Google Dance or Possible Penalty? Very Weird.

[cashcrateaddict]

Haven't done SEO for a while and this situation is brand new to me. Would appreciate your read and response if knowledgeable

I have a site thats about 6 months old, it has about 5-6 posts not including the Contact, About, FAQ, and Terms pages. Each post is between 700-1000 words in length.

This was a site I just let sit over time. I haven't built links to it until last week. Will get into this later, but prior to last week, no links over the sites 6 month lifespan.

One article on the site is 5 months old. Its 1000 words in length, amazing content tbh. Couple weeks ago I decided to had this post to my serpbook and was shocked to find many keywords ranked on page 2-4 while the post (and site) had no links pointing to it. Out of 9 keywords I tracked, 5 were between pages 2-4, 2 more keywords were on pages 6-8, and the last 2 keywords were n/a

Last week I added 15 pbn links to the site.

Site has dropped for all keywords. Each keyword dropped about 40-60 spots then most are showing up as n/a in serpbook with 1-2 still showing on page 12+

Site has been like this for a couple of days now with no change. No messages in GWT regarding this.

I'm wondering if this is possibly a penalty or just the site dancing so wildly due to links being added for the first time in the sites 6 month life.

What do you think?

Edit: FWIW the keywords I'm targeting are stupid easy

 

[Lunaaa]

Check in Google webmaster tool to see if you have a penalty

 

[cashcrateaddict]

Check in Google webmaster tool to see if you have a penalty

The least you can do is read the OP before replying

 

[Leith]

If it's a penalty, you'll most likely know inside WMT. If you don't see anything in there, assume it's a dance (which is what I'd say it is considering it's only been a few days).

Sometimes WMT messages are delayed so make sure to keep an eye out too.

If you see nothing at all, then I think it's pretty safe to say it's a dance. Your site had no links and suddenly it receives 15 strong(?) PBN links.. so Google is "testing" your site to see what's up - hence the drop. If anything, I'd add in some social signals to increase the trust of your site and hopefully, get you out of the dance sooner.

 

[maxchen]

Simple. Did you go for pbn that cost extremely cheap?

Many of my sites got hit by this fall too recently. I went to disavow a large chunk of low quality pbn and some of the sites recovered.

If you look at GWT and see the latest link, you might be shock of the quality of the blogs(pbn) your post is in.

 

[starki]

Many of my sites got hit by this fall too recently. I went to disavow a large chunk of low quality pbn and some of the sites recovered.

The penalties PBN links can trigger are always manual, "unnatural links". If you disavow links and see results without a reinclusion request and without actually removing (not just disavowing) links, it means this hit wasn't from the PBN links.

 

[onlineonly]

The penalties PBN links can trigger are always manual, "unnatural links". If you disavow links and see results without a reinclusion request and without actually removing (not just disavowing) links, it means this hit wasn't from the PBN links.

Not true, google can give any kind of msg in WMT, ive had "thin content" because of links.

 

[SEO Pearl]

I think it's a Google dance not a penalty, so you can wait for some time to settle down and keep adding the quality and lengthy contents for the specified keywords of your website.
Also, make sure to build the quality backlinks!

 

[Titans]

It's just a Google dance dude. Build some quality backlinks and update your site regularly.

 

[Rachmaninoff]

I assume it's just a google dance considering you just built the link a week ago and no message from GWT so far.

 

[Red Giant]

Yes, it's google dance if you didn't get any message from WMT. Keep building links and ignore it. Ranks will stabilize soon. Keep building quality links.

 

[Big guy]

Yup its google dance. It take some time to settle down. Keep updating your site with quality content.

 

[comeoniwanna]

Looks like a dance, did you add all 15 links at once?

 

[drogon]

Too soon to get a penalty, and most likely a dance. I would add some other types of links (web 2.0 etc) for link and kw diversity.

 

[fb3003]

Simple. Did you go for pbn that cost extremely cheap?

Many of my sites got hit by this fall too recently. I went to disavow a large chunk of low quality pbn and some of the sites recovered.

If you look at GWT and see the latest link, you might be shock of the quality of the blogs(pbn) your post is in.

did you disavow links that were picked up by GWT or links that were of low quality as mentioned by ahref/maestic and you could find a trace in GWT?

 

[Spy]

Its a penalty for links.Happens to me too from time to time when i add to much strong links at once.There are 2 choices.Take the links away and wait a bit or add more diffrent links to your site to make it look more natural

 

[fb3003]

Its a penalty for links.Happens to me too from time to time when i add to much strong links at once.There are 2 choices.Take the links away and wait a bit or add more diffrent links to your site to make it look more natural

can you please how long do you have to wait in order for google dance to finish and you get back to atleast where you were before?

 

[Spy]

its not a dance.It takes normaly 2-6 weeks