Google penalty for one keyword?
-
Is it possible to get penalized by Google for a specific keyword and essentially disappear from the SERPs for that keyword but keep position for the brand (#1) and some other keywords (#4 and #7)? And how would you find out that this is what happened if there is no GWT message?
-
Thanks, you two. Lucky you were able to identify the cause and work to repair. It doesn't seem to be an exact match anchor text problem for us and nothing with a site mixup. I am happy for you!
I have investigated a lot, and I am still irked at not knowing what happened so I can remedy.
We have lost a lot of potential business and calls from this. We are local and it's the main local terms we've lost position for.
I am focusing on doing the recommended stuff now and its been great. I pulled back on the on-page optimizing. I am reading, learning, participating, content building, content marketing, local, social etc. but still occasionally still trying to figure out what happened so that hopefully, I can get us back for those critical keywords.
Still looking for more info, please.
-
I have experienced the same situation with specific keywords where there were too many external exact match anchor text links. Removing these links where possible is slowly fixing the problem.
-
I have experienced it personally, on one ofmy sites, it dropped ranking for one keyword and still maintained for others.
There wasnt any message in GWT, the reason was that two of my sites were on same hosting server and some how one site had its all home page mixed up with in other website pages. It was something like hidden text. Now the issue is resolved and ranking is coming back.
Another possibility could be too much exact match anchor text links. There will be i guess an algorithmic penality for this and your keyword along with traffic will be dropped.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Google Algo Update
Hi I'm trying to look into how the update in Oct - Nov affected our site. It's positive with us ranking for more keywords, but I wondered if anyone knew what had changed. For example, one of our pages ranked for 291 keywords in October, now it ranks for 406 keywords. We've done nothing to this page in that time. I just want to try and understand what's happening with the algorithm a little more (although I'm sure everyone does :). Does anyone have any insights? Thanks!
Algorithm Updates | | BeckyKey0 -
New Google Update In The Past Two Days???
Was there a new Google update in the past couple of days. Traffic on my test site has gone from ~ 1,000 per day to over 4,000 per day for no particular reason. Most of the traffic is still coming from Google and is not the result of any new major links. My keyword rankings also appear to be the same ...
Algorithm Updates | | Humanovation0 -
How Does Google Treat External Links to URLs with # Anchors?
Here are two URLs to explain this example: **Original URL: **example.com/1/ **URL that points to anchor within the webpage above: **example.com/1/#anchor Does Google treat these two URLs as separate entities or the same? For example, does an external link to the anchor URL pass full PageRank value to the original URL? How does Google handle this? Is there anything negative about this situation? Are there any risks associated with links to the anchor URL? Finally, is it more valuable for an external link to point to the URL without an anchor?
Algorithm Updates | | SAMarketing0 -
Google places - are you still registering your companies?
Is Google plus taking over from Google Places? I have our company and website registered on Google places and Google Plus. Now we have a new website ( same company different product) Should I register a new listing on Google places? And what about Google Plus?
Algorithm Updates | | Realtor1010 -
Lost 50% google traffic in one day - panic?
Hi girls + guys, a site of us were hit by a google update or a google penalty. We have lost 50% google traffic in one day (25th april, 2012). (Total visitors in average per day: 6k, yesterday: 3k) It's a german website, so I think google.de (germany) was updated. Our rankings in google.at (austria) are also affected, but it's not that bad as in google.de. We have not done any specific on page seo activities in the last two months. GWT doesn't have any message for us (no critical errors). After my first analyse I can say this: google has indexed 17k pages (thats fine) we are on 1st place with our domain name the last three days, the google traffic went up (+20%), but yesterday it was 50% below average (so -70%) last week we had a very good day, we had twice the traffic than normal, but this calmed down the following days we have lost number no. 1 places at two high traffic keywords. We had these no 1 rankings for years. We have been outranked by two of our competitors, but they have not done any onpage changes. We have lost a lot of positions at a lot of keywords. But there are also keywords which moved up. We have good content, useres are visiting 5 pages in average. No virus, no hacker (no hidden cloaking page) it's an old domain (2002) Lot of (good) inbound links Lot's of likes, g+. Good twitter activty. So, all in all I think it's more likely a ranking algo change than a penalty (a penalty for what reason?) My specific question(s): Is there any "check list" which could help me to find out the reason for this mess? What is the best strategy to regain the positions? New HTML code? New On page seo? (seomoz grades most of our important pages an A) Any idea would be appreciated! Best wishes,
Algorithm Updates | | GeorgFranz
Georg.1 -
How to calculate Keyword Difficulty
In which way is calculated the percentage of Keyword Difficulty? What are the parameters you consider? Thank you very much Francesco
Algorithm Updates | | seomoznicchia0 -
Are multiple domains for my website hurting my Google ranking?
Hello, I currently have two domains showing up in google search: shwoodshop.com shop.shwoodshop.com These domains are currently ranked in the #2 and #3 spot, however my page is much more trafficked than the current #1 ranking. I am wondering if the fact that I have two domains competing for the #1 spot is hurting my search ranking. If so, what is the best way to remedy this issue and get back my #1 spot? I'm rather new to SEO and teaching myself as I go, so I appreciate the feedback!
Algorithm Updates | | shwoodshop0 -
Are you getting any action from Google +1 ?
If you have added google plus one to your website you can check on the impact by visiting your webmaster tools account. In your GWT account you will see a left menu item for "+1 Metrics". If you click on "Search Impact" you can see the CTR change attributed to +1. Anybody seeing anything there yet?
Algorithm Updates | | EGOL0