Significant drop in web rankings

[Jacksons_Fencing]

We have two websites and last week we had a significant drop in search engine rankings. Some of these search rankings we have been top 3 for the past 5 years and now we are not in  the top 20.

Last weekend we changed our hosting provider and IP addresses for the first time in over 7 years.

Now is there a way we could work out if we have been hit by the latest Penguin update or if the change in hosting / IP has caused these drop in rankings?

I would appreciate any thought or ideas at all.

[crackingmedia]

Hi, if you have Google webmaster tools then you will be able to see in there if you have suffered a penalty from Google, but if nothing has been said to you by Google that could still mean your site has suffered a Penguin slap.

I don't think a change in hosting or IP address will have as significant an impact as you describe. That said, a question re the change... do all of the page addresses on the newly hosted site have the same page addresses with your previous host? If they don't that is most likely your problem.

Without seeing your site then it's difficult to tell you more, but I hope that helps.

Peter

[PinpointDesigns]

Have you received any notifications in your Google Webmaster Tools account with regards to a penalty? You can usually find this by going to https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/ and clicking on 'Search Traffic > Manual Actions'. Alternatively, you might have a message in there.

This would only show for a manual penalty, so if you've received a penalty due to an algorithm, this is a bit harder to spot. The easiest way to do this is look at the date your traffic dropped and comparing this with the updates that Google have released - http://moz.com/google-algorithm-change - The moz link there has a list of all known updates.

Alternatively, you could look at the following plugin which will overlay over a chart over the top of your analytics results and give you an indication of when penalties have come in along with your traffic drops.
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/chartelligence/njhdcfdiifemfnfddhfjmfbkajajceag?hl=en

I wouldn't have thought that moving hosting provide / IP would cause you any huge drops in the search engines. Maybe a little bit of fluctuation, but nothing significant. Where is your new server located in relation to your store location?

EDIT: I started writing my response before any other comments were posted, so looks like Peter beat me to it on most of the points

[crackingmedia]

No problem Lewis, but thanks for the link to the Chrome plugin. I didn't know about that one. Very helpful - thank you.

Peter

[auke1810]

Last weekend you changed your hosting provider and IP addresses. It is now monday, a drop in the SERP is not likely noticed within 1/2 days. Seems to me not the issue.

Penguin update should have a notible effect way earlier than last weekend. So when did the drop in the SERP occurred?

[mjk26]

My site experienced a 60-70% drop in google organic traffic too, late on Friday 11th October/early Saturday 12th October, and hasn't recovered at all yet.  Is this when you experienced a drop too?  There doesn't seem to be any online chatter from anyone else experiencing a similar drop.  I had thought I'd managed to avoid any ranking drop following the latest Penguin/Hummingbird, but it looks like a delayed reaction!