Google penalized Gixen

[mario]

2 days ago, for unknown reasons, Google unfairly penalized Gixen.

For the search 'free ebay sniper', Gixen dropped from #1 to #12.
For the search 'ebay sniper', Gixen dropped from #3 to #112.

As you can imagine, new signups dropped to 1/4 of what they used to be.
At this point, I'm quite paranoid regarding why this happened. Even though few minor changes were made at the site, I don't buy the explanation this is purely algorithmic. Someone at Google must have trashed Gixen (quite manually) for some reason.

If you wish, you can help by leaving your comments at

http://groups.google.com/group/Google_Webmaster_Help-Indexing/browse_thread/thread/a0b4a4380d6e979f/#

A lot of buzz will eventually make some Google employee look at it.

[Friend of Gixen]

Saw the following quote on google forum.

If you post a rewritten script for a text link I'm sure all your followers would change their links if it would help you. Alternatively I can easily add a text link under my gif and ask people to follow it rather than the gif.

I agree with your comments though that the button links kept you on top for so long why drop your ranking now.



"It's cool that people are linking to you using button gifs, but I bet
you'd rank much higher if people linked to you using text links
instead. "

[mario]

That's not an issue, but thank you though. "alt" tag under image works the same way as text link.

As for the Google, apparently I was wrong - when doing the last change, I made those few links invisible by accident, and Google doesn't like this.

I reversed the changes, so position should improve soon. I hope.

[Friend of Gixen]

I read the thread and saw you had made mistakes but not being a webmaster not thoroughly conversant with them.

I presume Google hate invisble ink colours to prevent webmasters inserting thousands of links to try and unfairly up their rating.

Glad you're sorted Mario, just hope the penalty is reversed soon.

[Gixen]

[gotchagr]

Now for ''free ebay sniper' string, you're at number 4 and for 'ebay sniper' you're at number 3!

I live in Greece and that's the results I got.

Not bad!

[mario]

Yes, it's back where it used to be now. Daily number of new sign-ups is also back to normal.