8th October - anything drastic happen?

[phero]

Hi all,

So, I have done nothing SEO heavy on my site for a couple of months, I deleted a page and moved the content to the homepage, but thats about it.

Anyway, for our main keyword we have dropped from a pretty regular 20-30th position we have enjoyed for the past 4-5 months right down to 95th. Other keywords have also dropped by a few pages but not as drastic.

I got hit by some spammy 'forex' links on the UK Business Forums clones appearing (as per my other post), but they started AFTER the 8th October.

Something happened on that day which very rapidly ruined my rankings. Has anyone else seen this happen? Or could it be Penguin 4 checked out my site on that date? I have not dropped at all for my Brand Name or other keywords, it seems to be the higher searched keywords I have taken a plummet on.

Thanks,

[becole]

phero, according to the Moz Algo Change history, Penguin real-time did roll out a few weeks prior to October 8th. But, as we have heard time and time again form various sources, even Google, that it has continued to roll out. So, I wouldn't be surprised if you were actually hit by a Penguin-related update.

What I would do is take a look again at the site's links to see if there are any links that you need to disavow or get rid of completely. Keep in mind that Penguin isn't just about links, there are other issues that can affect your site's rankings, as well.

[phero]

Thanks, I've tried to keep them clean, but guess I need to be more thorough. How long does disavowing usually get considered - I submitted a load 3 days ago but we dropped even more since then.

Thanks,

[becole]

phero, once you disavow a domain or a URL, all it takes is for Google to crawl it. Once they crawl the page, they will see that it's been disavowed and recognize it.