SEO Changes around October 15, 2013

[G_Lee]

Hello:

I have had a Google page 1 ranking (position 3 through 5) for about 5 months prior to the middle of October 2013. For two months before that, I was unable to backlink to my website. Around October 15, 2013, I checked my SERP listing in Google, and it dropped to page 3. Prior to that, my ranking had been quite stable. There were no on-page changes prior to the drop. Since the drop, I have been linking for about a month, but I am having difficulty getting back onto page two.

I would expect some sort of gradual or incremental drop in rankings due to the lack of my backlinking activities, but not such a sudden drop.

Did the drop in ranking come about because my backlinking activities had stopped, or has there been a change in the Google algorithm?

Thanks,

Grayson

[aakk9999]

If I understood well, you have been building links to your website steadily and your site ranked on page one since May 2013 until mid October 2013.

You have stopped building backlinks from mid August to mid October and you are wondering if your drop in rankings to page 3 that you noticed around 15th of October was the result of you stopped building the backlinks.

You started building backlinks again after the mid October drop, but you saw no improvement in ranking.

Question:

You noticed ranking drop around 15th of October. But this may not be the exact date you lost your ranking. Do you have WMT account? If so, could you go there and check Queries section to see when exactly your impressions have dropped (I assume they have dropped if you lost ranking).

The reason for this is that there was Penguin update on 4th of October. If your impressions dropped on 4th or 5th of October, it is likely that you have been hit by Penguin algo.

How are you building your links?

[G_Lee]

Hello and thanks for your reply. On GWT, it looks like my search engine queries dropped to less than 10 impressions on October 7, 2013 and October 16, 2013. I have been building links using a mix of high and low directories.

[webcentric]

October 14, and November 15 we're huge days for me. The first, Google turned off the tap at about 2pm in the afternoon. On the second date, they turned it back on at virtually the same time of day. Yes we made some adjustments in the meantime but the point here is that I'm certain that this was tied directly to a monthly algo update. Right now, I'm watching for indications of it for this month as I fully expect another round in the next 24 to 48 hours. Watch for it. I think it's Panda but could be something else too. The point is that it's cyclical. May have just been getting around to my niche last time and may not touch us this time. Will be interesting to see if others see the pattern.