One Keyword Rank Inexplicably Blasted Into Oblivion

[AlanBleiweiss]

If it does NOT bounce back, check to see if you've got too many inbound links targeting the phrase in question.  I've seen a site get surgically whacked this way.  Fortunately the site owner controlled many of the source sites and as soon as they changed those anchors, they bounced back.

[94501]

Good tip. Will definitely keep that in mind. Thanks!

[inhouseninja]

Alan, why woudl too many inbound links targeting the phrase in question be a problem?  I thought inbound links with the anchor text you are targetting is what you should be doing?  Thanks!

[inhouseninja]

I've had the same thing – an important keyword for an important page, that was getting up to around 30-35 place in google and I thought would go higher - all of a sudden, baam - off the charts and can't even find it listed at all!  Nowhere to be seen, not even in top 100 when I do a private browser search.

All other pages on the site have been steady, and / or inching up.

I did 301 some broken links from various pages I found in open site explorer to this page around this time, so might that have caused it??  Only about 20 or so, and the links were all related somewhat to the page, so I thought doing that would be the best thing - but now I think  I might have messed up...

Should I do a re-consideration request to Google - can you do this for just 1 page?    As I say, all other pages seem fine.

[SteveOllington]

It raises a big red flag for black hat link building/spamming.... in other words it looks totally unnatural to the search engines. If you had links grow naturally they would have a range of words such as the domain name, the company name, words like "view site here", etc... as well as variations of keywords that are relevant.

If you've got a high percentage of keyworded anchor text links that are all the same, you didn't get them naturally, you built them trying to rank for that word

[94501]

Good question. I guess my follow-up on that is; "too many" as a percentage of the links to the page. This page has maybe 6 links, 4 of them with the anchor text. Is that too many? There could be a press release that added to that number, but not sure where all that might be posted. Hmm... Open Site Explorer has picked up zero links to the page after almost two months.

It also sort of seems like a potential SEO weapon, like if you were mean-spirited and wanted to hurt a competitor's rank, just blast out a ton of targeted links.

[AlanBleiweiss]

It's highly doubtful that just six links trigger the slap.  In the situation with my client, it was thousands.  So it'll be interesting to learn if this one bounces back or not, or if something else is the cause.

As for why Google would slap for over-saturation of a particular phrase, I believe it was at SMX Advanced last year when I recall Matt Cutts stating that Google was working on surgical implementation rather than broad entire-site impact.

[inhouseninja]

Incidentally  - the page I am trying to rank for is still appearing for another key word phrase - it’s just for the main keyword phrase that it has disappeared out of Google!  But for another related key phrase the page is at number 2!

[94501]

Here's an update. These serps are 1 or two days apart: 11 75 63 33 So, it may have swung around past the dark side of the Moon and be on a trajectory to re-enter Earth's orbit.

[MarieHaynes]

Yay!  Let's hope it keeps going!

[Thos003]

That would seem like the thought process... but dropping it from 11 to 13 would still give them a comparison.  But hey, we are playing in their sandbox so they make the rules.

[Thos003]

I've heard some compare this scenario as the pendulum swing.  You give it a little push in one direction and it will push back the other a bit. The bigger the swing back the bigger the jump forward. Like a pendulum the point is to find the balanced center.

[94501]

I'm loving the optimism! I'll continue to post rank, in case anybody's interested in the experiment results.

[94501]

So here's the update I promised. The rank continues to jump around like crazy. I think it's been on every one of the first 10 pages in the last two weeks. This morning it was at page 1, #3. At this moment it's nowhere to be found! Isn't that strange? Best....Michael

[AlanBleiweiss]

Okay based on that pattern, I've seen similar volatility with some phrases but not others for a client in a highly competitive market, with the volatility lasting years.  From what I have been able to ascertain, in this case it was due to the fierce nature of competitive activity for those phrases - literally where X number of competitors have been fighting it out.  In that time-span we've bounced back to the top a number of times, only to have those phrases drop again, then rebound.

[94501]

Thanks Alan,

Hey, just got done reading your excellent piece on SEO audits.A super interesting point in that piece about link ratios.

I get what you're saying about competition.  Using SEOMoz's handy difficulty tool, this phrase is a 38% difficulty.  It doesn't seem like it should be this hard. If you want, drop me an email and I'll share some other details with you. Thanks! Best...Michael

[AlanBleiweiss]

If I had the time, I'd like to learn more specifics.  Unfortunately I struggle to eek out enough time to just participate here in the Q&A system as it is...

[94501]

I understand. This thing is more strange than mission critical. Best...Michael

[Thos003]

Yes... It's not just what you are doing but what your competitors are doing. It's an on going war out there. Bunker down boys.

[portalseo]

'Google Shuffle' Give it a couple of weeks and it should come back. Check the usual culprits (Dupe Content) and go over all the changes implimented before it occured.