Have my site been penalised ?

[SarahCollins]

Hi,

I recently hired a link builder (who works for a digital marketing agency and wanted to earn some extra cash ) to do some link building for me on keyword Carpet Cleaner Hire

Basically , May my ranking for this work has moved from 29 up to 13 , then down to 500 + and now up to 67 ?.

It's been all over the place and I am worried that maybe google thinks its unnatural or to many links etc.

I looked at some of the work this chap did and there was a log of bookmarks done , apparently to increase social awareness and some articles on random forums I never heard of but the articles didn't look to good and in my eyes were a little spammy..

I don't have any messages in WMT saying I have been penalised or anything but I am naturally worried that this chap may have caused damaged and that I was manually penalised.

I have since asked him to stop immediately..

1. does this sound normal for the ranking to be all over the place in this manner when link building ?

2. How can I tell if I have been manually penalized in any way ?

3. What;s the general consensus ?.

4. Should I contact google or leave it and see what happens ?

5. Other keywords seems to be okay though.

Any advice much appreciated.

thanks

Sarah.

[eli.boda]

With Googles new penguin algorithm, which is meant to filter webspam, it is very possible that you have been penalized for unnatural spammy links. There's a form Google has that you can fill out if you feel you have been mistakenly penalized and i dont think it would hurt to submit it. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dEVxdmdRWFJRTjRoLWZVTHZkaTBQbkE6MQ

Be careful when hiring an SEO because Google is getting better and better at recognizing unnatural optimization and inexperienced SEO's often try to cut corners. Link building isn't easy and it relies on patience and hard work combined with great content that others want to link to. Heres a great article that you should read before moving forward http://searchengineland.com/link-building-means-earning-hard-links-not-easy-links-123767

I hope this has been helpful

[bronxpad]

Google has been treaking their algo for a while now and sites have been shifting up and down. Some sites have been penalized without receiving a message so that can happen. Unnatural link building on low pr sites only in blogs or on link farms can definitely get you in hot water with google. My advice is to start generating great content for your site, videos help for seo, blogging is perfect, social media interactions are beneficial, and start developing a real high quality link profile. Yahoo Directory, Better Business Bureau, dmoz, BOTW, business.com, yelp, yellow pages, manta and other sites that are google friendly. If your other keywords are ok then it might just be the algo but still means your specified keyword needs work. hope this helps. Good luck.

[SarahCollins]

Hi,

Many thanks for this.  I guess you could be right, some of the lnks did looks a bit spammy.

Guess, I need to also fill out and send them the form to see what google says.

Am I correct in asuming the only way to remove the spammy links would be to write to the forum moderators etc asking for them to be removed.

Many thanks

Sarah

[SarahCollins]

That;s great thank you. Some great tips here.

[eli.boda]

Would this kid be willing to log back on to the forums and remove his links? I guess contacting the moderators might work as well