Congratulations, G. You have me totally spinning in circles.

<rant>

I've believed for a while (as have a lot of people, I know) that part of G's strategy is to get us questioning everything.
For me, they've succeeded over the last couple of days.

All of these sites are in the same niche with similar keywords.

Site 1: GH, rankings 20-40, nothing that should have stood out, but WMT unnatural links notice yesterday. Hard to figure out why.

Site 2: GH, rankings 8-15, again no real obviously bad links, but WMT unnatural links notice yesterday. A couple of blogs linking to it may have gotten hit.

Site 3: BH, with SAPE and other BH links, plus 301 redirects from previously penalized sites.
Today dropped from the top 2-4, down anywhere from 10-25 places for various keywords. Not terrifically shocking. No email or WMT notice yet, though.
It's a clone of site 4. This is where I start spinning in circles.

Site 4: BH, was ranking top 3 but then received a manual site-wide unnatural links penalty two months ago. As mentioned, I cloned the content it to site 3 so the content is identical on both sites.
I redirected site 4 (301) to site 3, but a week later I saw a small drop in rankings so I removed the 301 and the rankings came back for site 3.
That left site 4 just sitting there, doing nothing.
Yesterday, site 4 started showing up for a few minor keywords - even though I put the 301 to site 3 back into place this week.
Today, site 4 is ranking in the 20-40 range for all major keywords, and when I check WMT, I see that the penalty is now a specific pages penalty and not site-wide anymore. Needless to say, I hadn't changed anything or asked for reconsideration.

So.......
- the site that should have gotten hit, apparently did.
- the sites that shouldn't have gotten hit, did.
- the site that was hit two months ago and was just left to sit, had part of its penalty removed and is now ranking.
So.......
- do I try to "fix" and rank site 4?
- do I file for reconsideration on sites 1 and 2, removing links that aren't really "bad" in order to satisfy G simply by showing contrition?
- do I trash sites 1 and 2 and clone their content to start again?
- do I trash site 3 (after I get confirmation of a penalty in WMT) and start over with another clone, or wait to see if it comes back like site 4 did?
- do I leave the 301 from site 4 to site 3? do I remove the 301?
- do I go to the Googleplex and set myself on fire in front of it?

Congratulations, Matt. You have me totally and utterly confused - just like you wanted.
Sheesh.

</rant>

i got an unnatural links notice yesterday but this was a day after i removed google analytics from my site

To be honest with you mate, once a site get's hit in my experience, its best to start over with a fresh domain, and build your backlinks very carefully. Also although you might have done clean link building a lot of people perform negative seo, so check your links using tools such as link detox etc. and see for yourself, but don't waste money on link removals and recon requests, recreate the site on a new domain, drop the current one and move on. .

styla said:

To be honest with you mate, once a site get's hit in my experience, its best to start over with a fresh domain, and build your backlinks very carefully. Also although you might have done clean link building a lot of people perform negative seo, so check your links using tools such as link detox etc. and see for yourself, but don't waste money on link removals and recon requests, recreate the site on a new domain, drop the current one and move on. .

Click to expand...

Appreciate the advice, but to be honest (and not to be a jerk) this isn't my first rodeo. I wasn't asking for advice, I was just ranting - because a lot in this latest round of crap just makes no sense.

Why fight web spam when you can defeat those who perpetrate it before they even start?
But fear not - we haven't all given up!

tony_d said:

Why fight web spam when you can defeat those who perpetrate it before they even start?

Click to expand...

<sarcasm>Because the battle is almost won! G's tireless efforts to fight web spam and clean up the internet on behalf of the common surfer has provided a better user experience than ever before! We're almost there!</sarcasm>

tony_d said:

But fear not - we haven't all given up!

Click to expand...

Not even close to giving up :1:

Dude, instead of spinning in circles you should be spamming in circles

I too didnt realize the several questions at the end of your post were rhetorical.

In any case, I have had a similar experience to you over the past few days. I am stumped. 3 sites hit with penalties, all slightly different BL profiles. Yes there are a few spammy links, but those links aren't even passing PR.

Yet two competitors have 4-5x as many links, 95%+ of which are complete junk. Those sites have not been hit.

Interestingly though, and not trying to scaremonger, but all 3 sites of mine that got slapped, had links only from service providers here at BHW (I won't name which as I do not have any evidence whatsoever they are the cause).

Please forgive me as I'm not trying to hijack your thread, just very interested as to what others think.

chiggles said:

I too didnt realize the several questions at the end of your post were rhetorical.

In any case, I have had a similar experience to you over the past few days. I am stumped. 3 sites hit with penalties, all slightly different BL profiles. Yes there are a few spammy links, but those links aren't even passing PR.

Yet two competitors have 4-5x as many links, 95%+ of which are complete junk. Those sites have not been hit.

Interestingly though, and not trying to scaremonger, but all 3 sites of mine that got slapped, had links only from service providers here at BHW (I won't name which as I do not have any evidence whatsoever they are the cause).

Please forgive me as I'm not trying to hijack your thread, just very interested as to what others think.

Click to expand...

No worries, and apparently I wasn't clear enough that it was sarcastic and rhetorical - I thought that when I said "do I go to the Googleplex and set myself on fire in front of it?" people would get the idea, but I apologize to people if they thought I was asking a laundry list of "real" questions.

You're not hijacking - anyone who wants to discuss is welcome to do so

thanks man... and glad I didn't answer YES to your last question then

reallife said:

No worries, and apparently I wasn't clear enough that it was sarcastic and rhetorical - I thought that when I said "do I go to the Googleplex and set myself on fire in front of it?" people would get the idea, but I apologize to people if they thought I was asking a laundry list of "real" questions.

You're not hijacking - anyone who wants to discuss is welcome to do so

Click to expand...