Trying to figure out why Penguin has completely buggered us up, and what to do about it

[WPMUDEV]

Hola All,

This is a update of http://www.seomoz.org/q/gah-unfaorly-hit-by-massive-google-penalty

Updated because:

• Google webmaster has gotten back to us that there have been no manual actions taken against us

• Results haven't improved one jot

• We're completely flummoxed as to why this is happenin

Quick summary:

We run the larest WordPress news site on the web, WPMU.org

We're completely legit, a team of 4-5 great writers, amazing original content, massive fanbase on twitter and facebook, a 60k email list etc, established for years and years.

We're absolutely not and haven't done anything gray or black, the worst we've done is including links in the footers of some themes we've distributed

Since the 24th April our google referrals are down from an 8.5k daily peak to 1.5 - see the attached.

Articles which have consistently attracted several hundred referrals per day have disappeared from the rankings to be replaced by republications or just links to the, for example, here's one on the dangers of searching for free WP themes, decimated:

http://wpmu.org/why-you-should-never-search-for-free-wordpress-themes-in-google-or-anywhere-else/

Check out how legit we are!

http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/links?site=wpmu.org

And the problem:

How to get our google traffic back?

We're completely stuck

We can't find issues within the site content, or even particularly within the backlinks (we've removed all links from Edublogs)

We haven't been manually whacked, so we can't get that changed.

Absolutely nothing within the penguin update should have hit us... in fact by their reckoning we should have had a massive improvement over all the trash that competes with us in the WordPress space.

Help / Ideas / Feedback / Criticism / Anything desperately sought.

Thanks for your time,

James

Screen-Shot-2012-05-03-at-10.49.40-AM.png

[stubby]

Hi Me again!

You wrote:

"the worst we've done is including links in the footers of some themes we've distributed"

So, perhaps you should start with the worst and see if that is it?

I have a feeling that these Client Footer Links used to provide rankings and now don't because of adjustments to the algorithm.  I think that rather than view it as a penalty, you may be best to view it as a previous gift that is now gone.  I am formulating theories as to why, and I am currently somewhere beyond my original hunch (which was that they look like paid links), and not yet to my actual theory (which is much broader, but I haven't fully formulated, so I will keep to myself for a bit).

Anyway, I have figured out how it would be quite easy for search engines to devalue Client Footer Links, along with the blog networks and paid links they have been taking down, by using some available metrics.  So, when my theory comes together, if the search engines are not using it, they will be forced to sometime in the next few years.  (Stroking my own genious ego here, I know).

[WPMUDEV]

Thanks again for the feedback.

I see what you;re saying but to be honest I cannot fathom as to why they would be of any significant importance, and so them being taken away shouldn't count a jot really.

Our content is v popular (just check out facebook.com/wpmudev where's it's reposted plus other stuff, we've got stunning social metrics as well as a vast array of quality, genuine, interested organic links.

And we never went about it in any serious way, and stopped in 2009 or so when we were picking up 300 visits per day rather than the 20k we were prior to the 24th