Ranking slipped to page 6 from page 1 over the weekend?

[onlinechester]

My site has been on page one for 2 phrases consistently from May onwards this year. The site has fewer than 100 backlinks and the link profile looks fairly even. On Friday we were on page 1, we even had a position 1, however now we are on page 6.

Do you think this is Penguin or some strange Google blip?

We have no webmaster tools messages at all.

Thanks for any help!

[FRUTIKO]

Hi there.

Can you please write your website adress and keyword that you lost ranking so there is a possibility to check it ?

Frutiko Team

[LesleyPaone]

It very well could of been because penguin 2.1 was released this weekend. What day did it happen on? https://twitter.com/mattcutts/status/386231794883780609

[Matt_Wilson]

I was just going to post a new question, but this is related so I thought I'd join in here. I have seen drops in keyword ranking also which I believe is Penguin 2.1. My question is this, can I rely on the manual action section of webmaster tools to tell me if the site has been hit?

[onlinechester]

The rankings were fine on Friday afternoon UK time but first thing this morning (Monday) when I have checked they have moved significantly. Considering there are hardly any backlinks I'm shocked at the extreme slip in rankings. None of my other sites have had a problem.

[LesleyPaone]

From what I understand, no. It is basically an web spam algorithm change. Manual actions are for the sites that get around the changes, but are still spammy. So they manually have to assess a penalty. At least from my understanding.

[onlinechester]

Hi I've sent you a private message as didn't want to reveal the URL over here thanks

[synchronyinfo]

Google always look for quality content, design for user not for search engine, try to rewrite

[Matt_Wilson]

I'd concur with Lesley Paone, that definitely coincides with Penguin 2.1 update. I haven't seen your link profile but you mentioned there's just 100 backlinks. It may be this was enough to rank you before, but not anymore. Just a thought.

[Dr-Pete]

It's really hard to speak in generalities. If the site had <100 back-links, and some of those links were questionable or they were all targeted to a couple of phrases, then yes, a Penguin update could cause you trouble. The other option is that Google gave you some leeway out the gate and then re-evaluated your link profile and found it to be weak. Given that you ranked back in May, though, that seems unlikely (usually, that would happen in the first 30-60 days, in my experience).

A couple of things to check:

(1) Has anything about your indexed site change (such as duplicates of these pages)?

(2) Were there any technical or design changes to the site?

(3) Have you engaged in any recent link-building that could be questionable?

(4) Are you ranking for exact-match versions of the keywords (in quote)?

The more you can isolate the problem, the better. Penalty diagnosis is tricky.