Major Slipping of highly important keywords in a few days

[jjwelu]

Realized some major slipping on some of my most important keywords- mn realtors and minnesota homes for sale- my site is joeandcindy.com    After months of working on traffic, blogs etc, wondering what could slap me 10-25 spots in just  a few days.  There were no errors showing up on the report that I can see.  Just looking for some quick advice on what I might be missing and some quick action steps I might take to reverse the trend.  Thanks!

[itrogers]

Have you received any links from untrusted sources or obtained purchased links with search engines knowing about it? I cannot see your most recent links in OSE since its been almost a month since the last linkscape update. There are directory submitted links to your site. Overall you have a great mR and mT ratio but was just wondering if there was anything like that out of the ordinary.

[jjwelu]

Actually I have purchased a couple of directory listings/links over the past week or so.   By using the open site explorer I was submitting to directories (paid directories) that my top competitors use....   Could that be the problem?    If so how can I correct?    How do I get another Linkscape update?

Thanks for response!!!

[itrogers]

If your competitors are using them I guess it wouldn't be a problem, as long as they are ranking ahead of you? You can always remove the listing from the directory but I would be absolutely sure before you do, for several reasons. And the Linkscape update will happen I think April 5th, which is this Tuesday. They update it about once a month or so, sometimes quicker. It's nothing you or I can control (wish I could)!

[itrogers]

Also, you mentioned blogging- make sure that your articles are original and are not spin offs of others. A ranking drop like this could be due to duplicate content as well

[alhallinan]

A great test on those paid links would be to change the directory listings to point to another website or domain that you own which has been ranking pretty steadily over the past few weeks.  If you see a decrease in organic rankings on that site as well, then you'll know for sure that the paid directories were the problem.

If the directory listing was cheap, then it might not be worth your time - you'll need to weigh the pros and cons.