Went down a PR, and dropped in rank!

Hi all -

Was hoping somebody could give me some insight on what I should do next, as I recently suffered quite a dropping in ranking, and my PR was lowered for one of my main product pages. The page in question was ranking 3rd for close to a year on a very important market phrase. It then dropped to 5th on Dec. 26th, and again dropped to 9th on Jan. 15th. It hasn't really moved since.

I had a friend help me figure out what may have been the cause of the drop, and we came across what looks like to be the issue. It seems as if we hit an over-optimization filter, by having too many anchor tags with a specific phrase. There's a huge gap in the keywords backlinked in comparison... I'm just stumped as to why it took so long for us to get hit with a penalty lol. The domain is 11 years old...

So I'm now fixing this mess, and wanted to get everyone's input on what to do next...

• Should I continue building links, but with different keywords (generic, and non generic)?
• Should I go through and disavow any very low quality / potentially bad neighborhood links through Google?
• Should I go through the landing page and de-optimize the keyword/phrase?
• Something completely different... (please make some suggestions.)

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As far as the page rank of the URL dropping... I'm also stumped on what to do next. We were at a steady PR4, and since the drop in rank, we were lowered to a PR3.

• Should I build some high-pr/high quality backlinks directly to the URL?
• Should I build multiple tiers of high quality backlinks (1st tier to the URL, 2nd to the 1st tier, 3rd to the 2nd.)?
• Something completely different... (please make some suggestions.)

If you're not building links and you want to move back up you need to start building links. PR isn't a relevant metric anymore. You are correlating your ranking with your PR and they're two very different numbers.

may i know what type of tier1 links did you make?

did you always check your backlinks profile via ahref?
a competitor might have been doing a neg seo on your site...

dennica said:

may i know what type of tier1 links did you make? did you always check your backlinks profile via ahref? a competitor might have been doing a neg seo on your site...

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I checked my backlinks using Cognitive SEO. A variety of different types. I had more blog backlinks than anything else though. but I mixed it between forums, web2.0's, wordpress, press releases, articles, etc. While it's always possible, I don't think any competitor did this. I think it was a goof on my part for over anchoring a specific phrase.

BHopkins said:

If you're not building links and you want to move back up you need to start building links.

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If I were to start building links again, what are some things to stay away from specifically? Should I avoid using that keyword/phrase in any of my anchors moving forward until I see some movement in rank? Should I target a specific type of backlink? All / any advice is greatly appreciated. I need to fix the ranking as soon as possible.

BHopkins said:

PR isn't a relevant metric anymore. You are correlating your ranking with your PR and they're two very different numbers.

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I'm only correlating the two because they both dropped around the same time, which either means I was penalized, or some of my backlinks were discredited. I was under the impression that PR still holds importance in terms of ranking, as it defines how much authority, importance, and value your website/page has.

bump?

lets change the keywords with that start back-linking with the the quality websites...

ShoppingMonk said:

lets change the keywords with that start back-linking with the the quality websites...

Click to expand...

I can't really change the content on the page itself... will building links with a different keyword be enough?

bump??