Algorithmic penalty perhaps but what is it?
-
I've discovered that when google crawled my home page my ranking for all keywords dropped. I've submitted a reconsideration request as I was sure I wasn't breaking the rules. The response was that no manual penalty had been applied to my site. Therefore it must be an on site algorithim penalty?
I thought it could be duplicate content as I have many posts that are in multiple categories so maybe that was it. Since then I've made efforts to ensure the posts in the categories are varied. I also thought it might be too many on page links so I removed categories that weren't needed as I have categories in my navigation and sidebar.
So far though no improvement. I wonder if anyone here can take a look at the site and offer any suggestions as to what might be causing this algorithmic penalty?
The site is http://www.top-10-dating-reviews.com (some adult content!)
I'm really struggling to figure this out so any help much appreciated!
-
Will do. many thanks for your help. Hope that's the problem!
-
remove it temporarily and see if it fixes the issue? many an affiliate site have been caught loading malware on to devices by this kind of means - be careful
if you find the problem goes away great, contact the affiliate partner and ask them what is going on and to fix the problem - you won't be the only one in this boat i'm sure
-
The code it's suggesting is malware is code I put on the site myself. As an affiliate it generates a pop up box for people to click and go to the external site. I want to keep it if possible so I'm not sure in fact that it is malware. How's best to proceed? Like I say there's nothing showing up in webmaster tools as malware.
-
you don't want GWT to show it
you want to catch it first
find the offending code and delete it, its from an advert or affiliate site of some kind - could be a plugin sneaking it in - it's happened to me before on WP sites a plugin updates and brings bad code with it.
-
Thanks for that. There's nothing showing in webmaster tools with regards to malware but if that's the case I'd better get to fixing it. How do I go about it though?
-
found the problem I think.
Malware found ona few pages on your site
http://sitecheck.sucuri.net/results/www.top-10-dating-reviews.com/
-
I don't think it's related to adult safe search as still doesn't show when I change the filter. struggling with this one!
-
If your page is adult in nature then it's possible that Google has taken it out of the "Safe Search" index. I believe the filter is set to moderate tolerance for most people. It's possible that the latest crawl saw enough adult content to put it in the "non safe" area. Try changing your safe search settings to show everything and then see if you are ranking.
There could be other issues but without having a good look at the site (which I really don't have a desire to do) no one will be able to say for sure.
-
gosh i don't know what to tell you honestly. i can't really continue exploring your site for fear someone will walk into my office and wonder what the heck i'm up to...
but let us know if you ever figure it out i'm curious and good luck.
-
The keywords aren't particularly difficult to rank for and are in the 30 - 50 % keyword difficulty using the SEO moz keyword difficulty tool. I have ranked these same keywords for other sites I operate without too much of a problem. That's why I'm so confused as to what's happened here. I'm sure its something on site.
-
It happened on 9th March at 8.37 am. It seems that google crawled my home page at the time and the traffic just dissapeared. I can't post keywords as they're adult in nature. Effectively I'm targeting the page titles of the category pages on my site.
-
Without going through your site (for obvious reasons) I can tell you that there shouldn't be any Penguin-imposed penalties present. Unless your site was tagged for phishing or some other un-trustworthy violation I can't think of what would cause this other than you are just after some very competitive keywords.
Judging from the site's content I would guess the latter to be the case.
Looking at your backlink profile quickly it's obvious that this site was recently created. A lot of times Google rankings for a new site will start high and drop quickly. I suggest hitting the SEO trail hard to regain your rankings.If Google hasn't manually imposed penalties, that's a green light. Get to SEO'ing the crap outta that thing my friend.
-
Hi Sam,
When did this happen? (as precise as you can be)
Also can you tell us a list of a few words that were hit.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Spammy keywords in our sub-domain but no penalty?
Hi, We have cigarettes and viagra as keywords in our sub-domain where our clients can post their business content. We have decent number of impressions and clicks for these related keywords. I have seen that these two words, especially "viagra" is most spammed. So are these hurting us? We dropped post Penguin update. Any correlation? Do you think that these keywords penalise us? We don't have messages or suggestion from Google Thanks, Satish
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vtmoz0 -
Panda penalty removal advice
Hi everyone! I'm after a second (or third, or fourth!) opinion here! I'm working on the website www.workingvoices.com that has a Panda penalty dating from the late March 2012 update. I have made a number of changes to remove potential Panda issues but haven't seen any rankings movement in the last 7 weeks and was wondering if I've missed something... The main issues I identified and fixed were: Keyword stuffed near duplicate title tags - fixed with relevant unique title tags Copies of the website on other domains creating duplicate content issues - fixed by taking these offline Thin content - fixed by adding content to some pages, and noindexing other thin/tag/category pages. Any thoughts on other areas of the site that might still be setting off the mighty Panda are appreciated! Cheers Damon.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Digitator0 -
Manual Penalty Reconsideration Request Help
Hi All, I'm currently in the process of creating a reconsideration request for an 'Impact Links' manual penalty. So far I have downloaded all LIVE backlinks from multiple sources and audited them into groups; Domains that I'm keeping (good quality, natural links). Domains that I'm changing to No Follow (relevant good quality links that are good for the user but may be affiliated with my company, therefore changing the links to no follow rather than removing). Domains that I'm getting rid of. (poor quality sites with optimised anchor text, directories, articles sites etc.). One of my next steps is to review every historical back link to my website that is NO LONGER LIVE. To be thorough, I have planned to go through every domain (even if its no longer linking to my site) that has previously linked and straight up disavow the domain (if its poor quality).But I want to first check whether this is completely necessary for a successful reconsideration request? My concerns are that its extremely time consuming (as I'm going through the domains to avoid disavowing a good quality domain that might link back to me in future and also because the historical list is the largest list of them all!) and there is also some risk involved as some good domains might get caught in the disavowing crossfire, therefore I only really want to carry this out if its completely necessary for the success of the reconsideration request. Obviously I understand that reconsideration requests are meant to be time consuming as I'm repenting against previous SEO sin (and believe me I've already spent weeks getting to the stage I'm at right now)... But as an in house Digital Marketer with many other digital avenues to look after for my company too, I can't justify spending such a long time on something if its not 100% necessary. So overall - with a manual penalty request, would you bother sifting through domains that either don't exist anymore or no longer link to your site and disavow them for a thorough reconsideration request? Is this a necessary requirement to revoke the penalty or is Google only interested in links that are currently or recently live? All responses, thoughts and ideas are appreciated 🙂 Kind Regards Sam
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Sandicliffe0 -
Consolidating two different domains to point at same site, duplicate content penalty?
I have two websites that are extremely similar and want to consolidate them into one website by pointing both domain names at one website. is this going to cause any duplicate content penalties by having two different domain names pointing at the same site? Both domains get traffic so i don't want to just discontinue one of the domains.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Ron100 -
Making unresponsive site responsive, should I expect any ranking penalties?
Hello, I have a website made with asp.net and ranking quite well for a number of competitive keywords like in google top 10 results for more than a dozen competitive keywords. Recently in order for better user experience, I am having it developed so it is fully responsive for all screen resolutions. Basically all the design element / site text will remain the same including color scheme / layout etc outwardly but internally this will change everything all the css / page html (tables converted to divs) etc. Now my question is: 1. Will this considered by bots a complete site overhaul and ranking will take a hit even if I stay with current platform i.e. asp.net? 2. While making design responsive I can also develop a wordpress theme, which will make it easier to work with the website as the site does not require any programming. So if I also change the platform like from MS IIS/asp to Apache / php how will search engine bots take this? 3. If above in fact will result in ranking drop, how much time will it take for the rankings to get back to normal? Note that I use extensionless urls so the urls will remain the same as well even if we convert from asp to php. Sorry for long details but question is bugging me from weeks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | hpk0 -
Changing title tags in well established site - should I do this gradually to avoid risk of penalty?
Hi, I'm altering title tags in a well established site (many of which are duplicates) and was wondering whether there's a risk associated with adjusting them all in one go? Should I just make gradual changes instead in case I flag anything?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | McTaggart0 -
Same Branding, Same Followers, New Domain After Penalty... Your Opinion Please
I know I've asked a similar question in the past but I'm still trying to figure out what to do with my website. I've got a website at thewebhostinghero.com that's been penalized by both Panda and Penguin. I cleaned up the link profile and submitted a reconsideration request but it was denied. I finally found a handful of additional bad links and I submitted a new disavow + reconsideration request a few days ago and I am still waiting. That said, after submitting the initial disavow request, the traffic has completely gone and while I expected a drop in traffic, I also expected my penalty to be lifted but it was not the case. Even though the penalty might be lifted this time, I think that making the website profitable again could be harder than creating a new website. So here's my questioning: The website's domain is thewebhostinghero.com but I also happen to own webhostinghero.com which I bought later for $5000 (yes you read that right). The domain "webhostinghero.com" is completely clean as it's only redirecting to thewebhostinghero.com. I would like to use webhostinghero.com as a completely new website and not redirect any traffic from thewebhostinghero.com as to not pass any bad link juice. Pros: Keeping the same branding image (which cost me $$$) Keeping the 17,000+ Facebook followers Keeping the same Google+ and Twitter accounts Keeping and monetizing a domain that cost me $5000 webhostinghero.com is a better domain than thewebhostinghero.com Cons: Will create confusion between the 2 websites Any danger of being flagged as duplicate or something? Do you see any other potential issues with this? What's your opinion/advice? P.S. Sorry for my english...
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | sbrault740 -
New domain or wait - Anchor Text Penalty
Hi We are confident we have an anchor text penalty and have removed nearly all offending links about 3 months ago, and since have only engaged on 100% natural linking with good content and simply asking people to share our site. However we have made no progress all in terms on position for our main keyword - we now thinking of starting a fresh on a new domain as Google doesn't seem to be able to forgive us... Any ideas please?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jj34340