Home page rank for keyword

[balloon.co.uk]

Hi Mozers

I have traded from my website balloon.co.uk for over 10 years. For a long while the site ranked first for the word 'balloon' across the UK on google.co.uk (first out of 41 million).

Around the time Penguin launched the site began to drop and currently sits on about page 5. What's confusing is that for a search on 'balloons' ('s' on the end of balloon) it ranks 2nd in the location of Birmingham where I'm based. That's 2nd in the real search rather than a map local search.

But - if I search 'balloon' from the location of Birmingham my contact page ranks 5th: http://www.balloon.co.uk/contact.htm but the home page ranks nowhere.

So - it's gone from ranking 1st nationally to ranking nowhere with my contact page ranking above the home page (which is a generic word domain).

Any ideas?

[TakeshiYoung]

If the ranking dropped around a Penguin launch, then it could be a Penguin penalty. What does your anchor text profile look like? With the latest updates, anything over 30% is considered risky, although you might get a little more wiggle room since the keyword is your domain name.

[balloon.co.uk]

Thanks for the prompt reply.

Regarding Penguin - I defiantly had some keyword stuffing issues which were fixed about 8 weeks ago and the site has gone from page 8 to page 5 (for a search on 'balloon'). But if the whole site was guilty why would the contact page rank above the homepage and why does it rank OK for 'balloons'?

The page title/anchor text is: Balloons, Balloon Printing & Helium Gas

[TakeshiYoung]

This could be because your homepage is being penalized for over-optimization, but your contact page doesn't have any spammy links, hence it still ranks for "balloon" based on the strength of your domain. Likewise, if you over-optimized for "balloon" your site may be penalized for that keyword, but "balloons" is a separate keyword and you may still rank for it.

[balloon.co.uk]

Right - got it, that makes sense.

When you say over-optimized I guess you mean all links pointing at my site have the word 'balloon' in the anchor text. I've tried wiring to the link owners but none of them reply and none of them remove the links.

In my Google webmaster tools I don't have any penalties showing for back links so I can't submit a request to show my efforts.

Can I fix this or is the domain name damaged forever?

[TakeshiYoung]

I'm not a Penguin-recovery expert, but it is possible to recover from the penalty. I would continue to reach out to the site owners who are linking to you and disavow any spammy links in webmaster tools.

You might also want to focus more on longer tail keywords like "balloons UK", "where to buy balloons", "balloons cheap" etc that probably convert better than a broad term like "balloon" anyway.

[balloon.co.uk]

OK - thanks for that.

As I've reached out to 100 back links and had 2 replies - I think I'll concentrate on the disavow option although I don't know what back links are causing the problem.

I still get plenty of orders from the long tail ("balloon printing", "Balloon Arches" & "Printed Balloons") - but I did enjoy the number 1 slot for 'balloon' while it lasted.

Thanks again.

[balloon.co.uk]

According to Moz my anchor text for 'balloon' is from 3 root domains and 4 links containing anchor text?