What would make a site drop from FIRST position to page 3?

islandcoli · Feb 12, 2012

I'm well aware that being in the first spot is not permanent as you need to continuously work to stay. I was in the #1 spot for 6 weeks then all of a sudden down to page 3. I've had situations where my competition "out works" me and I slowly drop from #1, to 2 then 3 then 4 etc.

But to go right to page 3 seems odd.

Things I've tried in the 3 weeks since it dropped to page 3:

Added more content
Got some in-content high pr backlinks
did some social bookmarking

alas it hasn't budged from it's new home at page 3.

Was I penalized? Any Ideas?

Wealthy Wisdom · Feb 12, 2012

same thing happened to me....added backlinks...more UNIQUE content...but still on page #3 when it was just on page #1 almost 2 weeks ago

islandcoli · Feb 12, 2012

Wealthy Wisdom said:
same thing happened to me....added backlinks...more UNIQUE content...but still on page #3 when it was just on page #1 almost 2 weeks ago

I only ever use unique content, but just like you I added more and some high pr backlinks

Gyuman82 · Feb 12, 2012

Things that could cause drops:

-Lose some important backlinks
-Algorithm Change
-Your competition is doin SEO work
-Lack of consistency in backlinking
-Lack of "fresh content"

Just add content and links and you'll be back up. This of course assumes your site has decent content to start off with.

partymarty4870 · Feb 12, 2012

Simple - something that you did has been devalued in the eyes of the big G.

jstover77 · Feb 12, 2012

Sounds like you got hit with a Panda refresh. Seems to be caused by devalued links, deindexed links in a lot of private networks, and lack of anchor text diversity.

Try this. Do a couple press release distributions, and some social bookmarks runs. Use anchor text like "website.com" "website" "Click Here" "www.yourwebsite.com" etc. Most likely the drop was caused by devaluation of the links you were using or lack of anchor text diversity.

islandcoli · Feb 12, 2012

jstover77 said:
Sounds like you got hit with a Panda refresh. Seems to be caused by devalued links, deindexed links in a lot of private networks, and lack of anchor text diversity.

Try this. Do a couple press release distributions, and some social bookmarks runs. Use anchor text like "website.com" "website" "Click Here" "www.yourwebsite.com" etc. Most likely the drop was caused by devaluation of the links you were using or lack of anchor text diversity.

Thanks for including possible pro-active steps to try in your post. Will try the anchor text idea.

islandcoli · Feb 12, 2012

Gyuman82 said:
Things that could cause drops:

-Lose some important backlinks
-Algorithm Change
-Your competition is doin SEO work
-Lack of consistency in backlinking
-Lack of "fresh content"

Just add content and links and you'll be back up. This of course assumes your site has decent content to start off with.

All my content was/is unique. Thanks for insight

jon_xx_x · Feb 12, 2012

Lack of "fresh content" is so fucking dumb.
You will not drop because you didn't add new content.
Could be anything.

Google devalued some links.
Your links that were once on a homepage are gone.
Some of your links were dexindexed.
Just dancing.

Gyuman82 · Feb 12, 2012

jon_xx_x said:
Lack of "fresh content" is so fucking dumb.
You will not drop because you didn't add new content.
Could be anything.

Google devalued some links.
Your links that were once on a homepage are gone.
Some of your links were dexindexed.
Just dancing.

You are assuming that he has a website where "freshness" isn't valued.

Google has clearly stated that changes have been made to it's algorithm for certain types of content that requires regular updating.

Let me reference an article for you:

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/giving-you-fresher-more-recent-search.html

So yes "fresh content" matters to some sites.

islandcoli · Feb 13, 2012

jon_xx_x said:
Lack of "fresh content" is so fucking dumb.
You will not drop because you didn't add new content.
Could be anything.

Google devalued some links.
Your links that were once on a homepage are gone.
Some of your links were dexindexed.
Just dancing.

What's your opinion on adding links to my site that say "click here"

(thanks given)

jon_xx_x · Feb 13, 2012

Gyuman82 said:
You are assuming that he has a website where "freshness" isn't valued.

Google has clearly stated that changes have been made to it's algorithm for certain types of content that requires regular updating.

Let me reference an article for you:

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/giving-you-fresher-more-recent-search.html

So yes "fresh content" matters to some sites.

That's totally unrelated. Obviously if it's a current event, the more updated quality content will get ranked high. But adding 'fresh content' for the sake of 'freshness' is just dumb.

Gyuman82 · Feb 13, 2012

jon_xx_x said:
That's totally unrelated. Obviously if it's a current event, the more updated quality content will get ranked high. But adding 'fresh content' for the sake of 'freshness' is just dumb.

The article is totally related to this subject.

It even states in the article that the update affects 35% of search queries. So essentially there is a 1 in 3 chance that it may affect OP.

A snippet:

--------------

"Frequent updates. There are also searches for information that changes often, but isn't really a hot topic or a recurring event. For example, if you're researching the "Best SLR Cameras", or you're in the market for a new car and want "Subaru Impreza Reviews", you probably want the most up to date information.

There are plenty of cases where results that are a few years old might still be useful for you. "Fast Tomato Sauce Recipe" certainly saved me after a call from my wife reminded me I had volunteered to make dinner! On the other hand, when I search for the "49ers Score", a result that is a week old might be too old."

---------------

I would bet lots of people here on BHW have sites like this.

If the OP had a site about anything from product reviews to say coupon sites, by not adding content he could be bumped down by other sites that are constantly updating to keep up with the latest trends.

So thus not adding content to his site could have caused the drop in rankings.

optimusweb · Feb 13, 2012

jstover77 said:
Sounds like you got hit with a Panda refresh. Seems to be caused by devalued links, deindexed links in a lot of private networks, and lack of anchor text diversity.

Agree 100% with jstover77's advice. I have seen it happen before, many people go crazy building backlinks to a specific keyword they want to rank for and forget the value of diversity (although I'm not saying that this what you did).

When backlinking you need to use common sense and make your off page SEO efforts appear natural not forced.

Remember that this can just happen to a website sometimes, I recently saw a page that was ranking page 1 on G and then disappeared to where it wasn't even in the top 250. After having been dropped for 3 weeks I figured it couldn't just be the dance and the site had been penalized - then BAM, back at #8 page 1.

Best thing you can do to recover is fresh content and consistent diverse link building. Just my 2 cents

wingman80 · Feb 13, 2012

Same thing happened to one of our site. We're just purchasing blogroll link and contextual links in the past 2 months starting from dec. Last Feb. 10, when I checked the serps of one our site, it moves from #7 [PAGE 1] to #41. I'm just thinking that it might be the result of deindexing of some of the private blog networks. what should be the best thing to do to make it back to page 1? should we continue to buy private blog networks links?

jstover77 · Feb 13, 2012

I find it strange that a lot of people aren't talking about the recent Panda updates which have been rolling since around January 20th. I see threads about it on a lot of other boards and it has been confirmed by Google. Many people have seen drops such as this. Many have seen rankings on the first page for months and some for years completely disappear.

Remember Google's algo is made up of thousands of factors, so it isn't as easy as nailing it down to one cause. One thing is for sure the latest updates don't have much if anything to do with on page factors, but more off page.

As mentioned above Google seems to be doing some serious clean up, and from gathering info from other boards what I mentioned above seems to be the cause. Of course there is some testing to be done so we will see.

Best thing is to try to clean up your site and continue building high quality links to your site. You goal is that have a site that completely abides to Google's guidelines as far as on page, and try to make your link building look as natural as possible. Remember 99.999% of the time your site loses ranking and is algorithmic, not a manual review.

jstover77 · Feb 13, 2012

wingman80 said:
Same thing happened to one of our site. We're just purchasing blogroll link and contextual links in the past 2 months starting from dec. Last Feb. 10, when I checked the serps of one our site, it moves from #7 [PAGE 1] to #41. I'm just thinking that it might be the result of deindexing of some of the private blog networks. what should be the best thing to do to make it back to page 1? should we continue to buy private blog networks links?

It has been reported that many blog networks have gotten nailed and many sites have been devalued or deindexed.

Maja92 · Feb 13, 2012

wingman80 said:
Same thing happened to one of our site. We're just purchasing blogroll link and contextual links in the past 2 months starting from dec. Last Feb. 10, when I checked the serps of one our site, it moves from #7 [PAGE 1] to #41. I'm just thinking that it might be the result of deindexing of some of the private blog networks. what should be the best thing to do to make it back to page 1? should we continue to buy private blog networks links?

Almost the same thing happened to me, so stop buying those private blog network links for now.

Maja92 · Feb 13, 2012

jstover77 said:
Remember 99.999% of the time your site loses ranking and is algorithmic, not a manual review.

Still those nerds' at Google's fault refreshing Google's index with these Pandas. :sgrin:

islandcoli · Feb 13, 2012

I think the general consensus is to diversify the link building

What would make a site drop from FIRST position to page 3?

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