Big Mess - Multiple Websites

[CsmBill]

I have a customer, a Psychologist, who put up +/-20 websites many years ago. He has 1 main site (with his name as the domain) with hundreds of pages of quality content. The other sites are all exact match domains - anxiety counseling, couples counseling, etc. Some are single page sites, others have a good amount of quality content. Many of the EMD sites were getting ranked on the first page, as was the main site. The money site was ranking on the first page for the best keywords

All of the EMD pages linked back to the main site, many with site wide footer links. The main site did not link back. All of the sites are on the same IP address. These sites have been in place for years. I don't believe that he has a duplicate content problem.

About 8 weeks ago, the rankings for the main site crashed, moving 10 or more SERP pages deep. The EMD sites are still ranking. He has not gotten any nasty-grams from Google in Webmaster Tools.

The Psychologist relies exclusively on organic for his business, and it has taken a significant hit.

1. Has anyone else seen this happen?

2. Is it safe to assume that Google finally nailed him for using a linking scheme?

3. How can we unwind this? The other sites are still generating business, and if those go away, he is really screwed.

4. Will taking down all of the links from the other sites be enough? Would moving the money site to another hosting company on a different IP make a difference? Ideas?

I think the white hat answer would be to take down the EMD sites, and 301 redirect to the main site. The problem is that the loss of business from this process could be catastrophic.

[EGOL]

In my opinion, any answers given here are guesses and are inappropriate to use as an attempt to solve this problem.

This is a high stakes problem.   So a detailed evaluation of these sites, their historic linkbuilding practices, the quality of their content, their traffic source history and more should be considered.

If these were my sites I would get a penalty pro to look at them and be willing to pay the cost of a thorough review and recommendation.

[CsmBill]

EGOL:

If Google decides to drop your rankings instead of sandboxing your site, do they send you a warning?

[EGOL]

I am not sure that "sandboxing" is an appropriate word at this time.

If google takes a manual action against your site they notify you in webmaster tools.

If the problem with your site is detected by algorithm, they simply demote your site.

I honestly think that you need experienced professional help with this.