Ranking dropped significantly

[hisstory2001]

We have been doing SEO optimization based on SEOMoz reco.  However, our page ranking for key words dropped significantly last night..  We used to be on page 3 but now could not even found it on top 20 pages.  Not sure what happened last night.  I checked google webmaster tool but did not find anything.  Can you help?

[cbielich]

It's called Penguin 2.0 GL

http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2270007/Google-Penguin-2.0-Update-is-Live

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=xQmQeKU25zg

[hisstory2001]

Thanks!  But my site did not use any black hat SEO..  The only thing we did is that we bought a few domains with different names and redirect them to our home page visa 301.  Does that affect?

[cbielich]

There are a few issues with this, just depends how you are doing it

What did you do with these other domains. Is there content on the site and links point to your other site, or does the domain name simply redirect to that domain?

Did you check the back link profile on these new domains you purchased. If they had black hat associated with them and you 301 to your site, you just got infected You need to research those old domains you just bought and make sure they are clean. If not then you are going to have to clean them up or get rid of the 301

Did the rankings drop after you 301'd the domains? Get rid of the 301's and see what happens to your rankings. If they come back those domains are spammy

Either way you most likely got hit with Penguin 2.0 which means there is something spammy associated with either the old domains or yours. Don't assume just because you haven't done anything black hat that there anything spammy about your site. There are many innocent ways to do black hat.

Always double check with Google's Quality Guidelines

[hisstory2001]

Hi Cesar, thank you!  Those domains should be clean as nobody used those before.

1)  I changed back to 302 on those sites

2. How can I check if my site have bad links?

[jesse-landry]

I'm trying to learn more about this 2.0 Penguin action. The only way to do so is research. Can you please supply us with your domain? We may be able to help further that way anyhow..

To research your link profile, first you need a tool such as Open Site Explorer or ahrefs.

From there, it's simple.

[cbielich]

Bad links are going to take some research. What you need to do is find all the back links you currently have, double check the other domains too. Don't assume they are clean even though you just bought them. Someone still could have owned them in the past.

Once can get your back links from several places. Check them all!

• Google Webmaster Tools
• AHrefs.com
• http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/ which is SEOMOZ's

Then you should use the SEOMOZ extension for your browser (I prefer Chrome) which can give you an "estimate" of the trust of those links (I say estimate because nothing is certain, visit each link and look at it yourself.)

If it looks like spam, smells like spam...it must be spam - akums razor

[cbielich]

I wouldn't say it simple

http://www.seroundtable.com/google-penguin-poll-16162.html

[hisstory2001]

Thank you very much!  The following link will take you to our home page. http://tinyurl.com/yfc4dka

Our key words are "private tutor", "Private tutors"

1. When I search the name of our site, we are still no 1.. Meaning google still indexed us.

2. When I search key words above, I can not find our home page among top 20.  But our FAQ page on page 10 and blog page on page 15.

3. When I search private chemistry tutor, our page dedicated to that category is still on page 1.

So is there any bad links associated Private Tutor and Private Tutors?

[jesse-landry]

Yeah I didn't mean it was simple to recover, but simple to discover rather. I'm well aware of the difficulties, believe me.

[hisstory2001]

Thank you very much!  The following link will take you to our home page. http://tinyurl.com/yfc4dka

Our key words are "private tutor", "Private tutors"

1. When I search the name of our site, we are still no 1.. Meaning google still indexed us.

2. When I search key words above, I can not find our home page among top 20.  But our FAQ page on page 10 and blog page on page 15.

3. When I search private chemistry tutor, our page dedicated to that category is still on page 1.

So is there any bad links associated Private Tutor and Private Tutors?

[cbielich]

https://ahrefs.com/site-explorer/overview/subdomains/www.nextguru.com%252F

You have recently lost a ton of backlinks to your site this month. 400 roughly since April 23rd especially from swansonheritage.com

Also look at your link diversity

[hisstory2001]

Thank you!  I saw the loss of links.  But I am still puzzled why our site is not even listed on top 20 pages.  The FAQ, which does not have any backlinks, is even listed on page 10.

[cbielich]

Honestly you are most likely having a Penguin Issue. Penguin is known to affect certain keywords, but not all. I would take that mindset and go from there.

http://www.distilled.net/blog/seo/penguin-strategies/