Google penalty question

[namanimal]

Hey guys,

I made a site and I was listed pretty well (position 3-5 on page 1) for a long time. I did something stupid and I changed the title about 4 times in 2 weeks to try to optimize it better and suddenly I was dropped to page 2 instantly.

This happened about 6 months ago, and it was slowwwwwwwwly been going up. Since that time, my site went from pagerank 2 to pagerank 3 and now it fluctuates between position 10 on page 1 and position 1 on page 2.

My question is does anyone know how long they will keep this penalty on my site? 6 months, 1 year, 5 years? I haven't changed anything on the site (title/description/meta) since that happened. Maybe there is something I'm supposed to do to fix this or its just a time limit until the penalty falls off.

Please help, I have no clue what to do if anything can be done. Thanks

 

[enlytend]

1) Don't confuse Toolbar Page Rank with search rankings - they're not the same metric.

2) Changing your titles frequently won't (in itself) give you a penalty. It's a normal and perfectly legitimate thing to do. Could affect your rankings, but not because it invokes a penalty.

Spammy titles could get you penalized.

Normally, rankings bounce back when you remove whatever they find offensive. If the rankings drop is persisting, look elsewhere for the problem. Go over Google's webmaster quality guidelines item by item, fix whatever needs to be fixed.

 

[AbsoluteKC]

It is common to experience fluctuations in your rankings especially for new sites. I have a 3 year-old site and its ranking still hover between 1st and 2nd page sometimes..

This is not a penalty like what enlytend says. Just concentrate on attracting more visitors to your site by creating content that yout target market would like.

 

[namanimal]

The site has been up for over a year so I think its out of the new site category. Everything I've heard is when you get some kind of a penalty you need to fix it before it gets better.

Now that I think about it, it might be considered a spammy type title. It is 100% optimized title. Every word in the title is a keyword for the website. I figured that stopping switching the title would make it better. But if the new title is too keyword rich then that would explain why it isnt getting better over time. So I think i'll switch it to a 75% keyword title with a little extra in there. Maybe that will undo the problem and bring me back up to the middle of page 1.

 

[enlytend]

Now that I think about it, it might be considered a spammy type title. It is 100% optimized title. Every word in the title is a keyword for the website. I figured that stopping switching the title would make it better. But if the new title is too keyword rich then that would explain why it isnt getting better over time. So I think i'll switch it to a 75% keyword title with a little extra in there.

Stop thinking "percentages". Keyword density is more or less a dead concept in page text, it never WAS "alive" for titles.

Titles 101:
What's in the text of your page? What's the page about? You shouldn't have ANY keywords in a title that aren't relevent to that particular page! Pick one or two most important keywords, use those in the title. No more than 65-70 characters total(you CAN make it longer if there's a really good reason to do so, but additional characters will get truncated). Don't use the same title on multiple pages.

 

[andr69]

I can advice you for the future not to make Google angry with some kind of rule breaking, because soem of sanktions used by Google are really cruel for a website.

 

[2tired2sleep]

Maybe this is a dumb suggestion, but have you tried going back to your original title? If you where #3 to #5 with it, and now you are #10 or #11, I would change back. But I think it can take up to two months to recover. In the meantime, is there also more competition, and is it just other people pushing you down?
By the way, with your title, it not just where you rank, it is also how COMPELLING your title is and whether people will want to click on it. Good luck!

 

[amelia20]

I don't think it's a penalty. Ranking may get changed and you're now also recovering from previous condition. But it's advisable not to change page title very frequently. Avoid repetition of keywords in title and also don't make it lengthy. Make it such a way that it should not looks like spammy.

 

[seoservices]

Hey guys,

I made a site and I was listed pretty well (position 3-5 on page 1) for a long time. I did something stupid and I changed the title about 4 times in 2 weeks to try to optimize it better and suddenly I was dropped to page 2 instantly.

This happened about 6 months ago, and it was slowwwwwwwwly been going up. Since that time, my site went from pagerank 2 to pagerank 3 and now it fluctuates between position 10 on page 1 and position 1 on page 2.

My question is does anyone know how long they will keep this penalty on my site? 6 months, 1 year, 5 years? I haven't changed anything on the site (title/description/meta) since that happened. Maybe there is something I'm supposed to do to fix this or its just a time limit until the penalty falls off.

Please help, I have no clue what to do if anything can be done. Thanks

how you are so confidence your site is penalize?

 

[weblaunch]

I don't think you were penalized by dropping to page 2. You just need to optimize your site for the new title. Besides, rankings fluctuate all the time, so you really can't attribute the ranking drop to title change.

 

[stankope]

1) Don't confuse Toolbar Page Rank with search rankings - they're not the same metric.

2) Changing your titles frequently won't (in itself) give you a penalty. It's a normal and perfectly legitimate thing to do. Could affect your rankings, but not because it invokes a penalty.

Spammy titles could get you penalized.

Normally, rankings bounce back when you remove whatever they find offensive. If the rankings drop is persisting, look elsewhere for the problem. Go over Google's webmaster quality guidelines item by item, fix whatever needs to be fixed.

You are right...your page was not penalized. Google does not work like that that I know of.

 

[vannarith]

I see your problem and it is due to your frequent changes in your site as well as your article title as this will get your site rank decrease. What i can say is do not try to change those things!

 

[watsonlivung]

I don't think that your site is being penalized....May be your SERP is coming due to your link building techniques...

 

[WebIntellects - Rob]

I don't think that your site is being penalized....May be your SERP is coming due to your link building techniques...

I agree. That could be just temporary issue

 

[besttips]

Yes . try to fix it . but no one can'n say exactly when it will be solved .

 

[onlinedownloads]

Ranking fluctuation is common.
You need to have strong backlinks to prove and defend your top position.

 

[mohithanche]

There are few Google's site guidelines:

• Avoid hidden text or hidden links.
  
• Don't employ cloaking or sneaky redirects.
  
• Don't send automated queries to Google.
  
• Don't load pages with irrelevant words.
  
• Don't create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content.
  
• Avoid "doorway" pages created just for search engines, or other "cookie cutter" approaches such as affiliate programs with little or no original content.

 

[BrainFreeze]

For many people, it seems they panic every time their site drops a bit on google and think they have been penalized... Often it is just google's natural fluctuation, or a minor algo change, or your competition is doing better, or you have lost some of your links. The key is not to do anything that would get you in trouble in the first place, and then you won't have to worry!
BTW, can the OP post how they are doing now, and what they now think happened?

 

[itsallwhite]

In reality its probably a mixture of everything, except a google penalty - this would have shown a bigger decrease in SERPs or removal all together. Maybe there was a google change, update, new links from competitors etc.

Have your keyword rankings for other phrases changed?
Is the rest of your on-page optimization solid?

Try going back to the original keyword and see what happens, patience is the key here im afraid!