Keywords Down, Penalty or Not?

[greyhat91]

Hey fellas, like many others on the forum my rankings plummeted this week. Half my keywords are completely gone now, and the others are dwindling.

Question. I just verified my website to GWT (it wasn't set up prior to this, my mistake) and do not have any messages or anything listed in the manual section (no manual webspam actions found). If there was a penalty, hypothetically, put in place within the past week would it still be listed even though I did not verify to Google Webmaster Tools until today?

In this case it may have been an algorithm detection, though I believed I had been practicing "safe SEO" and never purchased black hat services. Though obviously, there's a risk with everything these days. Definitely feel pretty gutted.

Is there any way to identify 100% if my site (or any site) has been google penalized? Until then, I'm kind of just sitting here not knowing what to do.

Sorry for the long post, appreciate any input as always.

 

[asap1]

From what you said it sounds like a penalty.

 

[zagard]

Sounds like a penalty, and yes, in case it's a penalty from manual inspection it will be listed in GWT even tho you got penalty before you put the website in the GWT

 

[greyhat91]

No penalty listed in GWT.

If its an auto-algorithm penalty, how different is this from a manual one? Are there any steps to combat it, or is it pretty much over?

 

[Kralj187]

No penalty listed in GWT.

If its an auto-algorithm penalty, how different is this from a manual one? Are there any steps to combat it, or is it pretty much over?

What's your main keyword anchor text ratio? Usually that's the problem when it comes to algorithm penalties.

 

[berkay1907]

How old was your site?