Keyword Ranking PLUMMET - Anyone else?

[Windmill]

Trying to keep calm here... damn SEO!

So, my biggest client has a website, a very important website. It has completely SUNK overnight. Not only has it sunk, but I can see there has been a HUGE shift in the first page rankings. Websites that weren't there are now there, etc. I'm not sure wtf has happened!

Australia

KW1: 2 > 8
KW2: 5 > 10
KW 3: 2 > 3

United Kingdom

KW1: 1 > 2
KW2: 3 > 5
KW3: 1 > 2

The Australia rankings are a BIG problem, KW1 is a huge keyword, KW2 has been dropping for awhile. The UK rankings are the lowest they've been in months.

This update has happened within the past hour or two; I know this because of certain cached rankings and because traffic has pretty much stopped as of an hour or two ago even though the traffic should have been growing at an expotential rate based on every single other day.

Any news from other people? This is my only site hit by this; but its been hit in multiple countries. It is not an EMD.

 

[Sam Wylde]

It appears that the new update is hitting random sites. We have about 20 sites, 12 of which are authority's. I cannot find any common factors from the 7 which have been nuked.

The best thing to do for now is assure your client that everything will be fine and explain the situation. We will have to wait and see what comes from all this.

 

[Windmill]

Indeed; this is an authority site :/

 

[Sam Wylde]

Indeed; this is an authority site :/

I have no clue what google was thinking. We do some pure white hat methods and it seems that those got hit the most which makes no sense.

And the sites that replaced ours or really low quality and/or not related to the keyword.

 

[drogon]

The good news is at least the site is alive and kicking still on page 1 and you can work to get back your rankings over time. Others have had most of their sites wiped out from top 10 to not in top 1000!!!

 

[BlackHat3]

All of my sites went down like 3-4 spots this past week

 

[pixelgrinder]

What are you doing for link building?

 

[Windmill]

The good news is at least the site is alive and kicking still on page 1 and you can work to get back your rankings over time. Others have had most of their sites wiped out from top 10 to not in top 1000!!!

This is what I tell myself but still; its easier said than done. How do you "work" to get back rankings? No clue tbh.

For now, I think I've got an idea actually, and I'm going to put it into effect.

 

[Blackprizm]

Google pls

 

[OnlineA]

I lost some rankings, too...like completely from page 1 to nowhere. Others stayed where they were...I don't see a pattern yet.

 

[Windmill]

Most people on here who have lost rankings seem to have gone from page 1 to nowhere. My rankings have been loses in placings, simply dropping on the front page. Interesting.

 

[motzart]

I gained about 30 rankings for almost every keyword on my two main sites. I'm loving Google updates more and more, every single one has helped me out.

 

[Real78]

I was ranking for two keyword and both are gone. I still show up so my site is not deindex which is good.

 

[Windmill]

Well our SEO traffic is still going strong enough, so whatever, I'm not sure wtf has happened tbh. We'll have to see tomorrow. Rankings flip up-down 1-2 spots every hour or so.

 

[sbw27]

Same thing has happened to my main authority site...It is white hat and legit, and which I never try fishy stuff on, for me that's about $2k a month down the toilet for no real reason...it's not an EMD either which is strange because that might make some sense...I really give up though. No idea how Google decide which sites get cut, and which survive...seems very random...the site uses a CDN if that is a possible random reason to take a hit?

The site at number one for my main money keyword is some really random new site, that has literally 28,000 links with their main keyword anchor..... so is basically breaking every rule we have learnt from penguin....could it be a glitch? Or is google randomly shuffling sites around and waiting to see which ones have good user experience scores, bounce rates etc.?

F$3K them though!

 

[Windmill]

Unsure tbh! I'm pretty confused. This site has a pretty crappy backlink profile though, but those links were just low-quality directory style spammy links. Since then, I've focused on aged web 2.0's as my core strategy, plus continuously plugging us on legit news websites.

I have a good idea to try and send some more social media signals our way. Much easier said than done though!

That, and going to add some more quality content to our website.

Looks like compared to a lot of you, we came out OK. Its strange though, very few people here are talking about small (yet, as we know, crucial) shifts in rankings. Instead, you all seem to be having death-defying drops.

 

[sbw27]

My main keyword has gone from 1st to 9th....but I was just looking at the links to the number one site and it's pure spam....porn backlinks, sitewide footer links etc....it's crazy to think google would take my hard work over 6 years and dump it for porn spam backlinks....makes me feel sick.

 

[Dan Da Man]

Yep. You are very lucky. All my sites tanked. Not to page 2 but to nowhere! Try going from $30k a month in sales to zero overnight. Yeah it hurts

 

[Real78]

I notice in my niche everyone that is ranking has spam backlinks what the heck I thought Goolge was hitting people for these type of sites. Oh, well I guess I will just keep moving forward .

 

[Windmill]

Yep. You are very lucky. All my sites tanked. Not to page 2 but to nowhere! Try going from $30k a month in sales to zero overnight. Yeah it hurts

On the plus side, with 30k a month in sales, I hope you saved some of the profit for a rainy day!