Buying Links & Google Penalty

[marketingforte]

About 3 days ago one of my sites has been penalized by Google. How do I know this? We were on the 1st and 2nd pages on Google for 100+ keywords that we were targeting and business was going great. Now we are nowhere to be found. The number of pages indexed in Google is still consistent (site:domain.com) which means I'm not totally banned but words that were on the 1st page are now pretty much buried past 30 pages. And this is pretty much every single keyword that we were working hard on and spending a quite a bit of money overall.

As far as link building for SEO we've been doing manual directory submissions and paid text link ad campaigns. I know most of you are thinking "you deserve it" but I know most of you either thought about buying links or actually tried it. Anyway, the site was rising fast on many of the keywords and then BOOM! flat line.

I've researched for many hours the last couple days on link building and google penalties to refresh my memory. I used to think that since 'Website A' has no control over 'Website B', whatever links to 'Website A' shouldn't harm it since it has no control over Website B, C, D, E. etc. The worst thing google should do is just ignore the link (and they used to do that). But this experience is making me think otherwise.. Wouldn't this open doors to sabotaging competitors?

[henk]

The worst thing google should do is just ignore the link (and they used to do that). But this experience is making me think otherwise.. Wouldn't this open doors to sabotaging competitors?

Could it be Google at first gave you credit for these links, but then they discovered they where paid links, so they started to ignored those links, as a result you have a lot less links and you drop in the rankings.

[Tubby]

quote "We were on the 1st and 2nd pages on Google for 100+ keywords that we were targeting and business was going great. Now we are nowhere to be found. "


Google does this occasionally and the reason is not always instantly obvious . . You might be premature in "knowing" why it happened.

[L R Hand]

Instead of paying for links, find websites like mine that want original content. Provide good quality content that is relevant to your field for free, on the understanding that the article etc links to your site, et voila. Relevant links that won't be penalised.

[mrbongos]

I too would wait a few days to see if the change is temporary. If nothing has changed at that time and your only link building efforts have been directory submissions and the paid links then you most certainly need to look at gaining some links via natural methods. Since you have a budget for paid links I would consider press releases as one avenue to gain some links. This would not be a complete solution to your link issue but can help "speed" the process of getting good value links.

[ncseo]

Here are some questions and thoughts

1. How long have you waited since the penalty? It can be an algo change

2. copy some text on your homepage and google it with quotations. If your site doesnt show up then it can be a penalty
if other sites show up with your text then you're probably in the google duplicate filter

3. check ALL the OUTBOUND links....and check to see if those sites are penalized
if they are, then you can be penalized as well

4. what is the ratio of paid links to regular links?

5. are you not showing up for any keywords within the top 1000-2000 pages or did you get knocked down to 1000 page mark?

6. have you been getting the content on your site and posting it somewhere else?

[claybutler]

Could be a fluke. My site dropped off the rankings radar for a full seven months then suddenly came back stronger than ever in one day. It ranked well for seven years straight then nearly vanished. I didn't do anything. Google kept indexing my site the whole time and even adding pages. No penalties. Statistically it looked fine it's just all my rankings except for one page dropped away for seven months. During that time I had two one day blips where it seemed to come back only to disappear again. It's tempting to point a finger and say I've been banned for doing this or that but it may not be true at all.

[Fitz]

quote [I]"Google does this occasionally and the reason is not always instantly obvious . .

Tubby is right (usually is!) .... don't panic .... wait a bit .... it may well correct itself if it's a temporary algo tweak. Google is constantly playing with stuff and I've seen things bounce back many times.

If it *does* turn out to be a Google penalisation then you can try fixing any blackhat issues like paid links and *then* log into Google Webmaster Tools to request re-inclusion.

[C0ldf1re]

Some people are starting to talk about the 'Caffeine Effect' and webpages suddenly disappearing from serps. See http://www.webproworld.com/webmaster...-Is-Live/page5 I had two similar test webpages showing on serps (no paid links or anything black-hat, they were only tests), and one suddenly disappeared completely, although still indexed. Weird!

[SemAdvance]

I would also advise as noted by others to sit tight for a few weeks before making changes.

Google really cannot catch someone buying links if the method is such that it does not set a pattern. However I would think with the text link ads, you might have set a pattern Google could catch algorithmically. If they were PR oriented then that may be a factor as well. If you buy all PR5+ links (for example), its easy to get caught....it sets a pattern, creates a spike or aberration that they can detect.

If you think your link buys were of a pattern, then you might want to buy some more to break up the pattern and boost your results back to the front page. Not saying this will work, but if you have been pressing down on the pedal in the past, might as well keep pressing and see what happens. There is not much difference if you drop 30 pages or 100 pages.

Good luck either way!