Different pages ranking for search terms, often irrelevant.

[templatemonster]

Website: www.templatemonster.com
Problem: Positions dropped while pages which were ranking previously disappeared from top 100 and now different - often completely irrelevant - pages are ranking.

Examples:
Search term: Joomla Templates
Previous Position: 8
Current Position: 35
Previously Ranked Page: http://www.templatemonster.com/joomla-templates.php
Currently Ranked Page: http://www.templatemonster.com/logo-templates.php

Similar situation with the following search terms: virtuemart templates, virtuemart themes, prestashop templates, prestashop themes, magento themes, zencart templates, zencart themes, zen cart templates, zen cart themes

When: according to the Google Analytics (drop in visitors stats) this happened on July, 2nd

Preconditions: we had 45 minutes downtime on July 2-nd - but could this 45 mins have had such disastrous results?
No redirects or canonical URL were used which could lead to such change of ranking page.
No changes in the site's informational structure and design.
In webmaster tools (inbound links report) we saw a website yesterday which had over 800,000 links pointing to our domain - http://moviebestwatch.com/ - and today this site is NOT found in Webmaster Tools report! Also, site is down, domain is quite new (how could it have possibly developed 800,000 pages in such a short time?) and whois is privacy protected. Is this some dirty trick from competitors - could it have possibly influenced our positions?

Still, what I completely fail to understand - how could a page like http://www.templatemonster.com/logo-templates.php be the top ranking page for 'Joomla templates' if there is:

• not a single mention of the word 'Joomla' on the page (or source code), i.e. the page is completely irrelevant to the search term
• not a single link with 'Joomla templates' anchor text pointing to that page, neither external nor internal

PS. No similar changes in other search engines noticed.

Also, the pages in question have been re-spidered July 4th and cache shows the right pages, i.e. it is not that Googlebot has seen logotypes page instead of Joomla templates page.

I checked any possible reason I could think of (see "Preconditions") but still have no clue - what is going on?

[RyanKent]

I looked at your site along with all the details you mentioned including the two pages involved and the moviebestwatch.com. I was unable to locate any apparent reason for the results you are experiencing.

I checked all the unseen factors including ALT text and incoming link anchor text. The logo-templates page is clearly highly associated with "templates" but there was not a single instance of the term Joomla in the html code.

I would suggest contacting Google via the Reconsideration Request tool and ask if your site is under any penalty. I am concerned about this site with 800k links. That would clearly set off alarms and it is unclear how Google's automated system, or any given employee, may have reacted.

If there were no other issues the only step I can recommend is to add a text link to your page footer for "Joomla templates" linking to the correct page. This step normally should not be necessary, but is being suggested as a bandaid to resolve your current issue.

I did a Google site search for your term: joomla templates site:http://www.templatemonster.com/. The correct page appeared as the first result. I would be interested to hear if anyone else has a different view on this matter.

[templatemonster]

Thanks Ryan for your prompt reply. I tend to think now that the only way is to contact Google as I just don't see any apparent reason for such situation as well.

As you said, I'd also be interested to hear if anyone else has a different view on this matter.

[KeriMorgret]

Admin note: I changed this question back to unanswered (it automatically changed to answered when Ryan was marked as a good answer) so it can get some more visibility and other opinions.

Templatemonster, thanks for such a well-written question with relevant details!

[templatemonster]

Thanks Keri, though it still shows as answered to me.

We've submitted a reconsideration request and still waiting for any reaction. The situation hasn't changed yet - still same positions, same wrong pages.