No longer to be found for "certain" keywords.

[micfo]

I'd like to see if anyone could potentially shade a light on this rather strange scenario:

Basically yesterday I noticed that we are no longer to be found for 'certain' keywords that we had page 2-3 ranking. Yet, for other keywords we still appear on page 2-3. These keywords are very competitive and our rankings has constantly improved in the course of 5-6 months.

Now my question is that what could or may have contributed to the fact that for only some keywords we are no longer to be found? Another question is, can Google remove you from their SERPs for certain keywords 'only'? Thank you,
Maximilian.

[AnthonyMangia]

There are tons of reasons why your website might see a drop in rankings for certain keywords.  Here are a few:

• Increased competition in your niche pushed your website down as new websites started to rank above you.

• You have been building low quality links and they have been devalued by Google, causing you to lose hundreds (thousands?) of keyword-rich backlinks.

• Your website has been affected by a Google algorithm update.  For one reason or another (duplicate content?  shallow or nonexistent content on some pages?  too many ads / too big of a "footprint"?), your website is being seen as less trustworthy, and this has affected rankings sitewide.  (Note, some rankings would be maintained, particularly for keywords with low competition.)

• You were logged into your Google account when you saw these rankings, and your website was appearing higher than it typically does because of your personalized search data.  When you logged out and checked your rankings, you noticed a "drop" in ranking that was not actually real.  (Okay, this one is unlikely, but we've all seen it before.)

[micfo]

"You have been building low quality links and they have been devalued by Google, causing you to lose hundreds (thousands?) of keyword-rich backlinks."

Anthony, thank you for your response. The above statement could potentially be the source of issue, considering one of our staff members been doing directory submissions (30 per day).

Now you mentioned that Google may have devalued the high-quality banklinks that have had due to gaining low quality backlinks. In your experience, what can be done to resolve this issue? Is this devaluation something permanent or a temporary? What can be done to speed up the recovery?

Thank you in advance.

[AnthonyMangia]

Maximilian -

If Google has devalued some of your links, there's no way to "recover" these links.  That's the bad news.

The good news is that this happens to websites every day, and it's not by any means a permanent penalization or anything of that sort.  All it means is that the time and effort spent to build these links was squandered.

What can you do to speed up your recovery?  Switch the way you think about link building.  Directory submissions are useful, but they shouldn't by any means comprise the majority of your link building strategy.

I would suggest reading this article cover to cover.  It will teach you the proper mindset you should have when approaching linkbuilding, and it will give you dozens and dozens of ideas to get started with building high quality links from relevant, authoritative domains.

Replace directory submissions with strategies like writing guest blog posts, creating amazing content (linkbait) and subsequently promoting it on social media and social bookmarking websites, and/or creating a widget that would be an invaluable addition to any website in your industry.  All of these are covered under the "Content-Based Link Building Strategies" section of the SEOmoz Professional Guide to Linkbuilding that is linked to above.

[micfo]

Anthony, our website has been online since 2002 and we have been getting organic quality backlinks for a very long time. Directory submission was just added literally 4 weeks in an effort to 'add more value'. It was never intended to use it as the only source, but just was an effort to increase the rankings. Who knew it would or could potentially backfire.

On another note, you mentioned that duplicate content may cause this issue. Our content is very reach and well-written and there are a number of sites who have copied/pasted our content. Despite all of our efforts and having had contacted their hosting companies to shut down their website, no changes have been made. Now my question is, do we get affected if "others" have copied our content on their website? Does Google have any algorithmic to define which site has copied which sites data?

Thank you once again for your insightful information.

[AnthonyMangia]

Strategies for dealing with external duplicate content are overviewed here.

A much bigger concern is duplicating your OWN content.  I know it sounds kind of silly, but it is a very real issue, especially since Google's most recent update (Panda).  Is there more than one URL for any page on your website?  Does http://website.com direct to http://www.website.com?  Do you have canonicalization problems related to pagination or something similar?

These issues are discussed in-depth here.

If you think that your issues may be related to on-site or site architecture factors, the best thing you can do is hire a qualified SEO consultant that can assess these issues and make actionable recommendations for correcting them.

[micfo]

Thank you once again. I will get in touch with you. Please PM your contact details. We are located in downtown Manhattan.