How long before your rankings improved after Penguin?
-
Those of you that have algorithmic penalties, how long after making changes did you actually see an improvement, or have you ever?
I have several sites that tanked after Penguin 2.1 and after doing Link Removal, Diasvaow files and building newer more quality links and adding content, I am STILL not seeing any change in rankings after several months.
I have heard from some people it can take up to 6-months for google to even crawl a disavow file. I have also heard no matter what you do it won't matter until Google does another update.
I feel like we have made a lot of changes in the right direction, but I don't want to go overboard if nothing is going to matter until another Google Update is done.
What are your experiences?
-
How would you force google to recrawl them?
-
Dave, it's entirely possible for sites to start ranking again really quickly, within days or weeks. The problem is not that it's taking Google a long time to process the disavow file. The problem lies with the actual links in that disavow file to be recrawled by Google. Since those are low quality links it will take some time (usually) for them to recrawl them. From what I understand, Google has to crawl a URL first and see the link: then they look at the disavow file in order to 'process' that link (to disavow that link).
It's the crawling that it taking time: not the processing of the disavow file.
So, to speed up recovery, you'll need to get those disavowed links crawled again. Or force Google to recrawl them.
-
I think its very unlikely it takes 6 months for a disavow file to be processed - I have heard ranges from a couple of weeks to a couple months but no more.
If your talking about an algorithmic penalty (like penguin) then most likely you should see more gradual changes than if it were a manual penalty (which you would need to get removed via a re-inclusion request to see improvement).
When you mention 'go overboard' then that is a matter for you to decide what is a good and bad link, but in my opinion if you are under any penalty you need to be pretty thorough in removing all links that you think could be causing you issues.
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
-
Help! Rankings dropping after optimising
I have been using MOZ a lot, in the past I have always been able to optimise a website enough to rank well in my local areas, but lately every time I optimise a website based on MOZ recommendations the rankings are just dropping and dropping... I haven't focused any efforts on backlinks, but a few sites have gone from the first page of SERP to 2nd and continue to drop... I have 2 example sites: https://www.documentmanagementsoftware.com.au/ - optimised for "Document Management Software" - was initially ranked no.7 in google AU, now it is no.16 after my efforts. http://www.tmphysio.com.au/ - optimised for "canberra physiotherapy" - was no.6 now it is dropping to no.9 after 'optimisation' Any help or insights would be extremely helpful as I feel hopeless!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | thinkLukeSEO0 -
301 redirect impact on ranking
If Website A is ranking 19th position in Google for a specific keyword, and Website B is ranking 30th position for the same keyword, What would be impact after 301 redirect? Will Website A drop to 30th position because of 301 or existing position would improve because of link juice?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | riyaaaz0 -
Search engine keyword rank - easiest way to check the keywords that rank across website
What is the best keyword ranking tool you have used? I have used various tools by which I am expected to identify and input the keyword I want to track... However, recently I was introduced to Searchmetrics, which I think automatically pulls in the keywords a website ranks for, without the need for manual input from the SEO (I haven't used this tool yet, so apologies if I am incorrect!). Do any other rank trackers work like this? Thanks, Luke
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | McTaggart1 -
Keyword rank and redirecting
I'm creating a new amazon affiliate site. I've researched other successful sites. I've noticed that they are ranking for 1000s of keywords, but many of these long tail keywords are redirected back to a main page. I can see how this can reduce the overall total amount of content pages on the site. How are you able to rank for the keyword in the first place if the the page is redirected?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lkomontt760 -
Need assistance in improving SEO of website
Dear SEO Expert, We run a website www.guitarmonk.com. Moz has told us of some errors at our website viz.: Especially duplicate content etc and whatever in addition you suggest should be good for the website for certain relative important keywords. Regards
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Guitarmonk0 -
Why my blog ranks poorly on Google ?
Hi 🙂 I need help for my blog, my blog http://www.dota2club.com/ for many keywords it is not in first 50 results on google. What am i doing wrong ? Can you tell me what errors / mistakes i have made and what can i do to improve my blog ? Thank you !!!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | wolfinjo0 -
Seasonal links, seasonal ranks
As the garden season begins to wane I notice yet again how my ranking for some garden specific terms - eg ' garden tealight holders' start to rise again.Since I am doing nothing much I can only assume that my competitors have moved their focus to more winter based merchandise. Does anyone have a good understanding of how some websites are able to acheive high rankings during peak season only? I am assuming they are buying advertising (with the follow) for say 3 months before the season peak and manipulating internal linking to direct link juice from one section of the website to the other. Is this strategy risky. Has Google ever made mention of this issue?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | GardenBeet0 -
Google swapped our website's long standing ranking home page for a less authoritative product page?
Our website has ranked for two variations of a keyword, one singular & the other plural in Google at #1 & #2 (for over a year). Keep in mind both links in serps were pointed to our home page. This year we targeted both variations of the keyword in PPC to a products landing page(still relevant to the keywords) within our website. After about 6 weeks, Google swapped out the long standing ranked home page links (p.a. 55) rank #1,2 with the ppc directed product page links (p.a. 01) and dropped us to #2 & #8 respectively in search results for the singular and plural version of the keyword. Would you consider this swapping of pages temporary, if the volume of traffic slowed on our product page?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JingShack0