Sudden Drop in Rankings/Traffic/Organic Impressions Without a Penalty

[TriMarkDigital]

Hi Moz community!

I have a question about a local client in Raleigh, NC - http://paragonbuildinggroup.com

This client came to us from another agency who had previously not done such a great job with the design/development of the site, or with the marketing of it, so we are somewhat limited in terms of what we can do on design, user experience, etc. But, the SEO is all still easy to tweak and we've been working on it for some time now.

As of July 5th, their keyword rankings have dropped dramatically (we're talking from first page rankings to nothing, according to Authority Labs), and they've fallen completely off the map in the SERPs. Their local listing doesn't appear in search results anymore, and WMT is showing a drastic drop in impressions (from 457 on July 3rd to 92 on July 5th). There have been no manual penalties on the site, no recent major development work done, and from what I can see, no signs of hacking and no bad backlinks. The only thing I can see is that Mozcast showed an 83 degree day with some clouds and rain on July 5th, the day that our rankings dropped off, but I can't find any documentation showing what might have changed.

Any insight as to what might be going on? I'm completely stumped!

[Vizergy]

Question - when you took them over did you get all three websites?

paragonbuildinggroup.com/, paragonroofinggroup.com and paragonpaintinggroup.com

There is some pretty bad duplicate content between the building group site and the roofing group site and with the sites interlinking as they do, I would say Google noticed pretty quick.

I know you are limited as to what can be done but I would say explain to your client that each website needs to have content relevant only to what that particular website is offering - no duplicate content.  If the building website wants to touch on roofing then link to the other website - that is fine.  Honestly, I would personally rather see all of this put together on one website with different sections for the different services - then the other domain names could just 301 to the relevant sections of the mother website.  Also - links.  the building group website needs them badly.  As far as what happened - there is no way to be 100% sure but I am guessing an algorithmic penalty - the way the three websites (that I found, there could be more) are set up could certainly look like an attempt to manipulate search results to the algorithms.  Honestly... it probably was an attempt to manipulate search results, an attempt by the last vendor.  Not a penalty for the duplicate content, mind you - but the duplicate content and interlinking etc... were probably signals that all added up to "hey, these websites are not following guide lines"  this was just a quick look though - I could be wrong.

[TriMarkDigital]

That's great feedback, and the content is definitely something that is on our radar to work on. We did inherit access to all of the company's sites, but this Building Group site is our main focus. Unfortunately, the client doesn't have the budget right now for us to combine all services into one mother site (as much as we would like to!!), so we are doing what we can with the way that things are set up between the various sites right now.

Content is definitely actionable - and I appreciate you taking the time to take a glance over things! Backlinks are another action item we have on our list. This change just came about so suddenly that it's really thrown us on the work we've had planned.

[Vizergy]

I am guessing the algorithmic penalty.  Don't change your plans, just jump on them.  Content and good, relevant links.  I would also break up that interlinking if actually working on the other websites isn't something you are being paid to do.  Separate from them, rewrite the content on the website that is your main focus and start working on links (clients, material vendors - anything relevant you can get quickly).

[Vizergy]

I am not huge on directories but here are some you should go for - I am sure there are more:

http://www.thebluebook.com/
http://www.homeadvisor.com/
http://www.nahb.org/
http://www.epa.gov/radon/rrnc/directory.html
http://www.builderdirectory.com/

[TriMarkDigital]

All great suggestions - thank you!! We're working with the associations that the client is accredited with at the moment to try to build some quality links. Branching out on top of that seems to be the right move to make at this point now, too.

[bluelynxmarketing]

I did not go thru your entire list of links but I checked on BuiderDirectory.com and it costs money to be included in their directory.  How is that not the same as buying links?  Shouldn't this be a violation of Google's policy as well?