Is this Panda?
-
Hi,
I have a page that has been fluctuating a lot the last few days, here are the results:
5/14: #17 (this is where it had been ranking for about 2 months).
5/15: #34
5/16: #33
5/18: #9
5/19: #35
5/20: #13
5/21: #37
I have only made minor changes to the page, and the link profile seems to look good. Here's the page: www.thesandiegocriminallawyer.com/dui.html (targeted KW: San Diego DUI Lawyer, San Diego DUI Attorney).
The page has a lot of high-quality, original, and well-cited content. Any thoughts on what could be causing so much back and forth?
I should state that none of the other rankings for this site (overall) have been impacted. Just this page for DUI related searches (San Diego DUI Lawyer, San Diego DUI attorney, San Diego Drunk Driving Lawyer, etc.).
-
I believe its MibuKotaro
-
Hey Sean,
Trying to PM you but the system can't find your username. Is it Sean Williams?
-
Thank you.
Yeah, San Diego DUI Lawyer and San Diego DUI attorney are highly competitive (it's CA, people like to drink and drive apparently). I'm sure it's similar in Tampa.
I'm working on Local SEO, cause you're right, it's a huge area of opportunity.
-
If you have any further questions or want a second set of eyes sent me a PM and I would be glad to assist. Done A LOT of Penalty analysis so recognizing issues is a fun hobby for me
-
Hi Sean,
Thank you for the response. A few sites were adjusted, not just mine. None of them were wiped out, except for one.
This is a tricky area, as I'm trying to rank an interior page for a category in which a lot of attorneys dedicate their entire practice (hence entire website).
I don't see a decrease in traffic (via GA), so maybe it's not Panda.
I'll keep an eye on the competition. Thanks again.
-
The only reason I would worry about the drop is if it triggers something worse. Actually, dropping 20 spots, when you were already on either page 2 or 3, probably isn't going to hurt you all the match. It looks bad in a report, but, in terms of conversion, I don't think it will effect you all that much.
If I were you, I would focus my energy on local SEO and getting reviews. Granted, I don't spend a lot of time looking into how lawyers rank in other cities, but I have done it some. I've never seen so many review sites trigger for a legal term: "San Diego DUI Lawyer." Not to mention, there is only 1 local result that shows. Perhaps this is a fluke for today, but, man, if it's not, you've got a lot of room to grow there.
-
I agree with Ruben that being only a week it is hard to tell for certain. You had said that you have been checking the rankings also, so what does the first page look like for your terms. Are you the only site seeing this flux?
Again this has been addressed but Panda is content based. Grabbing snippets of your content I only found a slight duplication but that was within your own site. The best indicator of Panda is your organic traffic through Analytics. If your Google only Organic traffic has dropped substantially it is entirely possible that it may be the case.
On the other hand it was only recently announced that the Panda updates were rolling out again and this has been happening for longer. I would watch your rankings for the next two weeks or so, but also the people who are the top 5 organically, since you are already passing them to find you. If after that you still notice you jumping a lot but they aren't maybe its time for a quick competitive analysis to see what they may be doing differently.
-
Hi Ruben,
Thanks for the feedback. I see ur in the legal industry as well.
Yes, the anchor text is too exact - I'm working on fixing that.
I guess it's good news that it's probably not Panda. But it's still tough to drop 20 spots on such an important KW.
Ok, I'll keep monitoring it to see how it goes.
Thanks again.
-
A few things:
1. Unless you scraped all that content, I highly doubt it's Panda.
2. From my understanding, Panda is mostly about content so "the link profile seems to look good," doesn't really matter.
3. Also, I do not agree that your link profile looks good (I do not mean that harshly; I have several pages that are way worse. But, I think you should know). Most of your highest quality links are no-follow and you have a bunch coming from directories. Your anchor text is pretty exact as well.
4. Good news: From everything I've read/heard in this forum or others, when people are hit with Panda/Penguin, they do not fall 20 spaces...they fall like 100. Granted, those are all anecdotal so it could be possible.
5. It's only been a week. Yes, 20 spaces is definitely something to pay attention to, but I'd just monitor it for at least another week.
I hope this helps.
Good luck,
Ruben
-
Moz Rank Tracker AND Google it myself with Google Incognito.
-
Can I ask what method you use to come up with those stats on a daily basis, and how confident you are that they are accurate? .... tom
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
-
With the New Panda update supposedly only weeks away, is it wise to No Index my products I have not had time to rewrite the product descriptions for ?
Hi Mozzers, I read on SEJ yesterday than apparently the Panda update was due in the 2 - 4 weeks. I still have a large of my products which I have not got around to rewriting unique product descriptions for. I know these product descriptions are duplicated on other affiliate sites so do it think it in light of the panda update coming , would it wise to put a NO INDEX Meta tag on these product pages until I get around to rewriting the descriptions. That way, I may not hit my Panda and it will buy me a bit more time. Just an idea , but thought I'd run it by. thanks Pete
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PeteC120 -
Do I have a Panda filter on a specific segment?
Our site gets a decent level of search traffic and doesn't have any site-wide penalty issues, but one of our sections looks like it might be under some form of filter. Unfortunately for us, they're our buy pages! Check out http://www.carwow.co.uk/deals/Volkswagen/Golf it's unique content and I've built white hat links into it, including about 5 from university websites (.ac.uk domains DA70+). If you search something like "volkswagen golf deals" the pages on page 1 have weak thin content and pretty much no links. That content section wasn't always unique, in fact the vast majority of it may well be classed as dupe content as there's no Trim data and they look like this: http://www.carwow.co.uk/deals/Fiat/Punto While we never had much volume, the traffic on all /deals/ pages appears to drop significantly around the time of the May Panda update (4.0). We're planning on completely re-launching these pages with a new design, unique trim content and a paragraph (c.200 words) about the model. Am I right in assuming that there's a Panda filter on the /deals/ segment so regardless of what I do to one deals page it won't rank well, and we have to re-do the whole section?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Matt.Carwow0 -
Panda'd - and I think I know how to fix it...
Hi, I have a non-core site that seems to have been affected by a Panda refresh in late December http://www.seomoz.org/google-algorithm-change#2012 Anyway, I couldn't figure out for the longest time why this site, which is full of high-quality, expert-level content would get dinged -- i made several moves to try and eliminate duplicate content -- even though I couldn't find evidence of the duplicate content, but it's a wordpress site so there's lots of opportunities to accidentally introduce it through archives, tags and whatnot. The classic SEO mistake I was making was I was forgetting about a type of post we were doing to facilitate one of our email campaigns. On most, sites there's always something you aren't optimizing, and that's the stuff that can really create unintended issues in google, because the decisions made on those pieces, is often more operational toward the other campaigns, than strategic to search. these posts, are thin little articles, written by humans, but the text is actually submitted to another external site, published there and then recreated as content that the email campaign links to. These posts are segregated from the normal feed on the wordpress site, and the last time I had reviewed this content, we were not using a method for creating that involved publishing it to facebook first. But, OK, so I'm going to stop indexing this content, that's a given. I believe that is the Panda issue -- I could be wrong, but it makes sense, since otherwise the site is maybe the least likely site to be affected by Panda that I've ever been involved with. Do I do anything else, after fixing a Panda issue? Is there a reconsideration request for this or something. Should I send a singing telegram to Cutts? I researched a few articles, and there wasn't much on what to do after you fixed it, but to wait. Just wondering if anyone else who fixed a Panda thang, utilized any communication channel to let google know. thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | reallygoodstuff0 -
Do you know a case where product variations caused panda?
Would like to add 300 products to ecommerce site of which 150 products are just variations in different colors. In this particular case there are some reaons for: Not writing partially unique product descriptions for each product variation Not setting them up as variations on one product page So I would have several product pages with nearly identical product descriptions (proprietary description written by us), just name of color in title and description and EAN in description being different, as well as over time different user generated content showing up. Also different product images used. I would not mind if google would not index some product variations. Do you think I should be concerned about Panda? Do you know any website which had a Panda problem caused by product variations? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lcourse0 -
Reality of Panda 3.9 Refresh
I have had a 10 page website(registered in 1999) rank for my top keywords(top 5) for over 4 years. No changes have been made to the website. (Static website). July 11, 2012, most of the keywords, and all the major keywords were dropped from Google. They remain steady in Bing and Yahoo. I saw that some people referred to a Panda 3.9 refresh on that day, but also saw that Google(Matt Cutts) denied the refresh. Given the simplicity of the website and the strong backlinks, which remain, what are other reasons I could see a drastic drop in 1 day. Any ideas on where to target my search for solving this very serious issue? Any thoughts would be appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | FidelityOne0 -
Duplicate Content - Panda Question
Question: Will duplicate informational content at the bottom of indexed pages violate the panda update? **Total Page Ratio: ** 1/50 of total pages will have duplicate content at the bottom off the page. For example...on 20 pages in 50 different instances there would be common information on the bottom of a page. (On a total of 1000 pages). Basically I just wanted to add informational data to help clients get a broader perspective on making a decision regarding "specific and unique" information that will be at the top of the page. Content ratio per page? : What percentage of duplicate content is allowed per page before you are dinged or penalized. Thank you, Utah Tiger
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Boodreaux0 -
Has there been a 'Panda' update in the UK?
My site in the UK suddenly dropped from page 1 and out of top 50 for all KWs using 'recliner' or a derivative. We are a recliner manufacturer and have gained rank over 15 years, and of course using all white hat tactics. Did Google make an algo update in the Uk last week?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | KnutDSvendsen0 -
Need help identifying why my content rich site was hurt by the Panda Update.
Hi - I run a hobby related niche new / article / resource site (http://tinyurl.com/4eavaj4) which has been heavily impacted by the Panda update. Honestly I have no idea why my Google rankings dropped off. I've hired 2 different SEO experts to look into it and no one has been able to figure it out. My link profile is totally white hat and stronger then the majority of my competitors, I have 4000+ or so pages of unique, high quality content, am a Google News source, and publish about 5 new unique articles every day. I ended up deleting a 100 or so thin video pages on my site, did some url reorganization (using 301s), and fixed all the broken links. That appeared to be helping as my traffic was returning to normal. Then the bottom dropped out again. Since Saturday my daily traffic has dropped by 50%. I am really baffled at this point as to what to do so any help would be sincerely appreciated. Thanks, Mike jamescrayton2003@yahoo.com
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MikeATL0