Punished by big G? or Not?

Hello BHWers,

Recently one of my main sites traffic dropped significantly, but most of the keywords rankings are good, the only problem is:

The main keyword lost ranking, not on the first page, not on every page. Meanwhile everything else is good, the homepage is still indexed. (The main keyword is for the homepage. and the domain is a brand keyword.)

Yes, the problem is: my homepage is being punished for specific keyword - the main keyword, or said the domain keyword.

and I found no answer from SERP.

Is there anyone else has experienced this? How to fix that?

thanks for any answer!

No one have experienced this?

I don't know what the issue is, but... here are a few possible reasons (as weird as it may sound, they could still be true, so don't dismiss them):

1. during this time of the year google have always taken down sites to make room for the big budgeted sharks. This has been going on for at least 3 years that I remember, because people spend a lot of money online around Black Friday and Christmas, and google - being the money hungry corporation that they are - don't like anyone having access to cash but them and the filthy rich.

So, your keyword will probably regain its rankings in January, without you having to do anything about it

2. one of the other pages on your site has just targeted the same keyword and so your pages are cannibalizing each other. If you've recently created a new page / article / piece of content around the same keyword, or around a partial match keyword then that partial match keyword (which probably has lower search volume) has taken up the spot of your main keyword.

3. Your homepage has been hijacked / infected with some malware / scripts / whatever and google has detected this and has taken the page down

Again, I don't know if any of these 3 reasons are the issue, but it's what I could think of off the top of my head...

It looks like a normal case of algorithm update. You can check in GSC to see if you have any penalties. If there are no penalties, then it's most probably the result of algo update. Google constantly updates SERPs and you can't do anything for algo updates.

Starblazer said:

It looks like a normal case of algorithm update. You can check in GSC to see if you have any penalties. If there are no penalties, then it's most probably the result of algo update. Google constantly updates SERPs and you can't do anything for algo updates.

Click to expand...

Nothing on GSC. I hope it's the result of algo update.

Johnhope said:

Nothing on GSC. I hope it's the result of algo update.

Click to expand...

Then it's definitely because of algo update. Some of my pages dropped out of SERPs and other people also reported the same. Nowadays, there are so many updates that people stopped talking about them. I've read in another thread that this update is related to content. So, you can try optimizing your content to see if it works.

tazarbm said:

1. during this time of the year google have always taken down sites to make room for the big budgeted sharks. This has been going on for at least 3 years that I remember, because people spend a lot of money online around Black Friday and Christmas, and google - being the money hungry corporation that they are - don't like anyone having access to cash but them and the filthy rich.

So, your keyword will probably regain its rankings in January, without you having to do anything about it

Click to expand...

--- The keyword is a brand keyword, it's not seasonal.

tazarbm said:

2. one of the other pages on your site has just targeted the same keyword and so your pages are cannibalizing each other. If you've recently created a new page / article / piece of content around the same keyword, or around a partial match keyword then that partial match keyword (which probably has lower search volume) has taken up the spot of your main keyword.

Click to expand...

--- Nothing changed on my pages, and the keyword is only use for the homepage. And actually I have only one main page on the site.

tazarbm said:

3. Your homepage has been hijacked / infected with some malware / scripts / whatever and google has detected this and has taken the page down

Click to expand...

The homepage is not taken down, it still ranks for other keyword.

Thanks.

Johnhope said:

Hello BHWers,

Recently one of my main sites traffic dropped significantly, but most of the keywords rankings are good, the only problem is:

The main keyword lost ranking, not on the first page, not on every page. Meanwhile everything else is good, the homepage is still indexed. (The main keyword is for the homepage. and the domain is a brand keyword.)

Yes, the problem is: my homepage is being punished for specific keyword - the main keyword, or said the domain keyword.

and I found no answer from SERP.

Is there anyone else has experienced this? How to fix that?

thanks for any answer!

Click to expand...

Sounds like an automated filter, not a penalty.

Filters get triggered when there's excesssive kw density, kw repetition or they detect artificial text designed to rank for that kw. Among other reasons.

Johnhope said:

Hello BHWers,

Recently one of my main sites traffic dropped significantly, but most of the keywords rankings are good, the only problem is:

The main keyword lost ranking, not on the first page, not on every page. Meanwhile everything else is good, the homepage is still indexed. (The main keyword is for the homepage. and the domain is a brand keyword.)

Yes, the problem is: my homepage is being punished for specific keyword - the main keyword, or said the domain keyword.

and I found no answer from SERP.

Is there anyone else has experienced this? How to fix that?

thanks for any answer!

Click to expand...

Sounds like an automated filter, not a penalty.

Filters get triggered when there's excesssive kw density, kw repetition or they detect artificial text designed to rank for that kw. Among other reasons.

Starblazer said:

Then it's definitely because of algo update. Some of my pages dropped out of SERPs and other people also reported the same. Nowadays, there are so many updates that people stopped talking about them. I've read in another thread that this update is related to content. So, you can try optimizing your content to see if it works.

Click to expand...

I have to assume it's like that, and start doing content optimizing.

A possible reason is: I created too many backlinks with the same anchor text, and big G might NOT like that.

bartosimpsonio said:

Sounds like an automated filter, not a penalty.

Filters get triggered when there's excesssive kw density, kw repetition or they detect artificial text designed to rank for that kw. Among other reasons.

Click to expand...

I used SEO tools like seobility to make sure the kw density is ok.

Johnhope said:

I used SEO tools like seobility to make sure the kw density is ok.

Click to expand...

Sometimes you can test for a filter by using stopwords along with your search. Add some random word with a + into your query, like

MAINKW +touch

If the word "touch" is in the article.... This will usually disarm the filter. If you rank for the special query but not the main query, then you're being filtered.

Johnhope said:

A possible reason is: I created too many backlinks with the same anchor text, and big G might NOT like that.

Click to expand...

All my sites where I used the same anchors are tanked. This clearly doesn't look like a coincidence. Thanks for mentioning it.

bartosimpsonio said:

Sometimes you can test for a filter by using stopwords along with your search. Add some random word with a + into your query, like

MAINKW +touch

If the word "touch" is in the article.... This will usually disarm the filter. If you rank for the special query but not the main query, then you're being filtered.

Click to expand...

My main keyword is like "keyword", but now only rank for "key word". Now it seems like filtered. Going to Google it now. Any suggested solution?

Starblazer said:

All my sites where I used the same anchors are tanked. This clearly doesn't look like a coincidence. Thanks for mentioning it.

Click to expand...

no problem. Hopefully it helps.