Plummeting Google ranking

[Alec]

Hello

My website has been running for just under 3 years. In that time we've managed to achieve page 1/2 listings for popular single work keyterms; all the SEO had been done in-house.

Recently we employed a company to do some link-building for us, targetting a small handful of terms. All seemed to be ticking along nicely, although we hadn't seen any ranking changes, until today. Where we once ranked for page 1 and 2 for those single word terms, we now have no presence at all! Certainly not within the first 10 pages.

We're still ranking well for the longer keyterms, so we've definitely not been booted out of Google completely, although I only rank 3rd for our domain name now, whereas for many many months we've been number one for that.

Does anyone know how to find out if we have been penalised, or perhaps if its just an odd update slowly taking place?? I'm pulling my hair out here; it's feeling like a lot of hard work over the last 3 years has just been flushed down the crapper

[Alec]

Originally Posted by Alec

Hello

My website has been running for just under 3 years. In that time we've managed to achieve page 1/2 listings for popular single work keyterms; all the SEO had been done in-house.

Recently we employed a company to do some link-building for us, targetting a small handful of terms. All seemed to be ticking along nicely, although we hadn't seen any ranking changes, until today. Where we once ranked for page 1 and 2 for those single word terms, we now have no presence at all! Certainly not within the first 10 pages.

We're still ranking well for the longer keyterms, so we've definitely not been booted out of Google completely, although I only rank 3rd for our domain name now, whereas for many many months we've been number one for that.

Does anyone know how to find out if we have been penalised, or perhaps if its just an odd update slowly taking place?? I'm pulling my hair out here; it's feeling like a lot of hard work over the last 3 years has just been flushed down the crapper

It seems I was the victim of the Halloween Update!

forums.internetbusiness.co.uk/17337-google-s-halloween-update.html

All rankings are back to normal today

[Alec]

It seems I was the victim of the Halloween Update!

forums.internetbusiness.co.uk/17337-google-s-halloween-update.html

All rankings are now back to normal, I'm relieved to say.

[Brian Turner]

Apologies for that - you tripped the anti-spam filters for posting a link - now corrected.

More details on the Halloween update here:
http://www.internetbusiness.co.uk/01...loween-update/

[scene4u]

It could be that they changed the text on your site, which means you may now rank for new terms but you will have lost your high rankings for some of the other terms.

[Niche]

Could be a penalty for links from a bad neighbourhood. Or a change in ranking algorithm [got me a few months ago but on my way back up, thank you]

Just check with the SEO firm and make sure they are not doing anything black hat on your site

[MH-Andy]

Google pushes you down if you get auto-submitted into loads of directory's using the same text, links...

[Find Accountants]

How are you now doing with your rankings? It's been 6 months or so since your post. Has everything gone back to normal now?

I find my pages are always coming & going our of google's index as well & it's very frustrating!

[Alec]

Almost a year later and my serps, which recovered very quickly (see post 2, above), are as steady as ever.

[Find Accountants]

That's good to hear. I guess your SEO activities weren't in vain then : )

Good luck to you matey!