Penguin 3.0 - Very minor drops across the board. Don't think its a penalty, any ideas?

[Paul_Tovey]

Hey All,

I just can't figure this out. My site has been ranking well for years, i've never done anything suspicious with it and since the penguin update, my rankings have dropped across the board but only by about 4 - 8 places each, some terms have went up from nowhere to page 8 etc.

I don't think i've been hit with a penalty, so I don't know what the problem is or how to recover from it. Does anybody have any ideas on what could be wrong?

Update: Perhaps some sites that were linking to mine have been hit with a penalty?

Update 2: I just found myself somehow in some spammy link network for 600 sites that looked identical, I don't know how or why my website is in this! I have disavowed all of these links 5 days ago, no change to rankings.

pY80Dzi

[LesleyPaone]

There are so many variables with SEO, I would give it at least a week unless you have seen a huge drop.

[Paul_Tovey]

Thanks Lesley, your not the only person to suggest this weirdly. I just think I should be doing something in the meantime, I have no idea what the issue could be. Would it be possible that sites linking to mine were hit by the updates and thus effected me slightly?

It happened on the Weekend Penguin was released, but it doesn't look like Penguin.

[CommT]

Yeah, if sites that are linking to you have been hit then you may lose rankings. Penguin may have devalued some of your links as well (not the same as penalised, be aware), which would also lose you rankings.

Like a previous commenter has said, wait a week or so before panicking.

Look at onsite stuff as well, really a site doesn't need that many links if the content and site are well built and follow best practice. (by not many links I mean not many high value ones - you'd need thousands of poor value ones to rank well - but you'd always be looking over your shoulder for a big fat penguin chasing you down!)

Also, look at your competition - what's happened to the sites that share your vertical? Has any of them suddenly shot up in the serps? Maybe they've had a penguin penalty lifted and you're the collateral? Sometimes we lose ranking because another site in the same vertical does something better than us - hard to admit I know, but worth bearing in mind.

Best of luck with this!

Amelia