Site not performing well for its main keyword

[superiorword]

One of my sites is not performing well for its exact match keyword after the 14th October, 2011 panda update. I just logged in to GWT and noticed there are like 34000+ links coming from 1 site where I bought a site wide link last year. Could this be the reason behind the site not doing well for this keyword?



This site is ranking decently for other keywords. I've been building links with different anchors and whenever the site starts moving up for its main keyword, Google pushes it back to page 3 or 4 :/

Any suggestions/advice?

[Notspot]

That certainly would be enough to set off a google keyword penalty, especially if you have other things going on which aren't quite kosher - I'm not convinced it would get a site panda'd in isolation but it may have pushed you over a 'trust' threshold.

I would remove that link to see what happens.

[superiorword]

Yeah I think the site was pandalyzed because I had some CTAs "above the fold" and some inner pages with identical content. I fixed all those issues and the site came back strong for almost all the keywords I'm targeting EXCEPT the main keyword I mentioned above.

[Michael Martinez]

I don't believe a sitewide link is a signal to Panda (but keep in mind I don't know what the Panda signals are).

I have seen a few sites that appear to have incurred non-Panda penalties on or near Panda iteration dates. It's really impossible to know for sure what is happening.

If your site was downgraded by Panda in October, however, your Google referral traffic should have been significantly reduced -- and might have come back in November.

Whenever a site doesn't rank for its own name, that's something to be concerned about. It *could* be an indication of a Panda downgrade but may indicate something else.

[superiorword]

Thanks for your reply, Michael. The site went down in October's panda update but bounced back in November for almost all keywords I'm targeting except its main keyword. That's making me think that it's not panda related and must be something else. I just pm'd you my site name and the site from where its getting all those sitewide links. Can you please take a look and lemme know if that could be the reason behind this weird ranking..

[Michael Martinez]

Just so everyone knows, I have shared a test privately with SuperiorWord that may reveal if the site was Pandalyzed. I'm not sure I want to share this openly at this time as I have only used it on one other site. I would consider it to be an unreliable test until I have seen it return an expected result for more sites.

[oconnor1]

Just to clarify, were you ranking much better before the October Panda upate? Do you have links coming from several different sources then just that one sitewide link? If not, I think diversifying your link profile could make that one huge link source look more natural.

[superiorword]

Just to clarify, were you ranking much better before the October Panda upate? Do you have links coming from several different sources then just that one sitewide link? If not, I think diversifying your link profile could make that one huge link source look more natural.

Yes, I used to be #5 or #7 for my main keyword before October. And I have a well diversified link profile.


I have removed this site wide link now. Let's see what happens in next 3-4 weeks...

[addz123]

Thanks for your reply, Michael. The site went down in October's panda update but bounced back in November for almost all keywords I'm targeting except its main keyword. That's making me think that it's not panda related and must be something else. I just pm'd you my site name and the site from where its getting all those sitewide links. Can you please take a look and lemme know if that could be the reason behind this weird ranking..

FYI, one of my sites has lost it's rankings for its main keywords over the weekend, in addition to lots of other inner page rankings, however it's still receiving the same amount of traffic and lots of other pages still rank.

I know it can't be a penalty, I doubt it's panda (otherwise I'd expect a bigger traffic drop). Maybe it's a serp fluctuation or something I don't know.

[superiorword]

It's getting more n more weird...I removed that sitewide link 11 days ago - on 20th of January. But GWT is now showing 38k+ links from this site:



Any idea what to do now?