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Friday, October 20

Google's Minus 30 Penalty: Should you be worried?

Talk about a new secret Google penalty is heating up over at Webmaster World forums, with some users complaining of a 30 spot ranking drop in just one day.

The thread starts with a poster upset over a sudden ranking drop,
"I just got my site rank #31 on its own domain name and bunch of keywords/phrases I usually watch were bumped from #1 to "precisely #31. Those #2 through #10 are sort of all over the map but generally within the first 60 results."

Speculation over the cause of the penalty seems to suggest it comes from 'black-hat' or unethical SEO practices. These are methods that attempt to artificially boost your search engine ranking, but do not follow search engine guidelines. From Webmaster World, "I had the same problem few months ago, I believe was an anchor text over optimization. From #1 to exactly #31, still haven't recovered, but slowly going back".

The specific ranking drop of 30 points has led many to believe the penalty is automated and built in to Google's searching algorithm, but, not surprisingly, there has been no comment from Google on this particular issue.

If you're looking for a SEO solution that won't get you penalized, why not try out our Optimizer Kit Plus and save 10% for only 4 more days! You can also find more information about which optimization tactics comply and which don't comply with Google's Webmaster Guidelines in "Google's Webmaster Guidelines: Straight from the Horse's Mouth".

10 Comments

At 2:03 PM, ron said...: This happened to me to a certain extent
but I don't sell anything on a regular basis just an info and funfiles site.
but the good news is that msn ratings are very good. if google keep this sort of thing up (if they are doing anything that is) people might start moving away from them for search, a pity because still the best search engine.
At 2:20 PM, Kalman said...: its the fact that google does these shinanigins that makes them #1 for the user
At 9:40 PM, Anonymous said...: My ZeroEnergyDesign.com website suddenly dropped from #1 when people search for "zero energy design".

I haven't a clue what to do, and I still haven't figured out how to recover.

I've been using AdWords and it sure looks like Google wanted to increased their AdWords revenue but moving my website way down on the free click list.

I suppose it is legal - Its their site and they have the right to do what they want - Money is the most important thing in the world - Right?
At 3:24 PM, Jesse Brede said...: I've recently recovered my site from the Google Minus 30 Penalty. I've put together a list of steps that I took to fix the problem. Check out: minus30.com and let me know what you think.
At 7:10 AM, Nancy Hackett said...: Zero Energy Design: Just search for "zero energy design" and it looks like you're back at no. 1 on Google. You've got a lot of content on just one page - you might want to create a logical and easy-to-navigate and easy-to-spider navigation structure and create a few more pages? If you do it carefully, your rankings shouldn't suffer and your site will become more user-friendly.
At 3:27 AM, Anonymous said...: my website www.ratdubai.com dropped from #1 on many keyword phases but still ranking #1 on others!!

any advise!!
At 4:35 AM, allison.eden@gmail.com said...: i have heard about minus 30 google penalty, is there any perfect reason why google makes this penalty. And if the site is suffering from this penalty, is it can be overcome and what should i do to overcome this penalty.

http://www.epurplemedia.co.uk
At 8:27 PM, adam said...: My site dropped from 3 to 40 on one of my keyword ....but got another rank at competitive keyword :)
At 5:18 AM, Uthai said...: i have been losing my ranking since last week...maybe i have lost some of my good "link" for my site ...

regards
At 7:06 AM, Laser said...: HI
Uthai

Your are right, back links plays a big role in SERP ..... try on building more links, you will come back soon ..

Regards