5 replies to this topic

[pikk]

Hello. I have a blog older than one year. Since August 2011 it was #2 or #3 in google.pl for 3 keywords:

XXX YYY ZZZ (a 3 words keyword)
XXX YYY (a 2 words keyword)
YYY XXX (a 2 words keyword)

Since May to June 6 2012 the site was ranking #1 for all the 3 keywords!! It was receiving so much traffic!!

PROBLEM:
Starting from June 7 the site had a drop in rankings. Now it ranks #1 for only YYY XXX. The other two keywords show the site in #5 or #6 or #7

What did I do in this period?
Nothing. Well almost nothing.

• At the beginning of June I moved to another hosting provider in another country, but now the site runs even faster because they support cache plugins;
• Started using a cache plugin in the beginning of June;
• I continued to comment other blogs "manually" and completely naturally, not for SEO, but just because other posts deserved a comment.

What did I do in general?

• Added the site to some directories (few hundreds) since 2011... not altogether, with big pauses.
• Commented few (~20) blog posts that had high PR
• In May I added the following rich snipped to the footer of the blog, so that many pages could have the stars in google:

  <div xmlns:v="http://rdf.data-vocabulary.org/#" typeof="v:Review-aggregate">   <span property="v:itemreviewed">name of the blog</span>	  <span rel="v:rating">	  <span typeof="v:Rating">		 <span property="v:average">8</span>		 out of		 <span property="v:best">10</span>	  </span>   </span>   based on   <span property="v:votes">48</span> ratings.   <span property="v:count">22</span> user reviews</div>

• Few days before the drop in SE position I linked the site to the google plus profile, so that the image could appear in the search results.

What did I do now?

• I removed that rich snippet. Not sure if it was the problem.
• I submitted a reconsideration request to google yesterday explaining that I think it is due to that snipped and that a seo company sent the site to some directories in the past. I am waiting for reply or effect - if any.

I am still thinking the problem may be due to the google plus profile linked. It happened few days later :/

Do you know what else can I do or where the problem can be?

[Jill]

It doesn't sound like you have a problem at all if you're still on the first page of results. The bigger question (because rankings are different for everyone) is have you lost actual search engine visitors to your site?

You don't need a reconsideration request for showing at position #5! Many people would kill for that spot!

[pikk]

Thanks for your reply. I am worried because I lost many visitors. Please look at the attached graph of the last 2 months. It shows only the visits

google / organic.

From Google were coming 400+ visits every day. Since June 7 only an average of ~150. For this reason I understood there is something wrong.

[Mikl]

At the beginning of June I moved to another hosting provider in another country

If the new provider is not in Poland, and you don't have .pl in your domain name, then it might be beneficial to go to Google Webmaster Tools and set your "geographic target" to Poland. But don't expect it to make a big difference.

Apart from that, you've listed all the things that you have done. But small fluctuations like this can often be caused by factors outside your control - most notably, actions taken by your immediate competitors.

Mike

[pikk]

The servers are in Germany. The domain is .pl so already targeted.

I was thinking it could be some kind of "google dance" and it will back to normality in few weeks. I hope so.

Two questions:
1)At this point do you have some suggestions on what to do? Just wait or maybe some link building, directories, normal blog comments, comments on high PR pages, etc?

2)If the change happened on June 6/7 - can it still be related to the Penguin update?

[chrishirst]

or maybe some link building, directories, normal blog comments, comments on high PR pages, etc?

You would be better off doing some REAL "link building" rather than wasting time and effort on such useless "methods" which probably caused your "problem" in the first place.

Link such as the ones you think may be your "salvation" will once again only provide a short term "boost" then you need to be hunting for more.

Forget about linking as being a way to get "rankings", use links to promote your URLs to real people.