Why has my site dropped out of search rankings?

[Pete4]

This post is deleted!

[digitalcrc]

Hi Rich,

When did this happen? Disappearing completely sounds like you may have been hit with a penalty; I would try and correlate exactly when it happened with an algorithm update:http://moz.com/google-algorithm-change . It could be that your site was already 'on the fence' even after getting the penalty removed, and a new update pushed it back into penalty territory.

[Travis_Bailey]

The main thing I noticed after running it through Majestic is that there wasn't much in the backlink department worth keeping. Sure there was a link from Google, DMOZ and something else. But the majority was basically directory spam.

So even if you managed to get the majority of the links removed/disavowed, there's also the fact that there's little else propping the site up anymore. And in all of the Penguin 3 aftermath, which occurred recently, there's the distinct possibility that low quality links which were still passing juice have been stopped. So there's that as well.

[Sheena_Schleicher]

Did you notice this before or after Oct 17th

[ChimplyWebGroup]

For the record, this is a great answer.

OP, you were initially penalised for poor links, and did the right thing in removing said spammy links.

However, who's to say that whilst those links were propping you up **before **the penalty and helping you rank, now that those links have disappeared, you've got a very sparse link profile and need to start linkbuilding all over again. Just make sure you build links 'naturally' this time.