Received Unnatural Backlink Message - Weird Situation

[learnseo81]

Recently, I noticed that NEW pages from my site are not ranking well and just appearing at page 3 and lower for main terms and dropping more. Here is what I'm seeing :

My page is exampledotcom/bluewidgets.html

Now the main term is "blue widgets" and I'm not ranking for that but I'm ranking in Page #1 at 7 for term "blue widgets online" and other long tail terms but not for the exact term.

When I do a new post, It gets crawled in like 10 seconds and shows up in google but despite good onsite seo and original content, I rank at page 3 or lower. Eariler, ALL my new posts used to rank at Page 1 and stay there.

Now the confusing thing is :

My new posts are not raking well while all older posts are intact and none of them have lost any rankings. They are still there where they were before.

Now I thought why my new posts are not ranking. What's going on so I signed up for google webmastesr and once I verified the site, I see an message from google "unnatural links detected" which I received on March 16, 2012 and It has been almost 3 months now.

Say I've 40 pages on the website, then rankings of 35 pages seem are intact to me but 5 new pages which I published in May and June are not ranking despite all efforts. It seems like there is some sort of cap or filter in place for those pages but then again, those pages rank well for longtails on page #1

I'm very confused as what is happening. I received the Unnatural links messages 3 months ago and I did nothing as I've discovered that message today.

What you guys think about why my new pages are not ranking now?
Should I do a re-consideration request? Is it possible that there is some sort of automated filter applied on me?

Though I'm aware of the un-natural links google is talking about. They are most likely BMR links.

[jemois]

Most probably your site is penalized. Check the date the traffic dropped to find out what kind of penalty it is. The old pages still rank well because of the incoming links direclty to the post pages and not to the main domain since google is also ranking pages.

[learnseo81]

If the domain is penalized, why the pages are still rankings for longtails? Just wondering.

I've two domains penalized and the don't rank for anything and It has been more than a year.

[jemois]

I noticed the same thing on more penalized sites. The don't appear in serp for the main keywords but they show up for long tail keywords where probably the competition is very low and the search volume is also low, so that you won't get to much traffic. This is mainly the idea of being penalized in google, not getting traffic.

[Planet13]

penalties can be keyword specific (algo changes can be keyword specific, too)

example from my site:

blue widget (singular) ranks well

blue widgets (plural) doesn't rank well

Could be a manual penalty or could be Penguin.

Only way to find out if it is a manual penalty is to file a reconsideration request.

Hope this helps.

[jimbeetle]

example from my site:

blue widget (singular) ranks well

blue widgets (plural) doesn't rank well

Could be a manual penalty or could be Penguin.

This isn't an example of a penalty at all. It simply shows that the page is better optimized and ranks better for the singular term than the plural.

[aristotle]

This isn't an example of a penalty at all. It simply shows that the page is better optimized and ranks better for the singular term than the plural.

Isn't it possible that the Google algorithm has judged the page to be OVER-optimized for the plural form, in which case this would be the result of a penalty?

[jimbeetle]

Isn't it possible that the Google algorithm has judged the page to be OVER-optimized for the plural form, in which case this would be the result of a penalty?

No, no and no. If the page were over-optimized* then it would simply not fit what the algorithm wants to see. If the algorithm wants to see this...

| * |

...and you show it...

* | |

...or this...

| | *

...then the page simply isn't going to rank. But to call this a penalty is simply incorrect**.

And as long as many people keep referring to a normal situation such as this as a "penalty" they will never really learn how to optimize a page for search. Penalty is mostly used as a crutch, kind of like "I don't know why I'm not ranking and I don't know how to find out, so Google must have penalized me." People have to stop talking about penalties where there are none and actually understand how a search engine algorithm works.

*Argh! I hate that term 'cause there ain't really such a thing: It's either optimal or it's not.

**And yes, I realize that even Matt Cutts has bowed to the collective pressure and has used the term over-optimization, but he has used it to mean really overdoing it with blatant keyword stuffing and such.

[netmeg]

People have to stop talking about penalties where there are none and actually understand how a search engine algorithm works.

Which many small business owners won't and can't do, either because they don't have the technical background, or because they are busy, you know, running their businesses.

Hence the problem.

[Planet13]

@ jimbeetle

This isn't an example of a penalty at all. It simply shows that the page is better optimized and ranks better for the singular term than the plural.

I appreciate your input, but I respectfully have to disagree (read below for explanation why). You may be right, but I suspect that you are incorrect in this case.

@ aristotle

Isn't it possible that the Google algorithm has judged the page to be OVER-optimized for the plural form, in which case this would be the result of a penalty?

I believe in my case it was because, prior to Penguin, my blue-widgets.html page was ranking #9 for the keyword "blue widgets"

After Penguin, it wasn't ranking there anymore. Instead the HOME PAGE was ranking in it's place for #9. the blue-widgets.html wasn't ranking for "blue widgets" in the top 100 results (stopped searching after 100).

and as I mentioned, the singular form ranks where it used to (around #13)

Important note: the home page links to the blue-widgets.html page using the keyword "blue widgets" as the anchor text, and the home page DOES have the words "blue widgets" in the title (as does the blue-widgets.html page), and the domain name does have the word "blue" in the URL.

also note that the blue-widgets.html had a LOT of text on it, despite being an ecommerce page. So there were many instances of the phrase "blue widgets" on it.

the only page in the top ten SERPS with MORE text on it than my page was a wikipedia page (which, of course, cited my page as a reference).

[scooterdude]

presumably some folk either have direct, continuing, and unstinted access to Google SE code, or schematics, or failing that have such
magnificent grasp of Google ranking that ranking any page is a dodle :)

nice one Google, can i have access too, perhaps there is a special page on wmt where g tells you "how to rank for widget widget"

Anyway, it stands to reason that if G gives you a warning message like so, yes you may have been penalised, or may be penalised for the future.

Theory: Link related Penalties get applied only at the point the page is rated future searches, existing pages only get the link penalty applied when the come up for re rating whereas new pages get penalised immediately

[aristotle]

No, no and no. If the page were over-optimized* then it would simply not fit what the algorithm wants to see. If the algorithm wants to see this...

Sorry, this isn't what over-optimization means. And in fact over-optimization penalities do exist. At one Matt Cutts referred to Penquin as an over-optimization penalty.

[jimbeetle]

Which many small business owners won't and can't do, either because they don't have the technical background, or because they are busy, you know, running their businesses.

Yeah, agree. But this is a search-oriented, tech-oriented forum and if we can't expect more here, where?

suspect that you are incorrect in this case

Well, with the example you gave I was quite correct. Now, with the explanation, I can see there is more to it.

At one Matt Cutts referred to Penquin as an over-optimization penalty

Yes, did you see the disclaimer in my post?

[aristotle]

At one Matt Cutts referred to Penquin as an over-optimization penalty


Yes, did you see the disclaimer in my post?

I apologize -- somehow I missed it.

But what I seem to remember is that Matt Cutts initially called it an over-optimization penalty, then changed to to anti-spam penality. In any case, there's no doubt in my mind that Penguin is basically an over-optimization penalty.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

What I suggest: Ignore the message, Ignore the existing problematic backlinks, and pursue more natural link building practices(great content) to counteract the "bad links" effect. It's all about percentages and somehow your graph is out of balance. Google will always want to rank great content.

[maximizer]

I don't think it's anything to do with the unnatural links warning you got if your other pages are still ranking. If it's only the "new" pages, then a couple of my guesses:

1) the "new" pages are not being internally optimized well enough, e.g. not linked from the homepage, etc

2) the new pages have seen little to zero external links pointing to the page since it's creation

3) you are under-estimating the competition of those terms by expecting to just rank for them by putting up a new page of content targetting that term - I do believe domain authority does play a part out here when ranking for new internal pages and that's somewhere your domain might have suffered with the "unnatural links" warning, you'd need to re-establish some amount of authority

[learnseo81]

I've observed that new pages are ranking on Page 1 as they used to do but some pages are ranking and some not. It seems that I'm under estimating the competition of those terms.

I'm not making any backlinks now. Just focusing on quality.

[learnseo81]

But now... does it mean that Unnatural backlinks have no effect on the rankings?

Here is what I think Google is doing :

1. Algo identifies the shady backlinks.
2. A guy in their team reviews those backlinks.
3. Disable those backlinks from helping the page and send a notice to the webmaster.

Anybody else agree with my approach? Here is more of what I think :

1. Unnatural backlinks notice is not sitewide. That is, If you have 10 pages on a site and you've shady backlinks for 1 page only, that particular page will be affected and other pages rankings will retain.

2. If you're targeting like two terms to root of your domain and "helping" backlinks get disabled, your rankings will fall from like #1 to #30 or anywhere because now your backlinks aren't helping you so your rankings will fall to where you belong. New baclinks can still help your page rise again.......

Any thoughts on this?