[garry22]

I presume you mean in Google?

Down from 2 to 35  ish since Penquin.

Another site (18,000 exact searches per month in the USA) went from top 10 to 600.

After I "de-tuned (reduced the on page SEO), that one has recovered to 54 since Penquin 1.1 (but is just as likely to plummet again).

This year's project is to get most of the traffic from non Google sources.

[Garyj]

Jeez Garry, what were you doing for that to happen?

[wynne jones]

Keep up Garyj.

[Garyj]

Keep up Garyj.

Reread it and still have no clue as to why they plummeted that far.

The question stands, so shut ya face Wynnie.

[wynne jones]

I'm sorry GaryJ. I think I'm mixing you up with another Gary who has some SEO experience. Anyway, the clue is in Garry's response when he says detuning.

If all your links have your main keyword as anchor text you will be severely punished by Google. So the answer  is to change any links you can to more mundane ones until your optimised terms is below 20% of the total. Hope that helps. 

[Garyj]

Nope didn't know that is what detuning meant and also think something far more than tht happened.

Thanks for explaining that 

[wynne jones]

Nope didn't know that is what detuning meant and also think something far more than tht happened.

Thanks for explaining that 

Well I know quite a bit about this now because I was getting a lot of complaints. LOL

Luckily we haven't used known link farms but we made extensive use of RSS feeds which has also been knocked back. I posted a couple of weeks ago about checking your Webmaster tools to see if you have had an 'offer you can't refuse' from google. If it transpires there are dodgey links they don't like then get rid and you might shoot right back up. If you can't send them a nice email and pray. 

[Brendan (chem2clean)]

hi wynne,talked to you about this before,penquinn slaughtered me on main keywords like carpet cleaning,carpet cleaners,first page now cant find site.Can you actually send google a email asking whats going on??thanks

[Garyj]

I've got sites littered with keyword anchor text and thousands of links that had been got in hours. Those sites are doing better than ever thanks to Penguin.

What are you doing?

[wynne jones]

hi wynne,talked to you about this before,penquinn slaughtered me on main keywords like carpet cleaning,carpet cleaners,first page now cant find site.Can you actually send google a email asking whats going on??thanks

www.google.com/webmasters/tools/

This is a good place to start and check your site. then read.

[wynne jones]

I've got sites littered with keyword anchor text and thousands of links that had been got in hours. Those sites are doing better than ever thanks to Penguin.

What are you doing?

I was doing too many things right.

[garry22]

Jeez Garry, what were you doing for that to happen?

Garyj,

It may not have necessarily been one thing. It was not the whole site(s) that got dropped. Certain pages bombed for certain terms (the high exact monthly search terms). Others with lots of on page tweaking but few backlinks actually did slightly better.

The drop probably represents the competitiveness of the keyword (hence three pages for a localised site and sixty pages for a worldwide spread site).

Luckily some things I did with my own sites were not done to clients' sites. These have been untouched

I did not get an "unnatural linking" message in Webmaster Tools and the sites did not get "Sitewide" penalties (some pages still rank quite well for less competitive terms). It is probably due to some factors carrying far less weight than they used to.

As Wynne says, if you do to many things "right" you get whacked!