Hit by Hummingbird HARD

Our site got hit by hummingbird hard. We were #1 for [Tampa Web Design] and did pretty well for it for the late part and early part of this year, then April's update came out and put us on page 94. We worked hard, got back to #8. Then all of a sudden out of nowhere, around the time Google announced Hummingbird(I know it was realeased earlier) we dropped completely off the search results altogether.

I have no idea what happened. Site is fast, W3c Compliant and content heavy.

??? The website says you do SEO...so what were you doing? But...I would remove the domain from your post...probably wouldn't be good if a potential client is searching for your company and this post shows up where a SEO company is asking why their site dropped.

pretty bold to post your KW and URL on a public spam forum. LOL with names and photos of the whole team.

also ran your website in ahrefs. anchor text distribution is pretty crap, and you seem to have done most link building at the end of April as well as a bit at the end of September.. except that, not much. On site.. well, 23 times "tampa web design" on your homepage... 2007 called, it wants its SEO back.

Poor bird must be dead by now, after hitting you.

Might take advantage of additional

<meta property="og

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type tags.
Have you checked for silly problems like a bad line in your robots.txt that might be preventing something from being indexed correctly?

newguy28 said:

Our site got hit by hummingbird hard. We were #1 for [Tampa Web Design] and did pretty well for it for the late part and early part of this year, then April's update came out and put us on page 94. We worked hard, got back to #8. Then all of a sudden out of nowhere, around the time Google announced Hummingbird(I know it was realeased earlier) we dropped completely off the search results altogether.

I have no idea what happened. Site is fast, W3c Compliant and content heavy.

Can someone help? the domain is apansoftware.com

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So you did well, you got hit and now you're crying because you hardly have any business left?

Your MAIN problem isn't getting hit by a Google update, it's not knowing how to bank on existing client relationships. If your whole business relied on getting traffic from Google, then you're shit out of luck. Had you been smart and put in place a referral system, create a mailing list of your clients and prospects, been pro-actively marketing to them and locally offline, then you'd never have been in the spot you're in right now. Moral of the story: unless you can afford to start over again every time Google makes you its bitch, BANK on client relationships as soon as you get some.

Looking at your linking profile, I hope you are joking. The link profile looks something like of a churn and burn website.

buy 2 new domains

rank 1 in a normal fashion, white hat
fast rank the other one... spam, sape, everything
keep ranking the 1st domain as your main business domain and keep on churning websites to keep on getting orders


if you want to sell that domain (apansoftware.com) i can buy it from you

lots of footer links

I think google is hitting all top websites for no reason making space for PPC. It might be possible in future there will be no or less organic listing.

Since you seem to have a real business I'll give you real advice:

Register a new domain and start over with a new website. Announce a "re-branding" campaign and change your business name. Send marketing materials to all your current and former clients announcing the big change.

Too many spam links to your current site. Too many footer links from client pages. Recovery is not likely.

Get rid of sitewide links, create more contextual links and improve your anchor text diversification. Start creating links with your domain, brand name and then different anchors related to your niche. For more leads, change your meta description it is too long and insert call to action in the description. Also create Google plus page, and connect it with your website so that publisher snippet is showing. No offence but you have done average seo on your website since it is your business niche.

mickyfu said:

Looking at your linking profile, I hope you are joking. The link profile looks something like of a churn and burn website.

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This! Not sure why you even wonder about your new positions. I suggest you go for a new domain, work form scratch and use some of your business development skills more often.

you can try the disavow tool. I used it on a domain i bought thro go daddy actions wich turnd out to have a lot of spam links and was not to be found in the serps. Afhter disavow i was on page 2.

OP, First of all I would like to say that I am sorry for that hit. Your situation is different because that site is the one where you make your money from. It is your business. Your firm. But don't you think that you underestimated things a bit:

1) first you asked for help in this thread: "SEO Help - Post Penguin" Many people tried to help you including me. You have learned several things and you thought that you had figured out things.

2) Then suddenly you became a seo man and started this thread "How we have recoved almost 100% from Last Penguin". You even gave lessons to people using the information that you have learned from us.

3) In this thread "Funny SEO Company Observation", you somewhat looked down people dealing with seo.

4) Finally, the dark night came again and you this very thread "Hit by Hummingbird HARD".


So my conclusions:

1) Hummingbird is not the thing slammed your site. It is penguin 2.1 (or version 5). You should have known that.

2) Actually, at first stage, to recover from penguin, what you did was incomplete.

I told you when we talked (weeks ago):

- to remove all those useless harmful backlinks that you have bought earlier (You have bought huge amount of backlinks 2 times).
- start to use social signals.

3) Many members of bhw gave you lots of useful advises for free. You applied some of them and you thought you have recovered your site.


So I wonder now:

1) What will you do?
2) Will you combine advices again and later start another seo guru thread?


my last 2 cents:

Work with several guys from this forum who knows what to do. And pay them for their efforts. Pay them as how your clients are paying you. Don't go for cheap solutions. Do what they say exactly. (Here I am not implying myself because I am not a seo guy that will help you. I just know simple facts)


Another two cents:

"Make sure a matter is really over before relaxing about it."

So sad to hear that. Google's hummingbird algorithm have hurt lots of site's rankings.

edgematch,

I have tried for months to remove the links, i have asked the webmasters and used google's disallow tool, nothing. The links are still there.

Read the first post "How we Recovered..." I said i was an ENGINEER, not SEO GUY, never claimed to be an SEO guy.

We had a pretty BAD SEO guy. I personally am NOT THE SEO GUY.

All i ask for is help in the right direction. I have no idea how to fix this, we have since fired the SEO guy when we found out he created 1000's of spammy links to our site.

I still do think 90% of the SEO industry are scammers, but Like i said before i have a deep respect for the 10% that are real.

edgematch,

I would be 100% happy to pay whatever to an SEO expert who could help...the problem is finding out who is in the 10% and who is a scammer.

newguy28 said:

edgematch,

I would be 100% happy to pay whatever to an SEO expert who could help...the problem is finding out who is in the 10% and who is a scammer.

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Most of us get around that issue by learning SEO... and don't be too hard on your ex-SEO guy.. there was a period when 1000s of spammy links got you to front page and probably got you lots (well, at least some right?) clients,...

actually its pretty fcking harsh to fire him just because of a Google update.

GiorgioB said:

pretty bold to post your KW and URL on a public spam forum. LOL with names and photos of the whole team.

also ran your website in ahrefs. anchor text distribution is pretty crap, and you seem to have done most link building at the end of April as well as a bit at the end of September.. except that, not much. On site.. well, 23 times "tampa web design" on your homepage... 2007 called, it wants its SEO back.

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Your right anchor text distribution is awful, and OP wonder why he got hit. Some sites don't even deserves to rank in the first place.


Edit to add: after re-reading your thread, firing your seo guy is some what bad move, even the best SEO consultant out there can't guarantee their site won't be touched by updates.