13+ yr Site Destroyed After Dec Update - Help?

[paraspy]

Hello all,

I would really appreciate some help here.

My main business is a digital agency. We've been around since 2012. Ranking on the first page for our main keywords since 2016.

Around March 2024 we got hit.

All of a sudden our rankings for our main keywords dropped from 7-10th to 37-45th.

The site doesn't have a ton of pages - nothing spammy going on - the standard business site pages and a handful of blogs. All 100% unique, human written content.

Great, organic link profile, mainly consisting of brand name anchor links. Never really bought links but we got links from directories, interviews, podcasts, press, etc. lots of links from BIG sites too, through HARO and such.

The one thing I did do is that I purchased 3-4 expired agency domains which I redirected to our site. Most were bought 2+ years ago. One was bought in August of 2024.

After we got hit, for the first time, I bought links... But very few and great quality. 5 per month, through manual outreach to basically other agencies like us... Not spammy guest posts on random sites that sell links - these are real sites for real businesses, and we would offer 3-way link exchanges (ie. we link to you from an article on site XYZ and you link to us). Just 5 per month, starting in May.

I also added some more content on our homepage, which was the page that was ranking.

By end of November, we were back almost at 1st page - hovering between bottom of first and top of second.

On December 19th we dropped from 10th to 45th and have been there or lower ever since.

I'm baffled and really don't know what to do. I did see an influx of spammy/toxic links pointing to our site around December but I can't imagine that this is what caused our drop... If it was that easy then we could send spam links to all our competitors and derank them..

I know that this happened to a ton of sites, but I haven't read any stories of recovery.

Any ideas?

80% of our biz has been from Google so this is really hurting.

 

[mirrorer]

3 way links is one of the 1st seo link spams. It's so 2007 and google can easily detect it. Start by removing these.

Next, remove the exp redirect domains, the last updates target those as well.

Then hope and pray for the best.

 

[Seo Captain]

You were using seo practices that Google hates. You need a seo seller that is aware of the current working methods. Look for an experienced person for this on BHW marketplace.

 

[Titans]

As advised above, you need to remove the redirects. The update was based on those. If you have updated your homepage after reaching the 1st page, revert them and see. Analyze your current content and update it.

Also, add some more high quality articles with internal linking and add more links with diversified anchor profiles from quality websites.

 

[paraspy]

3 way links is one of the 1st seo link spams. It's so 2007 and google can easily detect it. Start by removing these.

Next, remove the exp redirect domains, the last updates target those as well.

Then hope and pray for the best.

The thing is that this is a very old and established site, with thousands of real backlinks. I cannot imagine that 30 links from legit websites from the same industry would result in a penalty.. can you?

The redirects I understand. Even though they're old, and they're not random domains - they are 3 domains of other agencies. What if I legitimately acquired these businesses?

Also, if these things result is such extreme deranking, then what's stopping people from buying a handful domains and redirecting them to their competitors?

It just doesn't make logical sense to me. But I'm genuinely trying to understand..

 

[paraspy]

As advised above, you need to remove the redirects. The update was based on those. If you have updated your homepage after reaching the 1st page, revert them and see. Analyze your current content and update it.

Also, add some more high quality articles with internal linking and add more links with diversified anchor profiles from quality websites.

I'll remove the redirects. I bought a couple of keyword domains "to keep" which I also redirected because why not.. these don't have links. Do you think I should remove those too?

As I wrote above, it's just hard to believe that this can lead to a penalty because I could spend a couple of hundred dollars and buy a handful of spam expired domains and redirect them to my competitor.. it just can't be that easy, can it?

Once concern here is that I paid for those domains and they have clean strong links, so I do believe they helped me rank well over the years.. if the penalty is not related to them then removing them could affect us even more..

Also - according to what I'm reading I got hit on what was called the "helpful content update" (march) and then the "spam update" (december). Not links, but content. Any thoughts on that?

 

[paraspy]

You were using seo practices that Google hates. You need a seo seller that is aware of the current working methods. Look for an experienced person for this on BHW marketplace.

I was barely building links like that though... Again, this is a 13 year old site with thousands of backlinks. Strong, organic backlinks.

All the business sites (Forbes, entrepreneur, fastbusiness, etc), all the big news sites (nbc, fox, etc), and a ton of other big sites (amex, godaddy, hubspot, etc).

Then 5 years ago I redirected a domain that used to be another agency. 3 years ago I did one more. 6 months ago I did one more.

And 6 months ago I started getting 5 links per month as described, from other legit digital agencies. The 3 way links were so clean -- we would get them listed on an article on a magazine about top 10 xyz, so it all looks natural since they already have links like that.. and they would link back to us. And these are not sites with thousands of outbounds links. As clean as can be.

Obviously I got hit, and so something was not right, but it feels hard to revert hard and expensive work, because I can't help but think that it doesn't make sense for these things to be the culprit. Otherwise it would just be too easy (and cheap) to hurt other sites.. don't you think?

 

[David Boost]

Hello all,

I would really appreciate some help here.

My main business is a digital agency. We've been around since 2012. Ranking on the first page for our main keywords since 2016.

Around March 2024 we got hit.

All of a sudden our rankings for our main keywords dropped from 7-10th to 37-45th.

The site doesn't have a ton of pages - nothing spammy going on - the standard business site pages and a handful of blogs. All 100% unique, human written content.

Great, organic link profile, mainly consisting of brand name anchor links. Never really bought links but we got links from directories, interviews, podcasts, press, etc. lots of links from BIG sites too, through HARO and such.

The one thing I did do is that I purchased 3-4 expired agency domains which I redirected to our site. Most were bought 2+ years ago. One was bought in August of 2024.

After we got hit, for the first time, I bought links... But very few and great quality. 5 per month, through manual outreach to basically other agencies like us... Not spammy guest posts on random sites that sell links - these are real sites for real businesses, and we would offer 3-way link exchanges (ie. we link to you from an article on site XYZ and you link to us). Just 5 per month, starting in May.

I also added some more content on our homepage, which was the page that was ranking.

By end of November, we were back almost at 1st page - hovering between bottom of first and top of second.

On December 19th we dropped from 10th to 45th and have been there or lower ever since.

I'm baffled and really don't know what to do. I did see an influx of spammy/toxic links pointing to our site around December but I can't imagine that this is what caused our drop... If it was that easy then we could send spam links to all our competitors and derank them..

I know that this happened to a ton of sites, but I haven't read any stories of recovery.

Any ideas?

80% of our biz has been from Google so this is really hurting.

you practiced the old SEO practices. Google hates link manipulation. Rather you could acquire ABCDEF such types of link building. For the sites (A) that are giving link won't get link from the site (B) it is giving. Even it (A) will not even geta link from any sites that give la ink to (B). There will be no trace.

 

[paraspy]

you practiced the old SEO practices. Google hates link manipulation. Rather you could acquire ABCDEF such types of link building. For the sites (A) that are giving link won't get link from the site (B) it is giving. Even it (A) will not even geta link from any sites that give la ink to (B). There will be no trace.

That's what I'm talking about. There is no trace. But also remember that these are just a tiny fraction of our backlinks.

We have thousands of backlinks. All organic. I had never paid for a link until 6 months ago, and I did that in an effort to climb back up after we got hit on March.

And it seemed to be working... We were almost back... Until December when we got hit again and this time it hit us harder than before.

Something else hit us on March first, even before these links were built.

 

[Gurdian seo]

The December update may have affected your site's rankings due to algorithm changes; check Google Search Console for issues, improve content, and follow SEO best practices.

 

[please read]

The site doesn't have a ton of pages - nothing spammy going on - the standard business site pages and a handful of blogs.

Do the inner pages and blogs rank well for anything? If they don't rank then think about maybe removing those before doing something drastic like removing redirects and links.

 

[rettu]

How is your user engagement? Time on page, bounce rate?

 

[paraspy]

Do the inner pages and blogs rank well for anything? If they don't rank then think about maybe removing those before doing something drastic like removing redirects and links.

They don't rank well but never really have...

My set up is basically homepage, services page (plus 6 service subpages), about us, portfolio (plus 25 case studies - relatively thin content but a few photos), contact, and a blog with about 10 posts.

Same setup for the last 3 or so years. Before that I didn't have a "main service page" and some fewer case studies but rest have been the same for the last 7 years... With some small content updates here or there.

I can't think of any page that would make sense to remove as they're all integral to presenting the company and our services..

What do you think?

 

[Titans]

I'll remove the redirects. I bought a couple of keyword domains "to keep" which I also redirected because why not.. these don't have links. Do you think I should remove those too?

Then I don't think they will affect your website. If needed, you could remove them to check the results.

Also - according to what I'm reading I got hit on what was called the "helpful content update" (march) and then the "spam update" (december). Not links, but content. Any thoughts on that?

The december update also targeted the spam links more effectively. Have you checked your backlinks? You can consider checking them to identify and fix the broken links. Also, if have find any spam links from unwanted sources, disavow them. And make sure that the sites you have used to get the links from were not affected by the updates.

Great, organic link profile, mainly consisting of brand name anchor links.

Don't overdo with the brand anchors. Diversify your anchor profile with more main keywords, long tails, naked, and generic anchors.

 

[paraspy]

Then I don't think they will affect your website. If needed, you could remove them to check the results.

The december update also targeted the spam links more effectively. Have you checked your backlinks? You can consider checking them to identify and fix the broken links. Also, if have find any spam links from unwanted sources, disavow them. And make sure that the sites you have used to get the links from were not affected by the updates.

Don't overdo with the brand anchors. Diversify your anchor profile with more main keywords, long tails, naked, and generic anchors.

Thank you.

The reason the majority of links are with brand anchors is that the sources are magazines and the sort -- think author bylines or quotes of mine, with little control over anchor.

Another type of link that we have a lot of is "website credit" links on footers of websites we've built. I've marked the majority of these as nofollow, and many of them only appear on homepages rather than every page of the sites.. but we do have some ecom sites with thousands of pages that link to us. I wonder if that all of a sudden became an issue?

In general, I just cannot imagine that Google would penalize a site for links.. has that ever been proven? The reason I say this is that I can go on fiverr and buy 100k crap links for $100, and send them to my competitor. I just cannot accept that Google would allow for such type of manipulation.. it seems way too easy.

But that said, I definitely see a lot of spam links, and there was an influx of them around September. Only issue is that I did quite a bit of googling and I'm reading that disavowing rarely helps and sometimes actually hurts. In a way that makes sense to me - crap links simply don't do anything... they don't penalize you and they don't help you.... So sending spam links to your competitor is a waste of your time.

But when you decide to disavow a bunch of links because they look spammy, then maybe some of those could actually be helping you and you're missing out on previous link juice...

Any thoughts on that?

 

[paraspy]

How is your user engagement? Time on page, bounce rate?

It can be improved... My organic stats are better than overall stats though. We have a pretty solid site - just get a lot of bad traffic that doesn't do much and lowers the numbers.

 

[BestAus]

I don’t think the redirect is the issue since my competitors have done the same and seen solid results. Even if Google flags it as manipulative, it would just nullify the link equity rather than hitting the site with a penalty