Keyword-specific penalty?
- Thread starter genius21
- Start date
Alright. I'll try to clarify as much as possible: let's say the keyword from the images is "men's sneakers". This was in position 20 in May, it went to N/A in mid-June, and now it only appears occasionally, 2-3 days a month. The same page (product category) is positioned in the top 5 for the keyword "high quality men's sneakers". From this, I deduced that Google penalized the keyword "men's sneakers" for the specific page due to the anchor texts used for backlinks. Is this possible?
- Oct 28, 2020
- 11,663
- 14,635
oh, I don't know about image search, I think google has different algorithms for image vs words, but I'm not sure....
Also, it doesn't look like your keyword has been penalized. Again, there is no such thing as keyword penalty, it's only page penalty, but your page is ranking so it's not penalized...
Regarding the anchors, if you overuse anchors (this usually pertains to exact match anchors, but sometimes even generic ones can be abused) your page will be penalized (lose rankings usually, while still staying indexed). But again, your page is ranking, so it's definitely not penalized, so the anchors are fine...
You might want to SEO the featured image of the product page (add exact match ALT tag, rename the image "men's sneakers" or "high quality men's sneakers", maybe even point an internal link to this image using exact / partial match anchor (although, I'm not sure that linking internally to images does anything, but it's something you can try and see what happens), etc...
Also, try to get some image backlinks to the featured / first image on the product page for this keyword, from sites like Imgur, DeviantArt, Flickr, etc... I've heard some folks saying that this helps with image search
Thank you for your advice. Really appreciated! Also, this is word search, not image
I was referring to the image uploaded by me, taken from Search Console.
- Oct 28, 2020
- 11,663
- 14,635
sorry if I'm being dense, and let me see if I understand youThank you for your advice. Really appreciated! Also, this is word search, not image
What you're saying is...
1) in May you've ranked #20 for the keyword "men's sneakers" (although I don't know for how long you've been ranking at #20, and this is important)...
2) then, in mid-June this keyword was nowhere to be found
3) and then, since mid-June until now (end of July) the keyword "men's sneakers" only pops up in the SERPs for 2-3 days occasionally.
And based on these facts you're wondering whether the demotion of the keyword "men's sneakers" in the SERPs could be due to abused / overused / bad / whatever anchor texts.
Is this correct? Is this what you're asking?
If that's what you're asking then my answer is (still): no, the anchors are not the problem. If google penalized you for bad /. abused anchors then your entire page would lose its rankings for ALL of the keywords that it ranks for / used to rank for. But the page is ranking nice and dandy at #5 so the anchors are not the problem...
If I were to guess why the keyword "men's sneakers" ranked at #20 for a few days (presumably) and then lost its spot, I would say it's because your site is fresh (less than 1 month old)... ok, it WAS fresh back then (in May), nowadays it's clearly 3-4 month old
Fresh sites do tend to get good rankings initially from google for 2-4 weeks (why this happens I have no idea so don't ask, it's just what I've noticed), and then - after the honeymoon (the 2-4 weeks) is over - your site either stabilizes in rankings (which is what your site apparently did, which means you're doing things right), or loses its rankings completely until you SEO the crap out of it.
Now, regarding that particular keyword (men's sneakers), my assumption is that the keyword is very competitive (from experience I can tell you that 2-word keywords with commercial value are BRUTALLY hard to rank for if you're a random nobody, and if this keyword has 1000s of monthly searches which I dare to guess that it has given its type) then it's no wonder that a relatively small / fresh site like yours can't rank for this keyword (at least not constantly like you're hoping for).
The good news, however, is that your product page ranks for (still) a great keyword (high quality men's sneakers), which means that your site 1) is well-made and loved by google, and 2) has good (strong) backlinks already, otherwise google would not put you at #5 for ecom keywords...
These are 2 of the most important ingredients to rank in google nowadays, so the main idea is not to stress about it if you're not ranking for that particular keyword anymore!
And you can probably rank for the keyword "men's sneakers" with time and by building even more backlinks to its page, although you should be careful not to overuse exact and partial match anchors. Try to keep the exact and partial match anchors to each page under 10% of the total backlinks to that page, and you should be safe...
sorry if I'm being dense, and let me see if I understand you
What you're saying is...
1) in May you've ranked #20 for the keyword "men's sneakers" (although I don't know for how long you've been ranking at #20, and this is important)...
2) then, in mid-June this keyword was nowhere to be found
3) and then, since mid-June until now (end of July) the keyword "men's sneakers" only pops up in the SERPs for 2-3 days occasionally.
And based on these facts you're wondering whether the demotion of the keyword "men's sneakers" in the SERPs could be due to abused / overused / bad / whatever anchor texts.
Is this correct? Is this what you're asking?
If that's what you're asking then my answer is (still): no, the anchors are not the problem. If google penalized you for bad /. abused anchors then your entire page would lose its rankings for ALL of the keywords that it ranks for / used to rank for. But the page is ranking nice and dandy at #5 so the anchors are not the problem...
If I were to guess why the keyword "men's sneakers" ranked at #20 for a few days (presumably) and then lost its spot, I would say it's because your site is fresh (less than 1 month old)... ok, it WAS fresh back then (in May), nowadays it's clearly 3-4 month old
Fresh sites do tend to get good rankings initially from google for 2-4 weeks (why this happens I have no idea so don't ask, it's just what I've noticed), and then - after the honeymoon (the 2-4 weeks) is over - your site either stabilizes in rankings (which is what your site apparently did, which means you're doing things right), or loses its rankings completely until you SEO the crap out of it.
Now, regarding that particular keyword (men's sneakers), my assumption is that the keyword is very competitive (from experience I can tell you that 2-word keywords with commercial value are BRUTALLY hard to rank for if you're a random nobody, and if this keyword has 1000s of monthly searches which I dare to guess that it has given its type) then it's no wonder that a relatively small / fresh site like yours can't rank for this keyword (at least not constantly like you're hoping for).
The good news, however, is that your product page ranks for (still) a great keyword (high quality men's sneakers), which means that your site 1) is well-made and loved by google, and 2) has good (strong) backlinks already, otherwise google would not put you at #5 for ecom keywords...
These are 2 of the most important ingredients to rank in google nowadays, so the main idea is not to stress about it if you're not ranking for that particular keyword anymore!
And you can probably rank for the keyword "men's sneakers" with time and by building even more backlinks to its page, although you should be careful not to overuse exact and partial match anchors. Try to keep the exact and partial match anchors to each page under 10% of the total backlinks to that page, and you should be safe...
Yes, that's correct. You can see here more details about that particular keyword.
- Jul 29, 2008
- 2,246
- 625
Look the google guidelines to check about penalty terms for the keywords which help better to you.
- Jun 2, 2025
- 188
- 66
No, it doesn’t work that way. There’s no such thing as a “keyword-level” Google penalty. All penalties apply either to a specific page or to the entire website. If your site stopped ranking for a certain keyword, the reason is definitely not a penalty targeting that keyword. Most likely, the page isn't well-optimized for that query, or it lacks strong backlinks. Sometimes, the issue could be duplicate content or keyword cannibalization.
- Jan 4, 2021
- 2,162
- 783
It doesn't look like a keyword-specific penalty. If other keywords on the same page is still ranking well, it's more likely due to algorithm changes, lower keyword relevance, or increased competition. Try refreshing your content around that keyword or adding internal links to support it.
- Apr 1, 2025
- 141
- 30
Yep, that definitely sounds like a keyword-specific drop, and it happens more often than people realize. If the page still ranks well for other terms, and nothing major changed (no tech issues, no deindexing), then it’s likely:
Algorithmic relevance shift, Google decided your page no longer matches the intent behind that specific keyword..
Algorithmic relevance shift, Google decided your page no longer matches the intent behind that specific keyword..
Laura Jenkins07
Newbie
- Jun 20, 2025
- 8
- 1
A keyword specific penalty happens what your site gets punished for using keywords too much.
GoogSEO
Regular Member
- Nov 30, 2023
- 350
- 208
The very essence you understood correctly, you can
get penalized for over-spamming one keyword.
But in your case this is not the case. Judging by the date, this is a change in the algorithm
calculation of link weight in Google. Your links all stopped being counted after that, sites are recognized as
bad, you just lost link weight on this word and you need to gain it again, but already on
good sites.
- Jun 2, 2025
- 188
- 66
But this does not mean there is a Google penalty. People often throw around terms without understanding their meaning.Algorithmic relevance shift, Google decided your page no longer matches the intent behind that specific keyword..
The fact that Google’s algorithms have reassessed the niche relevance of a specific page or even an entire website does not mean that a penalty was applied to a particular keyword for that website.
AvaJohnson
Newbie
- Jul 15, 2025
- 22
- 8
Yes, Google can hit spammy keywords.
CharlotteKing
Newbie
- Jul 15, 2025
- 21
- 9
Its a google penalty for overusing one keyword.