Have I been penalised?

[nwworkwear]

I have no messages in webmaster tools to say so but until around 7/8 week ago I was ranking number 1 for around 6 months or so for 2 keywords which are both very similar (in fact ones just got 'buy' in front of the main keyword).

I now rank 11 for the buying keyword and the other has gone out of the top100.

I was also ranking for 2 or 3 other decent keywords which have slipped down past page 5. Nothing I seem to do is bringing this keywords back.

I did noticed though a lot of links have been deindexed that was linked to my site as they number has gone down dramatically in webmaster tools and also on alexa so could it just be the fact less links are pointing to my site and I just need to build them back up again?

Like I say though I have built up quite a number of links since then and also purchased 1 or so services from here to help which have done nothing.

What I have noticed though is although my traffic has reduced to just under 50% of what it was before, I am getting more traffic from longtail keywords. More than I was before.

 

[adeptbob]

I have no messages in webmaster tools to say so but until around 7/8 week ago I was ranking number 1 for around 6 months or so for 2 keywords which are both very similar (in fact ones just got 'buy' in front of the main keyword).

I now rank 11 for the buying keyword and the other has gone out of the top100.

I was also ranking for 2 or 3 other decent keywords which have slipped down past page 5. Nothing I seem to do is bringing this keywords back.

I did noticed though a lot of links have been deindexed that was linked to my site as they number has gone down dramatically in webmaster tools and also on alexa so could it just be the fact less links are pointing to my site and I just need to build them back up again?

Like I say though I have built up quite a number of links since then and also purchased 1 or so services from here to help which have done nothing.

What I have noticed though is although my traffic has reduced to just under 50% of what it was before, I am getting more traffic from longtail keywords. More than I was before.

Are you keep a decent link velocity weekly?

Do you have any SOLID high PR backlinks targeting your main keyword?

What percentage of backlinks have you lost?

How diverse is your link portfolio, and how diverse is your anchor text?

There are shit ton of factors that could cause this...including a pure RANDOM fluctuation in the serps for your site

 

[nwworkwear]

Im keeping a steady link velocity yes.

I have just looked in SEOmoz actually and ALOT of dead links for them keywords. Looks like many of the links where low quality and have been taken down. I suppose it is better than getting a penalty I will just have to be careful when building these links back up.

 

[adeptbob]

Im keeping a steady link velocity yes.

I have just looked in SEOmoz actually and ALOT of dead links for them keywords. Looks like many of the links where low quality and have been taken down. I suppose it is better than getting a penalty I will just have to be careful when building these links back up.

Then that sounds like the culprit to me..

I'd focus on finding a handful of PR4-5 D0F0llows instead of hundreds of pr0s and N/As

That's not to say not to build social/wiki/2.0s, but one PR4 is worth hundreds of crap links