OverOptimization Penalties

[bettingforums]

I think i had an over-optimization penalty on one of my (tennis) sites (it was #3 for its own exact match kw, then it went to page 5 for 6 months) . Today I see I'm #3 on google for the KW i was ranking for prior to the penalty. My pages were all still indexed during this 6months in SERP hell.

I'm Wondering if anyone else has had one of these (assuming they exist and that's what I got penalized for..) , or any info on such penalties. I'm assuming that my on-page nina skillz were too hardcore and didn't look natural or organic enough.

[universal4]

I have often wondered about this and it is very difficult to pin down the exact causes of this when it happens.

Do you have any theories on the specific causes of what happened in the case of your tennis site?

Also, is there any correlation to the season as well?

Rick
Universal4

[CoopersPick]

if the site was brand new and you slammed it with too many un-natural links you could get the G-dance or it was a natural early new site launch which always catapults you back down and than you have to work your way back up. You can pm me for any seo questions.

[bettingforums]

Well the domain name is [tenniseventname]betting.org
I added lots of unique, semantically related content articles, I optimised for the kw <eventname betting> (it was in 90% of page titles, 90% of copy, h1's meta, image alt's etc). I didn't blast it with links or anything as I was already #3 thanks to exact-match.

just seems like a weird filter or penalty to give a site which is already exact-match for the keyword which is being targeted, and which is already #3 in organic SERPs - hence my only theory is over-optimisation.

anyway nevermind, I'm back on top again just wondered if anyone had had similar experience.

edit: this editor seems to parse out anything between less than or greater than tags. Grrr.

[jctroy440]

Ma Google uses over 200 variables in determining SERPs and page rank. You may not have done anything wrong, perhaps some other folks tuned theirs up and passed you on the back stretch.

When someone loses a page ranking the first thing they do is think it is something they did and often times its just Google being Google.

[bettingforums]

Ma Google uses over 200 variables in determining SERPs and page rank. You may not have done anything wrong, perhaps some other folks tuned theirs up and passed you on the back stretch.

When someone loses a page ranking the first thing they do is think it is something they did and often times its just Google being Google.

errr no.

[brean78]

I have seen something very similar with some sites I was monitoring a while back. They suddenly saw a 50 place drop on their sites, but the rankings did return.

Is this essentially a wrap on the knuckles from Google?

[bettingforums]

I have seen something very similar with some sites I was monitoring a while back. They suddenly saw a 50 place drop on their sites, but the rankings did return.

Is this essentially a wrap on the knuckles from Google?

some kind of filter or -50 penalty from what i can gather. What doesn't kill us makes us stronger

[MJM]

Overoptimization penalties surely exist, I've been hit many times as I tend to overdo onpage seo sometimes. The good thing is they seem to fix themselves fast when you turn the dial down a bit.

I had a site go from 54 to #4 basically overnight just by turning it down a notch on the home page, header, and navigation keywords.

Fwiw I seem to think these apply more to newish sites than more established ones, but I don't have much to back that up.

[best.hands]

I'm Wondering if anyone else has had one of these (assuming they exist and that's what I got penalized for..) , or any info on such penalties. I'm assuming that my on-page nina skillz were too hardcore and didn't look natural or organic enough.

It's not penalty, IMO. Since you mentioned you tend to overdo things, that might be the reason why you observed a ranking drop since the competition can also overdo things to one up you. Moreover, a penalty is more likely possible if you're not ranking within top 1000 of the competitive keyword you optimize your site with. And since it was just a few pages drop, algorithm update and the competitions are more likely the prime suspect.

[craig96]

I have usually noticed if your site goes down buy -50 or -100 it is a penalty. If it drops down a few places then it is just another sites beating you or some of your links getting devalued, something that you can not control.

If you go down by a full page this can be also something that you have done.