Backlinks from PR8 Sites killing me - UK Business Labs

Pimlico · #1 (**permalink**) 29-01-2010, 05:56 PM

Earlier in the week I picked up 4 Backlinks from 2 PR8 websites. I rubbed my hands with glee & watched my daily report on SERPS from KPMRS with renewed interest. I've been plunging down the rankings like a stone in water! How can this make sense?

**Mark** · #2 (**permalink**) 29-01-2010, 08:07 PM

That's a strange one - will be interested to know why, too.

Pimlico · #3 (**permalink**) 30-01-2010, 07:28 AM

Yeah,

I'm quite used to rather dramatic moves, but generally they are random. Typically I'll drop from page 2 -> page 8 but the following day, or 2 days later, I'll go straight back up. This time different keyword combinations plummet, but none return. Posting this was worthwhile because it made me go and look at the actual traffic and although the SERPS reports are down my actual traffic from Google is up (not so obvious from Bing & Yahoo).

Clearly the only sensible conclusion to draw is that for traffic it's best to aim for page 8 on Google.

Blake · #4 (**permalink**) 05-02-2010, 01:00 PM

Hmm...that sounds really surprising to me, have never come across such situations, and what's more the sudden drop is a bit weird

seo-manchester · #5 (**permalink**) 09-02-2010, 12:04 AM

Lots of people are experiencing strange fluctuations in their search rankings at the moment.

It seems to be the 'Google Dance' which has been more evident since they recently introduced Caffeine.

I checked a clients ranking for a keyword which had been on page 3 of Google last Thursday. It went down to page 15 over the weekend but when I checked tonight it had gone back up to page 2.

I'm sure your site will return shortly.

**Mark** · #6 (**permalink**) 09-02-2010, 01:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by seo-manchester

It seems to be the 'Google Dance' which has been more evident since they recently introduced Caffeine.

I'm sure Google's actually on crack cocaine at times, never mind Caffeine!

Welcome aboard.

casssimplyb · #7 (**permalink**) 09-02-2010, 09:36 AM

We have experienced very weird fluctuations in rankings. Also, indexing new pages takes much longer.

Google is busy changing it's rankings, so expect a lot of fluctuations.

**KevJaques** · #8 (**permalink**) 09-02-2010, 09:41 AM

Google moving the goal posts more than we have hot dinners

(There was a ruder version but in the interests of keeping it clean hot dinners will suffice

)

**NikkiPilkington** · #9 (**permalink**) 19-02-2010, 03:04 AM

Have you recovered yet Nick?

s.willett · #10 (**permalink**) 20-02-2010, 10:21 AM

Depending on what the 200 algorithms are "currently" using to decide quality of content will dictate the validity of your sites ranking with the likes of Google!

But if your back links are from poor valued sites this could in effect have a negative impact on your rankings as well, monitor, validate the back link site yourself, and make your decision as to whether you wish for them to link to you, if not contact them and request they remove the link.

It is your website, brand, content and information that makes YOU and your business what it is!

8020Marketing · #11 (**permalink**) 20-02-2010, 01:15 PM

We often find this happens when we're running off page marketing campaigns for clients and you should find your rankings stablise after a few days, hopefully in higher positions

**OldWelshGuy** · #12 (**permalink**) 20-02-2010, 04:16 PM

My guess is that you bought the PR8 links and google knew the site were selling links. That would be enough to bowl your site.

**Spock** · #13 (**permalink**) 22-02-2010, 10:04 AM

When Google thinks you have bought a link is that from a manual review or do they have something in their algo that can determine if a link is paid for?

**OldWelshGuy** · #14 (**permalink**) 22-02-2010, 11:41 AM

I know google have people who infiltrate the link schemes, trawl forums looking for link sales etc, and then add the sites manually to bad neighbourhood lists. It could also be a reported link manual review.

Pimlico · #15 (**permalink**) 02-03-2010, 02:55 PM

Sorry I've been a while - I decided to do you all the courtesy of getting the real numbers, and a holiday got in the way whilst I was doing that. Here is a graph for 5 different search terms which I follow, where the vertical axis is my position on Google for a UK search, and the horizontal axis is the date. The PR8 links were published on 26th January, I ran the chart for 3 days before & 12 days after.

Welshguy - no I have never bought links, and don't do link swaps either. The PR8 sites are the Washington Post & Techcrunch - do they have a reputation for selling links? I wouldn't know. The detrimental affect on my SERPS was pretty instantaneous do Google act that quickly?

Nikki - things have got slightly better, but haven't recovered. For my 5 keyword combinations my SERP positions:

The day before the links 48, 18, 19, 19, 11
Three days after the links 96, 14, 37, 37, 11
A month later 57, 24, 100+, 20, 10

None of this has made a significant difference to traffic from Google.

Pimlico · #16 (**permalink**) 12-03-2010, 11:26 AM

Bump he message you have entered is too short. Please lengthen your message to at least 10 characters.

**NikkiPilkington** · #17 (**permalink**) 12-03-2010, 11:40 AM

hmm it does seem that you've been penalised for something - but it's interesting that the traffic from Google hasn't changed, which implies that those phrases weren't doing much good traffic wise anyway?

codepotato · #18 (**permalink**) 12-03-2010, 12:53 PM

I've read before that you can be penalised if you pickup high page rank links all of a sudden. From what i remember, if you normally have PR 2 or 3, then get a PR 8, Google gets dubious of how you got that (similar to if you bought the link). In Google's eyes, it's typical to go from PR1 - 8 over a period, but not so suddenly. I think this is why you're being penalised.

Mick Johnson · #19 (**permalink**) 12-03-2010, 12:55 PM

I wouldn't have thought google would have picked up the links, processed them and changed your ranking in 3 days (even from PR8 sites). From various reports I've read, at best it's more like 1-2 days to pick up a link in a crawl (even from PR5 and above); 1-2 days to index and another 2-3 days to actually reflect the changes in SERPs.

Had you done anything else in the 8 days or so before the drop - I would be looking at that rather than the PR8 pages. All new links can cause a bit of fluctuation, but as others have said, it should settle down within a week or so.

Pimlico · #20 (**permalink**) Yesterday, 12:38 PM

Nikki - good point that I haven't been giving enough thought to. The biggest single keyword search only represents 8% of traffic, & the next one is about 3%. I'm not sure if this is good (that I am capturing the long tail) or bad (I'm not competing on the big keywords).

Codepotato - is there anything that I can do - like write to Google?

Mick - there is nothing that I have done, it's possible something might have happened that I didn't pick up on.