Site has taken a fall

[PeterAlexLeigh]

I suspect (Although find it hard to beleive!) that a recently aquired link may have affected the rankings of one of my sites for all of it's keywords.

Should I get this link removed asap or leave it and see if things recover?

To me, it just smacks of un-nautral if the link gets removed straight away.

[Naghirniac]

Man, i think i have bad news for you: your site could be penalized. Usually when the site drop down for several keywords, it was penalized by google. Please take a look at: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-to-handle-a-google-penalty-and-an-example-from-the-field-of-real-estate

I also think is impossible to remove the link (you need to contact the website). I have a problem from a SEO directorie with a bad anchor text. It was not possible to cancel this.

[PeterAlexLeigh]

Yeah, could be a penalty as it's definitely site wide. But I've been in this situation before and the site recovered after building a few 'quality' links.

Does anyone know if one "potentially dodgy" link can trigger an algorithmic penalty? or should I be looking at other potential factors?

I also bought a site wide side bar graphic advert recently (which incidentely hasn't been nofollowed), but it's from a reputable, decent site - is this more likely to have caused the problem?

[Thommas]

It it very unlikely that one link would get your site penalised. Imagine how easy it would be to get your competition penalised by simply linking to them from a spammy site.

[PeterAlexLeigh]

That's what my thoughts were, but I'm thinking if one more dodogy link was all that was needed to trigger an algorithmic penalty that it could be the cause....?

I'm at a bit of a loss as to what's caused it otherwise!

[Thommas]

What do you mean by "one more" do you have loads of dodgy links already ?

[PeterAlexLeigh]

I suppose dodgy is the wrong word, "un-natural looking" would probably be better.

The site doesn't have loads of dodgy links, there's some for sure, but most of it's links are from guest or sponsored posts - so I guess this could look potentially un-natural.

[Modbargains]

Well I'll tell you two things.

1. the majority of the sites that you have backlinks on are low domain authority.

2. you don't have many back links according to Open Site Explorer.

Should be an easy fix you know where to back link.

[NakulGoyal]

I would recommend doing a On=page Site Audit to see if there are any other issues. If not, I would concentrate on building more content and natural links. You should be able to recover. If nothing happens, and you think you are penalized, submit a reconsideration request. I think you may need better quality links.

[PeterAlexLeigh]

Since starting this thread, it's apparent that Panda 3.3 is the culprit here