Home page demoted for certain keywords

[johnblack]

I confess I haven't read all the posts in the Google SERPs threads, but I have been following them and haven't noticed anyone talking about a similar problem that I found on one of my websites this morning.

The site appeared to lose Google traffic on or around the 24th of April, so I'm assuming I got hit by Penguin.

Today I dug a bit deeper into my stats and found that my home page appears to have been dropped from the SERPS but only for certain keywords.

So, for example, for the keyword 'widgets' I used to rank in the top ten with my home page, I now rank forty-something but with another page. However for 'red widgets' I still rank where I used to rank pre-24th and still with the home page.

I have no webspam messages for the site in WMT.

Anyone also noticed something similar for a home page? Is this a symptom of Penguin or possibly another algorithm tweak? Anyone any thoughts on how to recover from this 'penalty' if indeed it is a penalty?

JB

[tedster]

Here's one idea: Search quality highlights: 52 changes for April [webmasterworld.com]

Notice particularly the updates involving the way Google handles "anchors".

[johnblack]

Thanks for your reply Tedster. I have read the suggested thread and associated Google announcement and the only item that referred to anchors was

Anchors bug fix. [launch codename "Organochloride", project codename "Anchors"] This change fixed a bug related to our handling of anchors.

I also searched the Google doc for "link", "text link", "link text" and nothing really struck me as applicable to my situation, so I'm assuming you are referring to Organochloride.

I dug a bit deeper on this and ended up at Matt Cutts post on the 24th of April re webspam and the dodgy tactic of links in unrelated text. I don't do that.

So I'm a bit perplexed as to how Organochloride may have affected my home page on a specific keyword.

One thing I did think of was that on my site the main navigation uses the text "widget" to point to the home page. So is it possible Google may have devalued that keyword as part of the Organochloride "fix" because it's potentially the only keyword that points to the home page internally?