

Ask HN: Does Google punish sites? - bayton

I own a website for rental applications.  I've been in PR2 for my target keywords for a year or so now.<p>I recently hired a SEO consultant to try to get my into PR1.  And BAM! My site is suddenly PR12, my visitor rate has plummeted, and even my Adword ads seem to get pushed to the bottom.<p>I wanted to know if the HN community has any experience with this.  I've done a bunch of research and gotten mixed opinions.  Would appreciate some feedback.
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canatan01
First I would ask what this SEO consultant has done. Maybe some black hat
tactics? Or maybe you are victim of changed Google algorithms (panda/pinguin
update)?

As a side note: seeing the little content you have and the use of https/http
and www/non-www and only 19 backlinks (according to backlinkwatch) and missing
html tags, I am surprised you even were PR2.

And to answer your question in the subject line: yes, Google punishes websites
(black hat, links on farms, hidden text, ghost pages, etc).

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bayton
Clickable if anyone is interested.

<http://rentersfriend.com>

