Why have I disappeared from 1st page to outside top 100 results?

[benners]

I have been #2 in Google for "plenty more fish" for about 8 years and have now disappeared.

I've been told that I have no manual spam action against my domain www.plentymorefish.net.

Can anyone suggest why I have disappeared and how I might rectify this?

My guess is something to do with the Panda update Sept 27th - EMD (Exact Match Domain), although I don't understand why Google have left a competitors site #1 as this also has exact match domain. Maybe they've just picked one exact match domain to display and have not chosen mine as the .com has a better overall SEO score.

Appreciate any assitance. Thanks.

[AdamThompson]

Sounds like you may have been hit by the EMD update. The update didn't hurt all exact domain sites - only those that Google deemed low quality.

I looked at your backlink profile and found multiple footer links that look like they might be paid links or doorway sites. It's possible that these links played a factor in why your site's ranking was reduced.

[benners]

Thanks Adam. That confirmed my thoughts really. I just wanted to check if I'd missed something.

[Marcus_Miller]

Hey, as Adam said below, your site is a prime candidate for these recent penalties and algorithm updates.

• You have no branded URL anchors pointing to your site
• You have a heavy keyword volume in your anchor text
• You have dodgy sitewide links from sites that I am guessing may also be yours: http://www.lovesecondtimearound.com/

You also have some duplicate content issues

http://plentymorefish.net/scotland / http://www.plentymorefish.net/Dating-in-Scotland.htm

Then, the site has little positive to prop it up in a heavy and competitive industry.

• No natural editorial style links
• No unique or valuable content

Ultimately, sites are having to justify their existence and old strategies of EMD domains and interlinking networks of sites are just not cutting it any longer.

The page 100 thing seem excessive though and more penalty than devaluation so sort out your duplication and linking issues and you should see some return to form but I would be surprised if you could go first page again with some additional content and links to help justify that position.

Sorry to be the barer of bad news!

Marcus

[benners]

Hi Marcus, thanks for your comments.

I realise I've been on borrowed time with this one which is why I introduced a blog nearly 12 months ago to try and improve the content quality but I guess this has not been enough. I know the blog isn't amazing, but certainly more recent post are unique, relevant and well written. http://www.plentymorefish.net/fish-dating/

How did you come across the URL http://plentymorefish.net/scotland ?

I spider the site with Xenu to check it but I can't find that URL.

Thanks

Paul

[Marcus_Miller]

I googled a chunk of text of a page, there is probably a lot of other duplication:

"Register free for Plenty More Fish online dating in Scotland"

Hope that helps!
Marcus

[benners]

Thanks Marcus, that's really helped. I've discovered that old pages Google had indexed are still accessible even though they can't be found via links from the site.

[Marcus_Miller]

Hey, no worries, glad it helped!