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Mathew, Even if all of your links were "built naturally" you can still be impacted by Google penalties assessed to sites that are linking to you.  If, for example, a site that is linking to you and providing your site with some amount of link juice gets penalized, it my no longer be sending you that juice.  The impact may be huge if it was a powerful link or if many of your links were coming from sites that were penalized, or the impact may be relatively minor if the penalized site was helping with your rankings in a small way. Those kinds of changes happen with or without penalties being assessed, as back links from other sites may fall away or lose value over time (link rot). It looks like you may just need to keep up the hard work of marketing you site on line to rebuild your rankings.

Another good answer, Lynn. Thanks a lot. I'll be sure to take on board the advice you've passed on!

Thanks for sharing the link Mark -  I guess they have a reasonable sized in house team there too, and Yoast are a decent set of guys.

Hi continue optimizing and do not assume it will get back to where it was before. I see some of the site I optimize stuck in new positions and only a very slow movement upward. I guess it takes a lot of work to move up again

I didn't have them circled previously. But I do now.

Yep, this would work within the travel sector - The UKs No1 Destination etc etc. I think it would only benefit the CTR, if the offering is indeed the best, or the client is happy to claim they are the best at what they do. Thanks Guys

Hi Mathew, Just to play the devils advocate here: are you sure the lost backlinks are the cause of the drop in rankings? Directory and article links are usually pretty low value and you didn't mention why they have been lost (any unatural link warnings that you have been trying to clean up a bit?). Any drops in ranking/traffic that matches a known google update? 1000 of them is quite a lot, if the site has another 1000 or whatever that are still live maybe their loss isnt the problem, their existance is! I would think immediate actions would be the standard list: onsite improvements in code and content where relevant and try to gain some relevant links from relevant sites. My two cents!

Hey Sha, Thanks for that. It would seem that would be the best bet.

It really isn't that simple though, is it? We're always at the mercy of Google's Algorithm and, unfortunately, the search engine is still in a certain state that it can still give preference to websites that don't have great content. In fact, websites with rubbish content.

Hi Matthew The IP location it's a signal although it used to be stronger in the past but is still is. Take into consideration that is not the only signal to inform Google that your site is relevant towards a specific country: The usage of a ccTLD or geolocating in Google Webmaster Tools, plus specifying the region also in the hreflang annotations and your content itself: adding the location where it's targeted to in the different elements of the pages, are also additional signals that you should align as much as you can to inform Google where is your relevant country market. So when someone asks me this question looking to move their site towards a local hosting or a service that can provide the IP of the country where the site is targeting what I ask is that if it also makes sense to make the move for other reasons (better speed for your visitors in that country, better support, etc.) and from a cost perspective, then they should do it. Nonetheless, if it's a painful migration that will cost too much and they still have other factors to optimize, then I would likely recommend to see first the impact of these other aspects that won't cost that much to implement. In your case is different, since from what you say is about "moving away" your server from the relevant country, then in this situation is about saving or earning in other aspects that are not SEO since you will be taking away a signal that you were already providing. So instead of this what I would do first is to try to find another service that can keep providing you the UK IP and that also meets your other requirements, trying to keep the signal you were already giving while achieving the goals you're looking to have by changing your hosting service. In the case this is impossible, then yes, you would likely have to assume you will be losing a bit of the "geotargeted" relevance you were already giving, and in dependence how you're optimizing the other relevant factors towards this, it might have a stronger or weaker effect. Thanks!

Thanks - I'm hoping more people will agree with you on this one. As well as confusing humans, surely Google must be suspicious too. Like you say, I would 301 them too, and my Dev also agrees, but would be nice to hear it from the wider SEO community.

Great Ideas Doug

have you been doing link building for the clients and if so have you been getting the same types of links from the same places?

If you need writers to help ramp up, we have some capacity on our UK site. (textbroker.co.uk). As much as I love content, creation is only part of the battle. You may want to think about social media, guest blogging and relationship-building to help promote your content. Of course, you'd have to look at where your client's customers are and go from there. Good luck!

If the site got hit in the search engines (I see a major drop in visibility for the site in Search Metrics June 21 and 28 2012), and the client has now moved to a new domain, why would you 301 the old pages to the new ones - don't you want to start with a clean slate, which is why you started a new site? If the 301 passes the penalty or not, why take the risk? Why not build your link profile the proper way this time? I also see a lot of over optimized anchor text in OSE and very little branded or generic - diversify your anchor text and focus on branded, unoptimized, and naked anchor text (www.claims...) in your link building efforts. If you're worried about visitors to the current domain, why not redirect using a 302 and then eventually let the domain die? Instead of switching domains, you can also do a link disavow after a thorough review of your links and then do a reconsideration request, and then start the link building again on the current domain, instead of switching to a new hyphenated domain that just looks like a spammier version of the original URL. I would do a thorough back link review and then disavow and reinclusion request instead of the new domain route. You can refer to this article for how to review your links from Search Engine Journal. That's my two cents - hope it helps Mark

I think I remember reading something about Google toning down the impact of their EMD update.

Hi, I think you need to check this - http://www.davidmihm.com/local-search-ranking-factors.shtml This is the most comprehensive list on local SEO that I have come across in my life. Hope you will find it helpful too.

I see, that's certainly cleared that up! Thanks again

Thanks Mark, I have some very seasonal related items - whats your email?

I completely agree.  I have had very similar projects.  Good luck!