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it's 5 years using their historical data

There was an algo update at the end of october that wasnt really reported on. About 3 days before the end of the month.

If it started there, then I dont think that's penguin. That's something else.

I can't really help with that if it did happen within that time frame. I don't have enough data to say what to specifically check so be sure to do the usual onpage audits/speed/links and go from there. If it happened to your subfolder, then I would worry about the whole domain. I would however, check the whole search results for the affected sub+keywords, what changed, where the competitors are, were videos added, are there more "authority" sites showing, were those ranking and linking to me affected and so on.

Good luck!

Oh wait, you might be using a local business page, have you asked for your verification postcard? After you verify that then that should be it. But still put the publisher code on your site

btw, your site is over saturated with keywords as well, might want to work on that.

identify your penalty and dont just listen to someone that says it's "penguin"

I would stick with what you have then optimize. I would also remove the english articles and come up with a separate content strategy for that. Itll save you time and keep things within a strategy so you can track performance better (but youll have to check if those articles already get traffic and links first)

Other options i could think of will need more time and a lot of changes (and cost)

Is their Google+ My Business page verified? Just to clarify it.

Id make sure your site can load fast, promote engagement with social media, other posts you have or whatever, so you lower your bounce rate and improve your inbound signals. You should be ranking better than ever after that. Just keep them on the site and make good use of your traffic

The algorithm will use freshness based on the urgency/nature of the keywords. For something like that keyword, I dont see it being a problem at all. If it's a really important page, just move it to a page (im assuming you use WP) -then improve it and use the same url structure.

Im not sure what you mean about preference. If you mean that if your "geo targeted country" has an effect on improving your chances for terms like "SEO Services in India" then my answer is not so much. You'll just have an improved visibility in the local engines but geo keywords will still take the same amount of work. I've played with this for my site recently. My geo targeting doesnt really affect my global geo related keyword rankings.

is this a local ecom site? You will definitely face local classified ads, spammy competitors etc and most of the time, they will outrank you. It's just the way local is for those outside the USA side.

The good thing is, most of these competitors just stop spamming and the real clients that eventually find you will be loyal to you. Just continue what you are doing, if possible build a social community as well. Try to get some more local coverage (if you are indeed targeting local) and look at your webmaster tools. See where you need to improve.

Finally, test a PPC campaign. You'll see a whole lot more data vs just waiting for WMT data. You can get ahead earlier and improve your converts.

Good luck Shabbir

I did in my answer above.

If you want to totally solve it, also add a canonical to lead to a page that has ALL your posts shown. (Done manually, not through yoast)

Hi

That's a lot of indexed pages. What were the bulk of those pages? Categories? Products? Random tags or thin pages?

Did you switch to https recently? Are all versions included in webmaster tools? With a preferred version? How about their sitemaps?

It's possible that it's panda. It's also possible that it's a technical side like a switch to https, improper redirects, etc.

I just find it weird to see a big site like that lose that much indexed content (assuming they were good pages) without incurring an algorithmic penalty or a technical problem.

Technically, it is a paid link, but how would they know it is? Not really something you need to worry about as long as the "link" is done differently, so they dont leave obvious footprints.

Pretty sure lots of people will disagree with this, but it's the truth.

Yeah, google will see the 301 and follow it. Just patiently wait for them to update on their end.

Try checking it out with bing/yahoo and yandex. See what type of pages they were then go to archive.org to check them.

If it's indeed thin pages or pages caused by parameters/searches/sorting then that is usually an automatic algorithmic penalty, usually, panda.

You might also have some good pages with good links, so be sure to check for 404s. 301 good pages as needed. It's a really tricky situation.

You also have to see if there's trouble with internal links and inbound links (just in case there's a mix with penguin. I've seen sites with manual and algorithmic penalties for both wtf)

Try out tools like

http://www.barracuda-digital.co.uk/panguin-tool/

http://fruition.net/google-penalty-checker-tool/

to see when your drops really started. You should be able to identify your algo penalty at least and go from there.

Oh it's hard to find those types of links. Try what Chris said. You should also try putting just the URL in the google search bar to see what else comes up. There are other tactics you can do but in the end it's worthless because you can't really do anything about it. Even reporting it wont help.

Ive seen plenty of those before the last update, but now most are nowhere after the update so the algorithm has gotten better detecting those "ghost" networks.

there's a little "i" information button on the right. Point your cursor there.

Either way, the duplicate url, should appear within the table as well

Definitely because you can only do so much in a day, right?

Depending on the project's urgency and goals, we use different ways to come up with a task list.

I normally have a template in my project management tool that can be used on specific sites. Then each week, we break down what can be accomplished within the timeframe. Sometimes, we do it just monthly. The important thing is to actually be within budget and finish the tasks

Hi AJ,

I would compile a list of the stuff they made

I would then take a look at the sites. Odds are, some are actually good sites with good traffic.

You should be able to get a few good ones at least.  You can opt to change the content. Keep those and remove the links on the rest.

IF they had unlinked brand mentions, just remove those mentions as well. No need to take down the whole thing

If you want, you can actually replace the links and point it to one of your employees blogs, a social property or somethin' that isn't really ranking or has nothing to lose - Just being honest here because simply repurposing it instead of scrapping a whole year's worth of your "investment" is always better in my eyes.

A bit late to answering but yeah, they are right with the 303. Stick with a 301 for seo purposes.