Main Keyword Penalties

MikeyMikey13 · Oct 20, 2017

So has anyone experience this, lets say we have a site selling black hats. My main keyword was ranking 3rd for "black hats" and loads of other keywords, including 1st for "buy black hats".

Now my site got mega-f***ed by G last month and is at rank #100 right now for "black hats", but only 3th for "buy black hats". I know it is a penalty, I just can't figure out why.

My link building is all the standard stuff: blog comments, web 2.0, 30-40 off homepage-pbn, 4 homepage links, some custom GSA stuff all with naked/generic/brand anchors.

Then maybe 5 or 6 sape style/homepage links with exact/partial anchors.

All was going well until I added more pbn links to get the final couple of places.

Any advice? any fixes?

It is clear to me it is my anchors, but I just can't figure out where.

should note: my domain is "black-hat.com"

Nargil · Oct 20, 2017

Too many exact match/partial anchors maybe?

MikeyMikey13 · Oct 20, 2017

Nargil said:
Too many exact match/partial anchors maybe?

Well it is at about 0.5% right now, I think it is to do with relevant links with the correct anchors.

You had any sites drop recently?

safeSEOboost · Oct 20, 2017

MikeyMikey13 said:
It is clear to me it is my anchors, but I just can't figure out where."

what is your anchor distribution by type like URL, brand, direct money keyword, related money keyword, general terms, etc?

MikeyMikey13 · Oct 20, 2017

I've seen a few sites in my market using black hat methods drop recently, from the 100~ keywords i'm monitoring, in the last week really.

Nargil · Oct 20, 2017

MikeyMikey13 said:
Well it is at about 0.5% right now, I think it is to do with relevant links with the correct anchors.

You had any sites drop recently?

Nothing unusual. I don't remember the last time everything was stable honestly.

Btw this:

Then maybe 5 or 6 sape style/homepage links with exact/partial anchors.

Are you sure those aren't sitewide?

MikeyMikey13 · Oct 20, 2017

safeSEOboost said:
what is your anchor distribution by type like URL, brand, direct money keyword, related money keyword, general terms, etc?

I did say in the post, I have about .5% exact/partial.

The rest are all generic, url or brand. these are all a mixture so nothing is similar.

MikeyMikey13 · Oct 20, 2017

Nargil said:
Nothing unusual. I don't remember the last time everything was stable honestly.

Btw this:

Are you sure those aren't sitewide?

No, these are just on the homepage, in the content. Nothing is stable, just all my stuff seems to have dropped since the 13th.

safeSEOboost · Oct 20, 2017

MikeyMikey13 said:
I did say in the post, I have about .5% exact/partial.

The rest are all generic, url or brand. these are all a mixture so nothing is similar.

"I did say ..."; can't you see we posted at the same time?
ok; anchor distribution analysis can be a bit deeper than simply breaking down between EM or not though.
if your domain is your brand and keyword, then we need to know percentage of brand as anchor, etc.
0.5%? what is your RD then? 1k?

Nargil · Oct 20, 2017

MikeyMikey13 said:
No, these are just on the homepage, in the content. Nothing is stable, just all my stuff seems to have dropped since the 13th.

Guess we got that figured out then. Friday 13th!

But honestly, I have no idea. Drop of particular keywords tends to mean overptimisation in my experience. Your anchors are more than fine, nothing out of the ordinary. I would be just waiting it out at this point.

MikeyMikey13 · Oct 20, 2017

safeSEOboost said:
"I did say ..."; can't you see we posted at the same time?
ok; anchor distribution analysis can be a bit deeper than simply breaking down between EM or not though.
if your domain is your brand and keyword, then we need to know percentage of brand as anchor, etc.
0.5%? what is your RD then? 1k?

Google doesn't treat your brand as the same as your keyword, the "-" isn't treated as a space so it is a different word. meaning "black-hat" or "black-hat.com" doesn't inflict "black hat" directly when used as an anchor (from my testing).

Do you believe otherwise?

RD is only relative to my competition. It is probably around 100-120 if you include all the GSA etc. But one other competitor with a similar site has maybe 250RD, but again, they are completely different links.

MikeyMikey13 · Oct 20, 2017

Nargil said:
Guess we got that figured out then. Friday 13th!

But honestly, I have no idea. Drop of particular keywords tends to mean overptimisation in my experience. Your anchors are more than fine, nothing out of the ordinary. I would be just waiting it out at this point.

overptimisation of what specifically?

Yeah i'm waiting this out now... just those mini heart attacks I have are killing me

safeSEOboost · Oct 20, 2017

MikeyMikey13 said:
Google doesn't treat your brand as the same as your keyword, the "-" isn't treated as a space so it is a different word. meaning "black-hat" or "black-hat.com" doesn't inflict "black hat" directly when used as an anchor (from my testing).

Do you believe otherwise?

oh!

MikeyMikey13 said:
RD is only relative to my competition. It is probably around 100-120 if you include all the GSA etc. But one other competitor with a similar site has maybe 250RD, but again, they are completely different links.

how do you get 0,5% EM if you have less than 200 RD then?

Nargil · Oct 20, 2017

MikeyMikey13 said:
overptimisation of what specifically?

Yeah i'm waiting this out now... just those mini heart attacks I have are killing me

Anchors in majority of cases. Which is not the case right now.

MikeyMikey13 · Oct 20, 2017

safeSEOboost said:
oh!

how do you get 0,5% EM if you have less than 200 RD then?

My EM isn't measured off my RD, it is measured from my amount of bank links. I have around 600 links from these 100-120 sites

MikeyMikey13 · Oct 20, 2017

Nargil said:
Anchors in majority of cases. Which is not the case right now.

Ehh we'll have to wait and see. I am very strict with my anchors and i've always kept them low. Will report back any news

FreakenSEOsmh · Oct 20, 2017

grow up, both of you!

jamie3000 · Oct 20, 2017

It's probably not this as I'm assuming you haven't made any on page changes...but...

I had two keywords a page was targeting. One ranked first page, one didn't rank at all. Could not figure it out, similar competition on both words.

Turns out my keyword density was just too high on one of the two variations/keywords.

Lowered it, ranks well now.

MikeyMikey13 · Oct 20, 2017

jamie3000 said:
It's probably not this as I'm assuming you haven't made any on page changes...but...

I had two keywords a page was targeting. One ranked first page, one didn't rank at all. Could not figure it out, similar competition on both words.

Turns out my keyword density was just too high on one of the two variations/keywords.

Lowered it, ranks well now.

You could be onto something, my keyword density could be too high on the homepage. Comes up 13 times, at .7%. Might take that out a couple of times in the content as I have it in the alts too. Thanks!

alexzeto · Oct 20, 2017

MikeyMikey13 said:
Then maybe 5 or 6 sape style/homepage links with exact/partial anchors.

Usually Sape links are not relevant and also you have no control over links which now day is the perfect combination for a penalty, specially if they contained exact match anchors, if those anchors were ranking you and they get de-indexed or penalized it explains why you lost ranking, you might be ranking on third for one of your keywords because google didn't updated these specific search yet, my guess...

If I were you I would check for what links are still indexed from your entire profile.

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