Ranking well in 'from country' results but not 'search the web'

[troyid]

Last May my site lost rankings for a lot of keyword phrases. I believed I was suffering from the -950 penalty and have since tried tons of onsite de-optimization things.

I discovered something today which has triggered me to write this post.

When searching at google.ca and I have 'search the web' checked my site can't be found in the serps, but then if I do the same search with 'pages from Canada' checked then my site is ranked #1.

Does anyone have any idea why my site has been penalized in this way and how I may be able to fix it. I have almost given up. :-(

[tedster]

I wouldn't assume that it's a penalty just yet. Certainly the entire web is much more competitive than a from-country search, so I'd start understanding the sites that do rank well on the "from the web" search to see what you can learn.

I'd also suggest studying the ideas in the -950 discussions [google.com] here.

[lokesh]

Check your all anchor..........

[troyid]

Lokesh, if you meant allinanchor then my site does not show up in local or main index results. What does this mean?

[troyid]

Tedster, before the penalty was applied I had been #1 for most search phrases I'm testing now, so I don't know what benefit I could get from looking at the top positions now.