Drastic Difference between Ranking in Seomoz Keyword Ranking and non-personalized Google US Search

[space56]

Hi everybody,

for some of our keywords we saw a huge drop in ranking in the Seomoz Dashboard, yet when performing a non-personalized Google US search we still hold our old positions. Now, I am worried whether this is an upcoming Google penalty or just some bug in the latest crawl.

Did anybody ever experience something similar and how could we find out if we were indeed penalized by Google (as we did some major linkbuilding campaign for these keywords recently)?

Cheers and a major thanks for your suggestions,

Tobias

[Nick_Ker]

I have been seeing a lot of that kind of thing too, but not just with SEOMoz tools. I think something is up with Google in some way. My theories so far are - some kind of algorithm adjustment that has only partially rolled out, a change in how Google releases info to 3rd party tools, or the conspiracy theory: a change in how personalization is handled so that no search isn't at least a little personalized.

Considering Google's recent announcement about limiting search query and referrer data to Adwords tracking only, I am thinking it is an overall shuffling around of things at Google.

Here's a link to a question I asked about a similar problem where my non-personalized local searches were not looking as good as the various keyword position tools I use.  Kind of the reverse of your issue, but I think it may have a similar cause, whatever that may be: http://www.seomoz.org/q/local-searches-done-from-outside-of-local-area-better-than-searches-from-within-local-area

[space56]

Hi Nick,

thanks for your thoughts! The localization is definitly something to consider, yet the drop we experienced was more than 30 places for a few keywords while others remained unchanged. Therefore I fear that there are some "worse" reasons behind this drop. The thing about information distribution to 3rd party tools might be another good lead particularly as we did not see the drop when performing a non-personalized Google search.

Do you happen to have suggestions on how to find out about Google penalties?

Best,

Tobias

[Nick_Ker]

A 30 or more place drop does seem like a penalty might be in place. If you are only seeing the drop for some keywords and not everything, a 30 or 50 position drop could be an "over promotion" penalty.  I have to admit I haven't done thorough research on the so called 30 or 50 penalties, but the belief is that if you have too many of the same anchor texts in your inbound links as is often the case with bulk directory submissions, you will lose 30 places with this penalty. In extreme cases it can be 50. I guess that could happen if your page is keyword stuffed too.

Again, I have no proof other than some anecdotal evidence - I had a client who prior to working with me hired a "1000s of back links" scammer who did indeed submit to about 1000 junky directories with the exact same keyword anchor text for each. Once those links started showing up, the site's position for that keyword went off a cliff.

If that sounds like your situation, you could try sending a Reconsideration Request through Google's Webmaster Central. They will usually get back to you within a few weeks with a message that either no manual penalty has been imposed, or if there is one, hopefully they will tell you why.

[space56]

Hi Nick,

major thanks! That sounds like a great way forward and I'll file a reconsideration request!

Luckily, the drop only showed for some internal landing pages and not the domain in general.

Cheers from Germany and another thanks,

Tobias