Rank keeps decreasing - Is my site penalized
-
Hello,
I have run into a bit of a predicament. All of my search terms keep dropping on a monthly basis, even though I am adding quality guest posts every month. Even if I get a handful of articles on semi-popular sites my ranking still drop. I am wondering, is my site penalized?
My metrics also over exceed my rankings using both the Moz metrics and pagerank. I have a PR of 5 and domain rank of 50+ and I am still getting outranked on every term by people with lower metrics (PR 2 and DR of 30)
In the past I have done mostly article syndication through sites like ezinearticles and isnare, but that was about 5 years ago. I have also done a couple of the "pay $50 for 100 directory submissions" once but that was also about 5 years ago.
Has anyone experienced anything like this? Anyone have any advice? As you can probably tell I am getting really frustrated.
P.S. - This is happening for all pages on my website, not just particular pages. Is is possible to get a site wide penalty, and if so, what can be done about it?
-
Thanks for the responses. If there is a penalty, how is that penalty implemented? For example, does Google take a "fixed number" and subtract that from you, as in a -25 "point" one time penalty? Or do they limit the ceiling of your overall ranking?
The reason I ask is if it is a one time penalty then earning more links should gradually take the rankings back up. But that isn't the case with my site.
If it is an issue of google devaluing all links due to a penalty, then I will need to start to take action to remove those penalties.
-
Try analyzing website pages
- Improve user experience with design and content
- Add updated content
and back-link profile:
- See if there is any automated spam links
- Try to have branded anchor keyword
-
sounds like you have been penalized by the panda and penguin algo updates. Checkout SEOMOZ White Board Friday videos on the these subjects.
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
-
Drop in Rankings
UPDATE* I temporarily removed the images from the page to check if rankings would come back and they did. So Google made a recent update in the Netherlands where they look at your page for adult content (pictures). For us it was breast augmentations, before and after pics. END Hey Guys, We have a site for plastic surgery in the Netherlands. We ranked on number 2 if someone searched for breast augmentation. But sinds 31 of januari our ranking dropped outside the top 50. I did not get a warning or an other message in Search Console. We have a lot of pictures on the website displaying before and after pictures. So you see breasts. Does anybody know if google rolled out an update where they look at photo's with audult content? We didnt do any linkbuilding or other black hat stuff. Kind regards, Ruud
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | equipezorgbedrijven0 -
How will this affect the rankings and traffic of the new site once this happens?
Hi, we will be moving a clients’ site address from one domain to another and will of course be doing 301 redirects and notifying Google of the site address change in WMT. The problem is, that at some point in the future (say 3-6 months), the old domain will be going live with a new site as the current client does not own the domain and the owner will be wanting it back unfortunately. How will this affect the rankings and traffic of the new site (new domain) once this (old domain with new site) happens? Will the site address change be enough to keep the rankings but it will lose backlink traffic? Or will rankings go down since the 301 redirects will in essence no longer be in affect? Many thanks for your help in advance.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WSIDW0 -
Why is my blog out-ranking my main site?
Please see attached ranking history chart. On June 5th the chart shows that my main site is not coming up under our main keyword "door hangers" From then on, our blog took over. Any ideas why? Thanks Andrea lpEBciu.jpg
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JimDirectMailCoach0 -
Site rankings down
Our site is over 10 years old and has consistently ranked highly in google.co.uk for over 100 key phrases. Until the middle of April, we were 7th for 'nuts and bolts' and 5th for 'bolts and nuts' - we have been around these positions for 5-6 years easily now. Our rankings dropped mid-April, but now (presumably as a result of Penguin 2.0), we've seen larger decreases across the board. We are now 5th page on 'nuts and bolts', and second page on 'bolts and nuts'. Can anyone please shed any light on this? Although we'd fallen some before Penguin 2.0, we've fallen quite a bit further since. So I'm wondering if it's that. We do still rank well on our more specialised terms though - 'imperial bolts', 'bsw bolts', 'bsf bolts', we're still top 5. We've lost out with the more generic terms. In the past we did a bit of (relevant) blog commenting and obtained some business directory links, before realising the gain was tiny if at all. Are those likely to be the issue? I'm guessing so. It's hard to know which to get rid of though! Now, I use social media sparingly, just Facebook, Twitter and G+. The only linkbuilding I do now is by sending polite emails to people who run classic car clubs that would use our bolts, stuff like that. I've had a decent response from that, and a few have become customers directly. Here's our link profile if anyone would be kind enough as to have a look: http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/links?site=www.thomassmithfasteners.com Also, SEOMOZ says we have too many links on our homepage (107) - the dropdown navigation is the culprit here. Should I simply get rid of the dropdown and take users to the categories? Any advice here would be appreciated before I make changes! If anyone wants to take a look at the site, the URL is in the link profile above - I'm terrified of posting links anywhere now! Thanks for your time, and I'd be very grateful for any advice. Best Regards, Stephen
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | stephenshone1 -
Rankings going down down down
Hi guys, I know this is a little open ended, but any advice/ideas would be greatly appreciated. I launched a new site about 3 months ago (www.transfersandshuttles.co.za). I have had unique, useful articles written for it, and the site does provide a useful service. I have done a little link building and continue to do so. The site was making decent progress moving up the rankings for a few weeks, but now it just seems to get worse and worse.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | cashchampion
I'm not looking for an entire site audit or strategy here, just if anything jumps out at you that seems very poor for seo, please let me know. Thanks so much,
Marc0 -
Can re-directs decrease your rankings??
Hi Guys, I need some advice here please - I have the chance to put some links on a few websites to my website in hope it will help with my rankings.. BUT - I have noticed that the webstites are being re-directed to another websites.. so my questions is ; Can re-driects decrease your rankings?? Thanks Gareth
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | GAZ090 -
How do you transition a keyword rank from a home page to a sub-page on the site?
We're currently ranking #1 for a valuable keyword, but the result on the SERP is our home page. We're creating a new product page focused on this keyword to provide a better user experience and create more relevant content. What is the best way to make a smooth transition to make the product page rank #1 for the keyword instead of the home page?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | buildasign0 -
2 sites or one sites: 2 locations
Hello, I have a dog training client who is offering services in 2 separate locations. We're looking to be first in the non-local search results and also rank well in google places. Would it be better to go for 2 separate sites or one site and try to rank for 2 different locations with one site? There's both local and standard search results when we type in our keywords. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BobGW0