Reversing the bad effects of a problematic 301 redirect

[bizzer]

I have a previously very strong ranking page that is now omitted from the SERPs, but only for one specific keyword phrase.  I think I found the reason, which I'll explain, and I hope I can hear some confirmation of my theory and a way to correct it.

Let's use the following made up domain and keywords:

Political blog SiteA.com had a few news articles about "Blue Widgets" (like 10 out of 10,000 pages). They became exceedingly popular, so on SiteA.com we created a reference-type page about "Blue Widgets" and in the news articles we already had about Blue Widgets we added rich anchor text (Blue Widgets) links that pointed to this new About Blue Widgets page.  (long before we wised up about keyword rich anchor texts and Google!)

After seeing how much traffic was coming to the About Blue Widgets page, we created a whole new site, SiteB.com, which was about Widgets (not just Blue Widgets), a page for each color of widget, and other pages about widgets. SiteB.com has an important and popular page, SiteB.com/blue-widgets, which is about Blue Widgets.   We then 301 redirected the SiteA.com's About Blue Widgets page to SiteB.com/blue-widgets. This page in SiteB.com ranked very high (like #2, #3) for years.

Two weeks ago SiteB.com/blue-widgets fell out of the SERPs, but only for the phrase "Blue Widgets".  The page still gets lots of traffic from other queries, and even the "Blue Widgets" query will bring up other pages on SiteB.com.  So, the only thing hit is the specific query "Blue Widgets" for the specific page SiteB.com/blue-widgets.

It seems obvious to me that Google took the combination of a) a site that it probably no longer liked since we sold it (SiteA.com) since it's gone downhill, b) the rich keyword anchor text on SiteA.com pages pointing to the SiteA.com page optimized for that keyword, and c) then being 301 Redirected to a SiteB.com Blue Widgets page optimized for that same anchor text.

I only discovered the SiteA.com redirects last week, which I had completely forgotten about, and had them removed right away.

My question is, 1) if this indeed was the issue, now that the redirects from SiteA.com to SiteB.com are gone will my ranking eventually go back to normal? and 2) is there anything I can do to get Google to notice the change and have it go back to how it was?

[DonnaDuncan]

You're right. If you removed the redirects, there's no need disavow. I assumed that was what you had done to remove the links given you said you sold Site A.

In my personal experience, it can take Google months, up to 8 months, to drop links. Hopefully in your case it won't take that long.

[bizzer]

"That said, did you analyse all incoming links to determine if there have been any other suspicious adds or drops recently?"  Yes.

"Surely you did other redirects from Site A to Site B?"  No, I have not. That was all.

"You probably know this already given you've presumably disavowed the incoming links from SiteB, but just in case."  Since I've taken the redirects off, I don't think there is a need to disavow; at least that's what I've been told.

"You can ask Google to recrawl the page using the "Fetch as Google" page in the crawl menu of Webmaster Tools. That might speed things up. No guarantee."  Good idea, thank you. I hadn't thought of that.

[DonnaDuncan]

(1) "if this indeed was the issue, now that the redirects from SiteA.com to SiteB.com are gone will my ranking eventually go back to normal?" Yes. If you've nailed the issue.

That said, did you analyse all incoming links to determine if there have been any other suspicious adds or drops recently? Do you want to share the specific page with us to see if anything else jumps out?

Surely you did other redirects from Site A to Site B? You've not suffered any other severe rankings loses?

What Wanatop says is also true. Sometimes there are seemingly unexplained ups and downs in the rankings. It could self-correct.

(2) "is there anything I can do to get Google to notice the change?" You probably know this already given you've presumably disavowed the incoming links from SiteB, but just in case... You can ask Google to recrawl the page using the "Fetch as Google" page in the crawl menu of Webmaster Tools. That might speed things up. No guarantee.

[wanatop]

My advice would you to do 301 redirects in the siteA to the most powerful keyword page star, and there make outgoing links.

Also on site B you should create a powerful page with concrete Keyword, and make link only there.

If you work with very large semantic and mixed, though of the same theme, confuse the seeker, you have to be as consistent as possible, if a particular keyword is important not stick to it.

You know well that the SEO must be calm, big ups then downs espan small, and vice versa, give it time.

[bizzer]

"f I understood correctly the redirect from siteA.com/blue-widget is gone.."

Yes, it is gone.

I understand your points, but those are not what has caused the page to disappear from the SERPs.  I also have pages such as Red Widgets, Green Widgets, etc, that are still ranking on page one for their terms.  The pages are structured in the same ways as is the now-SERP-missing Blue Widgets page.

[webtheoria.com]

If I understood correctly the redirect from siteA.com/blue-widget is gone..

If the above statement is correct, how is the internal architecture and anchor text structured? Are you still emphasising your efforts onto the page SiteB.com/blue-widget? Could you reduce the number of links of that other page that takes the place of the desired page?