We have a terrible, severe loss in our Keywords rankings this week, can you please help us what would happen in only 7 days ?

[ali881]

On the date 3rd of October we had almost 55 Keywords up and 44 almost down, Today after 7 days there is a severe drop 90 keyword is down, 7 only are up, and that's one website. My other website had 57 words up and 175 down.

Our strategy in building backlinks: Directory submissions, article submissions and some blog commenting, we keep into consideration to choose only websites with high page rank (Page Rank 2 and higher).

Also we had an updated on one of our websites since 1st of June a new URL structure, content, new pages and sitemap.

Both websites has tons of keywords that we worked on increasing its rank and some we haven't touch them and its ranks was decreased.

Does the new Google "hummingbird" have something to do with that? is there anything wrong with our strategy? Please provide us with your feedback ASAP.

[yasirmtm]

It seems like you have been hit by Penguin 2.1 update which is majorly targeting over optimization and link spamming. This update was released on October 5th and affected sites that were over optimized with spammy links. Please go and read this article http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2299665/Google-Penguin-2.1-Who-Got-Hit to learn more about the update. Best Regards, Muhammad

[KarlBantleman]

Hi Ali, your link building tactics have got you the penalty, I'm surprised you didn't see this drop at the end of May when Penguin 2.0 was released. You need to act quickly and get rid of all those types of links that you have created and start to focus on non-automated techniques. Start to create content that your users and customers will find useful then look at influencers in the industry to share it with, that is your first port of call.

It is vital that you get rid of all those links (article, directory, blog commenting) because they are very spammy techniques.

[gazzerman1]

I agree Penguin 2.1 update came out on the 5th.

You need to log in to webmaster tools http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/ check to see if there are any messages for your site to determine the severity of the problem. Also check under the left navigation "Search Traffic" -> "Manual Actions"

Let us know what you find

[Rushmark]

Hi,

As everyone above has said it's almost certain that you've been hit by Penguin 2.1

Without wishing to repeat the advice above, this post has just about everything you need to know about what has happened and what to do next.

Good Luck.

http://moz.com/ugc/ultimate-guide-to-google-penalty-removal

Chris

[CFSSEO]

Can you give some insight on creating content for a classified site (site with classified ads)?