Lost and confused after Penguin!
-
I own an EMD which was hit by google penguin.
I lost my #1 position to Google US SERP and went to #5 for the keyword which applies to the EMD.
What I have tried so far is deleting the exact anchor text links from the footers of my c-block sites.
That did not seem to help because i did not gain any position from that change.
I also altered my meta title, description and keywords because they were spamming a bit. Things did not improved.
My Links w/ Exact Anchor Text is at 5%,
Linking Root Domains w/ Exact Anchor Text at 3%
The web pages that are above me are to 0% to both categories because they are not showing up with their main page.
What is going on?
The thing that confuses me the most is that i am also targeting for two other markets, Australia and Canada. In Canada I have maintained my #1 and to Australia I lost my first position falling to #2.
I did not receive any message to my webmaster tools account and never made any black hat link building.
Is the EMD fact the problem, but why not for other markets except US?
Penguin has run to other markets(CA, AU) as well becuase i have seen a drop to other keywords and also to my traffic.
Really what do you think?
-
My gut reaction is similar to Stefan's - a #1 to #5 drop may not be Penguin-related. If you saw a clear drop from 4/24-4/25, though, then that's a different matter. Penguin 1.0 did seem to hit all on one day across all countries and TLDs.
If it was Penguin and you made fixes, keep in mind that they may not have any impact until the next data update, so it depends on when those fixes happened. Penguin 1.1 rolled out on 5/25. If it was Penguin, the data still isn't very conclusive - some people are saying it's mostly on-page keyword issue and others that it's link/anchor-based. I do think toning down the exact-match anchor text is a good bet and definitely take care of any blatant on-page keyword stuffing as well.
If Google just turned down the dial on your EMD, so to speak (and maybe the US took a bigger hit just because of competitiveness), there's not a lot you can do, to be brutally honest. It's not a Capital-P penalty and changing your domain probably won't help - they've just adjusted the volume.
-
Hey Reymond,
Thank for the reply.
From my experience on penguin, concerning EMDs, I agree with you on the devaluation of certain links which used to give me the #1 in US, but what about the #1 in Canada?
Tricky situation!
-
Hi,
This could definitely be penguin if your traffic went down after April 24th or after the 1.1 update (don't remember the exact date, but it was about 2 weeks ago). I had a number of sites have a simalar drop of a few positions from 1 to 8 or 9 or some such. Some have come back over the last few weeks others haven't.Based on what you have said, your link profit is fine, so my guess would be that google simply discounted some of the links back to your site. By this I mean that some links that it used to count as good links it no longer counts as good links. That would explain part of the drop.
As for your competition who has a much worse link profile than you beating you, all I can say is I feel you pain. I am also being beaten in one of my big keywords by a page with awful design, spelling and grammar mistakes all over the place and no back links. For now, I would say just be patient. Google is going to be fine tuning things for the next few months - I still see big changes every week in the SERPs in my field. So taking drastic measures now may do more harm than good.
Good luck.
-
Hi Stefan,
Before penguin the EMD was at #1 solid. The other websites that came above after the 24th of April were not even the 1st page of SERP.
That is why I think it is the penguin.
-
Hi,
I don't think it's because of the penguin you went from #1 to #5. From what I understand a penguin hit is much worse.
Could just be that Google doesn't give as much value to an exact match domain or it could be just natural fluctuations? I know our keywords move up and down a few places every week.
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
-
Confuse search engine result
When We check few keywords in Google.com from India, we can see these keywords perfectly listed in the first google search result pages. But when I checked these keywords in USA chorme, Mozilla, internet explorer Brower using one of our USA client pc using remote desktop, we really shocked that these keywords not listed in the USA country. Which means I am an Indian, if I check these keywords from India using google.com, I can see but if I check these keywords in USA country PC browser, I do not see. Please help us
Algorithm Updates | | Intellect0 -
Penguin 3.0
I saw slight drop yesterday after the penguin rollout, about 3 - 4 spots lower on targeted KW's. However, I'm still on first page for those KW, just near the bottom as opposed to near the top. I'm wondering if anyone else experienced, or has experienced with past Penguin updates, a "slight" dip in rankings. What actions did you take, if any? I'm inclined to simply focus on building better links rather than disavow given the lack of severity. With that said, I would love some feedback or suggestions from anyone who experienced what I would consider a "less severe" penalty (3 - 4 spots, still on first page).
Algorithm Updates | | mrodriguez14400 -
Do panda/penguin algorithm updates hit websites or just webpages ?
If I have a website that been affected by the panda/penguin update, do bad links affect the entire site or just the page the bad link(s) are linked to? If it is the latter and penguin/panda actually affect webpages, not websites (as is the common reference/conception), then wouldn't simply creating a new URL, targeting this new URL, shifting meta-tags and restarting link-building efforts again (this time using the right quality strategies) be a really common-sense approach instead of the tediousness of the disavow approach that so many go down?
Algorithm Updates | | Gavo0 -
Ranking drops POST Penguin?!
Hey guys, I've noticed that one of our sites have seen some considerable ranking drops for competitive keywords at least a week or so after Penguin was introduced. I've attached an image to give you a better idea of what I'm talking about. We were ranked around 2nd page for each of the phrases but plummeted to 80+ (although, there has been some movement back towards 50). I mention Penguin but that really shouldn't have been a factor with this site as it's a relatively new one and all the links have been built naturally. Any help appreciated! GGsL8xk.png
Algorithm Updates | | Webrevolve0 -
What our next step after hitting by Penguin 2.0
Hi Everyone, Any idea about what the next step after hitting by Penguin 2.0 We go for more link building or content optimization or some thing else..?
Algorithm Updates | | lucidsoftech0 -
Penguin concerns
I recently joined a retail company who have been using an SEO agency for a few years. Having done a bit of link profile analysis i'm more than a little concerned that we're a sitting duck for the dreaded penguin. My main question is should i focus more on the number of actual links pointing at a page or the number of linking root domains? For example one of our pages has over 18000 links pointing at it but from only 39 root domains (immediate alarm bells!!). Most of the links are exact anchor text fro one particular term. So far we haven't been hit but i'm not naive to think we're out of the woods yet.
Algorithm Updates | | holmesy0 -
Trying to figure out why Penguin has completely buggered us up, and what to do about it
Hola All, This is a update of http://www.seomoz.org/q/gah-unfaorly-hit-by-massive-google-penalty Updated because: Google webmaster has gotten back to us that there have been no manual actions taken against us Results haven't improved one jot We're completely flummoxed as to why this is happenin Quick summary: We run the larest WordPress news site on the web, WPMU.org We're completely legit, a team of 4-5 great writers, amazing original content, massive fanbase on twitter and facebook, a 60k email list etc, established for years and years. We're absolutely not and haven't done anything gray or black, the worst we've done is including links in the footers of some themes we've distributed Since the 24th April our google referrals are down from an 8.5k daily peak to 1.5 - see the attached. Articles which have consistently attracted several hundred referrals per day have disappeared from the rankings to be replaced by republications or just links to the, for example, here's one on the dangers of searching for free WP themes, decimated: http://wpmu.org/why-you-should-never-search-for-free-wordpress-themes-in-google-or-anywhere-else/ Check out how legit we are! http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/links?site=wpmu.org And the problem: How to get our google traffic back? We're completely stuck 😕 We can't find issues within the site content, or even particularly within the backlinks (we've removed all links from Edublogs) We haven't been manually whacked, so we can't get that changed. Absolutely nothing within the penguin update should have hit us... in fact by their reckoning we should have had a massive improvement over all the trash that competes with us in the WordPress space. Help / Ideas / Feedback / Criticism / Anything desperately sought. Thanks for your time, James Screen-Shot-2012-05-03-at-10.49.40-AM.png
Algorithm Updates | | WPMUDEV0 -
Food for thought: The Penguin Catch-22
I've been reading about and helping a lot of people who were hit by the Penguin update over the last couple of days, and the update seems to be accomplishing what Google intended it to accomplish... it's scaring people straight. I've picked up two new clients this week who now only want to practice "Good SEO" and "Do it the right way." This is a good thing for me and for the quality of the net, don't get me wrong. It does make me a little nervous though that the SEO industry is going to be tarnished a bit. Google is making a pretty clear statement with Penguin, which I think boils down to "Don't do anything other than create good content, provide accurate descriptions, and establish good connections to SEO your site... or beware ." (other than technical stuff - 301/ canonical / crawler management / etc). So riddle me this Batman... As a proud Journeyman, how is the followed backlink on my SEOMoz profile page going to appear to Google? This is an SEO site with SEO content and SEO tools and SEO in the URL. The site listed below the first followed URL on my profile is an SEO site that's in development. So there's a link to my site and every bit of context around it screams SEO. But... it is a very nice link indeed, I really do like it, and this is a white-hat kind of place. Do you think Google will start penalizing sites with inbound links from pages that are related to SEO, even if the page promotes respectable tactics? If so, I'll be having nightmares about a very round Danny DeVito with a pointy nose and creepy hands chasing me through the sewers for weeks to come...
Algorithm Updates | | Anthony_NorthSEO1