Big established websites outranked by new thin low DA sites. How and Why?

[Globi-Web]

This post is deleted!

[danatanseo]

I liked the way you worded your question the first time better   Although, it's probably more specific now. lol...Sorry just had to let you know I enjoyed it.

[EGOL]

You might have overdone it with the "calgary web design" anchor text (about a hundred linking root domains).  That is probably enough to bring on a Penguin problem.  Posting it in "near-background-color" site-wide footer links could be a problem too.

[jesse-landry]

mid-May, eh? That's an obvious sign of Penguin penalties, just as EGOL is saying. Sounds to me like you built some icky links somewhere along the way and didn't spread your anchor text out enough. DA isn't everything and Google doesn't technically pay any attention to those numbers... keep that in mind.

The best thing you can do is build content. I feel like a stuck record, but it's true. The better the content, the more links you will build organically which will then come from relevant sites. Look into backlink profiles and do some research on what they should look like then compare that to yours. Use OSE and ahrefs.com to do this.. check out nike.com, forbes.com, and especially your competitor's sites that are outranking you as well as whatever big name brands you can think of. I bet you will see a lot of keyword-heavy anchor text in yours and not so much in theirs..

And as always, check your webmaster tools account to ensure you haven't received a manual penalty notification from Google's Webspam team. If you have... good luck.

Actually, good luck either way! These forums will help you throughout the process. And as I always say, providing actual URLs will help folk here provide you with less speculative answers and more solid fact.

Onwards through the SEM jungles my friend!

[Globi-Web]

Thanks for your feedback so far.

The question wasn't specifically about what I did in my SEO because I know all the big players in the market, and some of them even personally. Very few would employ black-hat techniques. However all of us are displaced by low DA websites.

Will this pass? If I start all over, would it be a temporary relief until Google figures out their new algo is a mistake?

Obviously I want to be back on top, but not at the risk of the future. I just can't fathom out how these crappy sites (in our SEO standards) are outranking everyone that's been around for so long.

[Globi-Web]

As an added thought: Google is trying to prevent web spam, but if these changes are ranking newer thin sites ahead of older established sites, doesn't that cause people to create new sites all the time?

[EGOL]

However all of us are displaced by low DA websites.

Think about this... if you stop pulling linkjuice from all of those clients through nearly invisible, keyword-rich, site-wide anchor text links in the footers of websites that are unrelated in topic to your own then....   you just might be left with a low DA website that ranks well in the SERPs.

Google has a history of being hard on  websites that have.... (1) invisible or near-invisible links, (2) overused keywords as anchor text, (3) footer links, (4) site-wide links, (5) links from unrelated sites.

Designers who have used these types of links in cities beyond Calgary have had problems.

If I had a designer website with these types of links, I would remove and edit them.  I believe that would improve my site's performance in search.

[MarieHaynes]

You've gotten some great responses so far.  I thought I'd add my two cents.

Prior to the Penguin update on May 22 of this year, why do you think you were ranking above these other sites?  Was it because Google saw the quality of your site?  Or is it because you had a lot of links pointing to you?  It most definitely was because you had a lot of links, especially links containing your keywords as anchor.  And that's how things should work, right?  Links are important because they are a vote from Site A for Site B.

But are your links really true votes?  I had a look at your links in ahrefs and you've got 294 domains linking to you with the anchor text "calgary web design".  Here are some examples:

http://www.cheaphostingsites.org/directory/articles/5151/1/How-Beneficial-it-is-to-Hold-an-Outstanding-Online-Site/Page1.html

http://www.articleon.net/automotive/cut-down-your-automobile-insurance-rates-with-some-of-the-following-steps/

http://www.articlebook123.com/Article/42719/Experienced-Web-Designer-Would-Deliver-Fantastic-Results.html

http://articledirectoryabc.com/Article/246682/Internet-Site-Designing-Simpler-Using-Calgary-Website-Design-Company.html

These are all low quality spammy articles and there are a LOT more of them too.  This is exactly the type of spam that Penguin was created to devalue.

It may not be that Google is trying to show low quality sites above you.  You've definitely lost the link equity you once had from those links.  What we don't know is whether Penguin just devalues those links or actually causes a negative value to be applied.  Google says that Penguin is not a penalty but simply an algorithm change.  I think it's possible that what you have done by building these low quality links is tell Google that they can't trust the quality of links that point to your site.

I haven't taken the time to look but I am guessing that the sites that are now ranking in the top places are ones that have a link profile that consists mostly of naturally earned links.