Google penalty for one keyword?

[gfiedel]

Is it possible to get penalized by Google for a specific keyword and essentially disappear from the SERPs for that keyword but keep position for the brand (#1) and some other keywords (#4 and #7)? And how would you find out that this is what happened if there is no GWT message?

[MozAddict]

I have experienced it personally, on one ofmy sites, it dropped ranking for one keyword and still maintained for others.

There wasnt any message in GWT, the reason was that two of my sites were on same hosting server and some how one site had its all home page mixed up with in other website pages. It was something like hidden text. Now the issue is resolved and ranking is coming back.

Another possibility could be too much exact match anchor text links. There will be i guess an algorithmic penality for this and your keyword along with traffic will be dropped.

[Maximise]

I have experienced the same situation with specific keywords where there were too many external exact match anchor text links. Removing these links where possible is slowly fixing the problem.

[gfiedel]

Thanks, you two. Lucky you were able to identify the cause and work to repair. It doesn't seem to be an exact match anchor text problem for us and nothing with a site mixup. I am happy for you!

I have investigated a lot, and I am still irked at not knowing what happened so I can remedy.

We have lost a lot of potential business and calls from this. We are local and it's the main local terms we've lost position for.

I am focusing on doing the recommended stuff now and its been great. I pulled back on the on-page optimizing. I am reading, learning, participating, content  building, content marketing, local, social etc. but still occasionally still trying to figure out what happened so that hopefully, I can get us back for those critical keywords.

Still looking for more info, please.