Google slapped even my very clean sites based on whois !

It occurred somewhere in 2012 coinciding during penguin penalty. All of my 12 websites were slapped by G & lost all rankings. Around 8 of them had links built in the spammy way(several bookmarks,directory submissions,spun web2.0). I understand that penguin targetted these kinds of sites and so banning them was just.

But what worries me is that I also had 2 clean websites which weren't at all involved in deliberate link building were also penalised.
These 2 sites had very genuine engaging content and the visitors themselves had built links to it on their own(organic links). These links came from relevant contexual blog posts, forums, Q&A sites,etc. None of them used spun content nor were there spammy comment links, web2.0, etc. Each of them was exactly editorial links as the big G likes. These links itself brought 100s of referral visitors/day. Not a single link was built by us. Then how did penguin affect them?

I reasoned a bit and found the common similarities between my clean & not so clean sites:
1# All 12 were hosted on the same account ip address
2# All were all registered in my same name in whois
(note: google analytics was not added to all of them and the clean sites weren't added to webmaster tools)

But since I was on a shared hosting, I guess there might have been other people's sites on the same ip address and its unwise for google to ban them logically. So I guess that google tried to mass ban all of my sites based on whois. I doubt if its a typical penguin slap!

Now here lies my problem. I now want to re-enter the SEO game but am worried that even the new websites that I build now may be banned by tracking my whois. I dont believe that private whois protects anything from google(all it does is protect domain info from general public and spam bots).

Here goes my questions:
#Has anybody faced this problem and what would be a viable solution to it?
#Now I was thinking to start fresh by getting a different hosting and registering new domains with a different ownership name. But isn't it illegal to buy domains with fake ownership data?

I really appreciate your time for reading this and thanks in advance to those who will share their opinion.

As a nooby, especially with your account age to compare to, I would vote for option one:
1# All 12 were hosted on the same account ip address
Don't ask me for the limits, but if too many people abuse the IP, all sites hosted get slapped. Not something new btw.

well, if it proves to be true, it seriously worries me...

Yes using same shared hosting for more then 3 sites is risky now a days, i have over 10 hosting accounts. I host no more then 3 sites per host and all of them have privacy ON.

You don't use Whois Guard?

Free Whois protection from Namecheap...nuff said.

The updates might have helped other competitors in your niche perform better as well - they don't always just bring sites down...Maybe they didn't penalize your clean sites after all. Consider the fact that if you stop doing work on your site, it doesn't mean that competition has stopped (or that there isn't new competition that's hungrier than you).

I don't think G would slap everyone on that same shared IP. I'm sure they look at both IP and whois information and tie people together that way.

ProSEO Show said:

Free Whois protection from Namecheap...nuff said.

The updates might have helped other competitors in your niche perform better as well - they don't always just bring sites down...Maybe they didn't penalize your clean sites after all. Consider the fact that if you stop doing work on your site, it doesn't mean that competition has stopped (or that there isn't new competition that's hungrier than you).

Click to expand...

Then how do you explain that all 12 lost rankings at the same time?

You should have tried keeping a few with whois privacy just too see if it really doesn't work.

Did the webmaster tools give you some sort of warning?

kinlee said:

You should have tried keeping a few with whois privacy just too see if it really doesn't work.

Did the webmaster tools give you some sort of warning?

Click to expand...

webmaster tools didn't give any warning

I dont believe that private whois protects anything from google - i dont know about that one...


were all accounts on the same webmaster tools? that would be your problem

Google is registrar themself, so privacy won't help. Need to fake details i guess.

true_promote said:

Then how do you explain that all 12 lost rankings at the same time?

Click to expand...

You already explained it yourself - there was an algo update. They definitely didn't hit everyone on a shared hosting plan. When multiple sites on a shared hosting plan are interlinked in an obvious way, it's not unheard of to see them all get hit at the same time - but it'd only be the ones that are obviously being used in a suspect way, not everyone else on the same server.

Also, no offense, but Google doesn't give a shit about a guy with 12 mediocre sites/blogs, even if 8 are spammy. I doubt they looked into your whois information manually. Highly doubt it. If anything, my guess is that your competition for the "clean" sites performed better under the update, and the spammy sites just got hit...If they were all under the same webmasters account, as noted by someone else, that's also one way that they could have tied the sites together - but you said the clean sites were not added to webmaster tools...

How old were the sites?

Problem is that you lumped all of your websites on with one hosting company on one IP Address meaning
Google spotted them all being the same and penalized them. Next time diversify your hosting and always
make sure you pay for whois privacy protection.

-RK

Given that all your files, when using shared hosting, are essentially in the same directory on a server, I'm sure someone who cared enough to dig around could discover this, couldn't they?

Sounds like you left some sort of footprint. Perhaps linking your sites together SEO wise?

oohhhhh conspiracy. Not to be unhelpful but who cares. Move on, name of the game.

No need for thanks

ProSEO Show said:

You already explained it yourself - there was an algo update. They definitely didn't hit everyone on a shared hosting plan. When multiple sites on a shared hosting plan are interlinked in an obvious way, it's not unheard of to see them all get hit at the same time - but it'd only be the ones that are obviously being used in a suspect way, not everyone else on the same server.

Also, no offense, but Google doesn't give a shit about a guy with 12 mediocre sites/blogs, even if 8 are spammy. I doubt they looked into your whois information manually. Highly doubt it. If anything, my guess is that your competition for the "clean" sites performed better under the update, and the spammy sites just got hit...If they were all under the same webmasters account, as noted by someone else, that's also one way that they could have tied the sites together - but you said the clean sites were not added to webmaster tools...

How old were the sites?

Click to expand...

A couple were above 6yrs old and the rest were atleast 3 yrs old. I didn't interlink them in any way because they were all in wildly different niches.
And regarding your point that after update competitor sites could have performed better, I highly doubt it as what can be better than lots of natural editorial links.

Open up a company and register new domains using its info.

Thanks to all who shared their opinion.

I would like to know if your new sites built post-penguin are ranking well with same open whois and perhaps the same hosting account.