]

It may also have to do with the historical data patent (changed xx% of content or added xx% of content/new urls) which is causing a drop in ranking.

[cybotron]

Hi guys,

Thanks for the replies. I have jus read about the -950 penalty that google dishes out.

I have gained a few links over the last few weeks and also optimised the home page quite abit especially interms of keyword density where I have used the semantic approach rather than using the main keyword to a certain percentage (on my home page being 4% or there abouts.)

It does seem that I have been hit be this penalty.

Also all links that I have gained have been from a related source.

Where do I go from here? Shall I decrease the amount of links that I have and/or de-optimise my home page slightly.

Any help and assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance

Cybotron

[tedster]

used the semantic approach rather than using the main keyword

That is exactly the kind of thing that Google's phrase-based indexing system is on the look-out for. If you added more than just one new co-occurring term to your home page, I'd say you should back out of that change.

[gouri]

Hi Ted,

Can you please explain what co-occuring term means? Do you mean if your homepage is about "build red widgets" you should also not try to add "building red widgets?"

[cybotron]

Thanks tedster...I will try and use your advice and try and stick to optimising for just the one keyword rather than different variations of it.

Also my backlinks, do you think I will need to decrease the amount that I have?

Thanks again.

Cybotron

[tedster]

Do you mean if your homepage is about "build red widgets" you should also not try to add "building red widgets?"

Not exactly. Those are two different word forms that come from the same stem - and Google handles stemming in a different fashion. Co-occurence is about words that often appear on the same document- such as "apples" and "harvest", "juice", "orchard", "crop", "tree" - and also longer phrases.

Here's a thread that discusses co-occurrence and Google [webmasterworld.com], along with some other concepts in semantic indexing. There's a lot of information online about co-occurence that you can discover through a Google search. It's a standard term in information retrieval (IR).

Also my backlinks, do you think I will need to decrease the amount that I have?

If you have backlinks that Google can see are under your control, and especially if you have a lot of repetition of the keyword phrase in that anchor text, then it might be wise to give that situation a second look.

[edited by: tedster at 6:22 pm (utc) on Nov. 29, 2008]

[cybotron]

yes the backlinks have the same anchor text, is it wise to change the variation of these anchor texts? Leave some as they are for my main keyword and change the others to something related?

Thanks,

Cybotron

[rowtc2]

Deoptimise and use various anchor texts , not just one .

[potentialgeek]

Also all links that I have gained have been from a related source.

How related? Or related? How?

I don't see how it would be a 950 penalty from the data you provided. Be aware, though, of the Top SERP Curse. When you get to the top, you get a new algo that scrutinizes your site more than it ever did... it can find stuff it didn't bother to look for previously.

no.1 position in google for a highly competitive term for about a day.

Sites targeting highly competitive terms get extra scrutiny, too. There's a different algo for highly competitive terms.

I see a lot of dramatic differences or shuffling for competitive terms sometimes, and since you were only at the top for one day, you may have been lucky to be there in the first place, as opposed to unlucky to get knocked down several pages.

Keep in mind, too, that some in bound links now have a shorter shelf life. There isn't one fixed value for the link; it can peter out over time.

In other words, if Google determines that one link to your site is more of a Temporary Relevance Link, it could bump you to the top of SERPS for one day, but then lower its value, resulting in lower SERPs.

p/g

[cybotron]

Thanks for your advice guys...much appreciated

cybotron

[Erku]

Does anyone know how long the 950 penalty takes? What is the duration of the penalty?

[tedster]

The -950 penalty is indefinite in length, not tied to any particular amount of time. Either the website needs to change or sometimes Google re-calculates the threshold and that releases some who were penalized.

[Erku]

We are not sure if we are penalized or now, but what can you do to change the website to be released in the next crawl time? Are you released in the next crawl time? Any evidance?

How do you know if you are penalized? Do you loose only the home page in rankings or other pages too? For example

1. when you saearch the name of your site you are not the first result
2. when you search a keyword that you ranked higher, you lost the ranking, but your home page is still the first when you search for the name of your site.

But what can you do to change?

[tedster]

The -950 penalty does not affect a search on "example.com" although it might affect a search on "example" if example is an important keyword. If you lose first place on a search for "example.com" you have either a major loss of trust or a technical problem.

What to do? That's been the topic of a lot of discussion here. Some of the top-level ideas are this summary thread [webmasterworld.com] and then the details are in a two year loooong conversation, that's linked from that thread. Many penalty related topics, including the -950, are collected in the Hot Topics area [webmasterworld.com], which is always pinned to the top of this forum's index page.

[cybotron]

Hi guys,

Going back to my original question at the top, I think I have been hit by the -950 penalty for getting too many backlinks in a short space of time.

I have taken most of these backlinks out now, so should I see a rise in the serps or is google still going to penalise? I can still see alot of backlinks in google webmaster tools but I know this will take time to decrease.

Thanks in advance,

Cybotron

[Yoshimi]

Just going back to this point

I have had a no.1 position in google for a highly competitive term for about a day

If the #1 position was only there for a day it sounds more like the #1 was a glitch and the current position is the actual position of the iste. After all the yo-yo'ing we have seen Google do of late is it really likely that this is a penalty?

[cybotron]

Hi Yoshimi,

Yes, i agree with the yo-yoing recently but from my site being listed on page 8 on google before i got the backlinks, it has drastically fallen to page 34 for that highly competitive keyword.

Do you have any ideas?

Thanks,

Cybotron

[Yoshimi]

Sorry I'm a little confused, you said in your original post that you were on page 1 for one day, then went down to page 18, now you say that you were on page 8 and now on 34, let me see if I have the time line right

Page 8 (For how long?)
Page 1 - 1 day
page 18 - about 1 week
page 34 now

is that right? At what point did you add the back links?

ETA how old is the site?

[edited by: Yoshimi at 12:11 pm (utc) on Dec. 16, 2008]

[cybotron]

ok let me try and explain:

Page 8 - for about 6 months
Page 1 - 1 day
page 18 - about 1 week
page 34 - now

The site is 9 months old and without any backlinks the site was on page 8 for 6 months until I added backlinks. This was around mid november 2008 and then within a week the site jumped to the 1st page, #1 position. Then within another week it jumped back to page 18 and now its on page 34.

Hope this helps.

Thanks,

Cybotron

[Shaddows]

cybotron, sounds like the good old sandbox for the days of yore

Shaddows' honeymoon/sandbox theory-of-the-day:

Do you leave the honeymoon period and enter the sandbox after your backlink profile reaches a critical mass? Or just a coincidence for the OP?

[Yoshimi]

Yeah this doesn't sound like a penalty to me, I wonder how competitive the results are for this area, You would have to have had a lot of links added for them to have an effect like this, and if your site was p8 start the idea that G would put it up just to push it back doesn't seem right to me.

When you were sitting at p8 was your site cached, just the home page, no cache available? I'm leaning towards Shaddow's explanation TBH, rather than a penalty

[cybotron]

When the website was on page 8, the site was fully cached and new content that I am adding is also still getting cached.

Sorry for my lack of knowledge but what does 'OP' mean?

Thanks,

Cybotron

[Yoshimi]

opening post / original poster / opening poster. Basicaly the person who started the thread.