Do you think this page has been algorithmically penalised or is it just old?

[designquotes]

Here is the page: http://www.designquotes.com.au/business-blog/top-10-australian-business-directories-in-2012/

It's fairly old, but when it was first written it hit #1 for "business directories". After a while it dropped but was receieving lots of traffic for long tail variations of "business directories Australia"

As of the 4th of October (Penguin 2.1) it lost traffic and rankings entirely.

I checked it's link profile and there isn't anything fishy:

From Google Webmaster

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AtwbT3wshHRsdEc1OWl4SFN0SDdiTkwzSmdGTFpZOFE&usp=sharing

In fact, two links are entirely natural

http://blog.businesszoom.com.au/2013/09/use-customer-reviews-to-improve-your-website-ranking/

http://dianajones.com.au/google-plus-local-equals-more-business-blog/

Yet when I search for a close match in title in Google AU, the article doesn't appear within even the first 4 pages. https://www.google.com.au/#q=top+10+Australian+Business+Directories&start=10

Is this simple because it's an old article?

Should I re-write it, update the analysis and use a rel=canonical on the old article to the new?

[MattAntonino]

Yes, it looks likely that you've been pinged for directory spam. Most specifically .ar and .info domains. It's the link profile of the whole site, not the one page, that is an issue.  Here are some:

000-directory.com.ar 
agritech.com.ar 
directorymaster.com.ar 
linkbid.com.ar 
linksheaven.com.ar 
redlavadirectory.com.ar 
seodirectory.com.ar 
24directory.com.ar 
allydirectory.com.ar 
backlinkpower.com.ar 
emaxima.com.ar 
linknow.com.ar 
morevisits.com.ar 
namedirectory.com.ar 
newconceptdirectory.com.ar 
searchengineoptimix.com.ar 
seofriendly.com.ar 
vipdirectory.com.ar 
weblister.com.ar 
websitelist.com.ar 
ravendirectory.info 
popzdirectory.info 
birdwebdirectory.info 
socialbuzz.info 
cheapbacklink.info 
newnooze.info 
urlsubmission.info 
oyex.info 
ultimatenews.info 
freecasinodirectory.info 
quizwebdirectory.info 
overman.info 
articlepool.info 
linkzapper.info 
sbmsite.info 
directoryjuice.info 
eprofessional.info 
linkfreedom.info 
makemoneyonlineforall.info 
mycoffeetips.info 
rrurl.info 
topsocial.info

I think you'd be suited with a disavow of the worst links, some new authority building and create a "2014" version of your "2012" dated post and you should be back in business.

[designquotes]

Ahh OK. Thanks for the advice.

I did a disavowal about 6 weeks ago.

Do you know if the links we submit for disavowal continue to show up in the link reports from Google Webmaster?

[MattAntonino]

They may for awhile - the thing is, WMT is not updated regularly (think of it as PageRank, just a little faster. lol)

So you could disavow and 4 weeks later see results but see the links in WMT for 3 months.  I wouldn't worry about what's in there if you disavowed correctly.  Single links & domains, like this:

http://www.links.com/innerlinks-here/

Domain: andthiswholesite.com