[rackforms]

Didn't ask for it? If I've learned one thing from this whole affair it's how understanding and kind complete strangers can be. Your feedback is hugely appropriated.

That said, a few thoughts:

1. The link based penalty stems from the fact the traffic drops correlate exactly with Penguin release dates. Also, the "official" volunteers and other good folks over at the Google Webmaster forms came to the same conclusion. Before those exact dates I had ranked on page 1 for "php web form software", and page 1 or 2 for "web form software", since mid-2008.

To that end, you're 100% correct the market is tough, but we're a very specialized form builder, made especially for developers.

As far as deserving Page 1 - Google used to think so for several years, as my product is pretty darn great if you need flexible form software. We have four versions, two of which are free, covering both self-hosted and SaaS models. No one even comes close to offering such a wide variety of solutions.

In short, if you need form software and you find my site you're guaranteed not to be disappointed. If nothing else you're able to choose between two pretty awesome free versions, something no one else offers. I'm also ecstatic to answer questions and help users out, even if they don't buy or use my software. I would think this would be of high value to Google -- and it certainly used to be before the penalty.

As far as the site recommendations: I'm taking these to heart for sure, though I have to say, the previously mentioned Google Webmaster forums -- the current site is a direct result of working with them for over 3 months, making the exact same types of changes and improvements. Nothing, and I mean nothing, worked.

I didn't know at the time, but it was recently stated by John Mueller from Google that a Penguin recovery is simply not possible until they refresh and release a new version of the Penguin algorithm.

So at the end of the day, sadly, (and please do not take this as dismissive as you bet I'll be making changes): my problem is not content or structure, it's that darn link penalty.

All the while, and again, I'm not sure who this benefits.

[theworst]

Let me first say that I am sympathetic to your situation. My startup was financially ruined by the Google penalties.

However, I'm not sure that anchoring yourself to "they used to think I was good enough" is a valid argument. Perhaps they were presenting bad results that benefitted you before, and have fixed that with better results now.

It honestly sounds like you're mostly upset because something was taken from you that you were used to having. That does not necessarily mean you deserved it previously.

[rackforms]

Thank you for the understanding, and my heart goes out to you as well for your penalties. In a more just world real users would decide what succeeds and what does not.

My defense of the current site from a content perspective is simple: just go to it (www.rackforms.com).

I feel very strongly the look (clean professional), layout (easy to navigate), and technical details (fast, fully responsive, etc) are not causing it to be penalized from a content perspective.

My reasoning for why it should rank is also simple: it used to rank high, and none of that was an accident. I've always followed common sense methodology when creating it, such as creating content for humans, not search bots.

Never the less, since the penalty I've happily made dozens of changes, most of which were suggestions from kind and well meaning SEO folks -- none of them made a difference. Not a single one.

Conclusion -- my issue isn't nor has it ever been content, it's links.

Of course the irony is the vast majority of changes I made were to please search engine bots, not humans. Google has always said this is the opposite of what we should be doing.

For example, one guy suggested I used to word 'form' too much on my home page, and Google may consider this keyword stuffing. And so I pruned it from 23 to 12. Trouble is I sell web form software, and let's just say changes I made were, in many cases, a stretch -- many sounded decisively nonhuman. Who and what am I helping at that point? Google bot is clearly smarter than that. The kicker: the current page 1 site used the word 'form' 43 times. It's just silly voo-doo at this point, and no one except Google knows what the hell they're talking about.

Here's why this is all a bit scary: as link-penalized webmasters poke around the edges and make such changes, we're getting further away from a site that used to be looked upon favorably by Google from a content perspective.

The reason I cite "it used to be good enough" is common sense. Yes we can always improve our site and we should be: but a link penalty, mine especially, is so thorough and so unrecoverable so far, that making loads of other changes will very likely hurt more than help.

But again, just visit my site, visit the page 1 and 2's, and then consider I'm page 15 or lower. I have no doubt my site, should it's ranking be restored, would be a delight for Google users to visit.