Mobile Friendly Penalty?
-
My website, http://www.stephita.com/ used to appear on the first page of my "locally" searched terms on www.google.ca. Specifically, when users searched for "wedding invitations", we would appear between 1-3 on the rankings.
Sadly, I "ignored warnings" of making my site "mobile friendly" for too long, and only recently made drastic changes to my site to get it to "mobile friendly" status.
So, I've fallen far in the SERP, down to the dreaded second page, for my keyword search: "wedding invitations".
The "mobile friendly" version of my site has been up and running for about 1 month now. My site's home/index page has a PR3, compared to all the other sites that have leaped frogged mine are all at PR1.
Does anybody know the likelihood that my site will ever see the page 1 daylight again? Or has Google Penalized my rankings
Very much appreciated any help the community can provide!
-
Hi Chris,
I appreciate you giving me the feedback on my site issues. I've rectified a few, and will thoroughly go through my site to ensure it complies with the suggestions.
What is the likelihood that once Google sees that the page is cleaner, will my site jump back up to the top? Does the PR3 still factor in SERP?
Thanks!
-
Hi Tyson,
You won't get penalised for having a website that isn't mobile-friendly, what you can expect to see though is poor(er) rankings for searches from a mobile device.
I've had a quick look at your site and the reason for your ranking drops is going to be far more to do with keyword spam and thin content than anything else.
Page Titles & Meta Descriptions For example, this page title for one of the invitations pages:
Wedding Invitations in Vaughan - Stephita Invitations Online, Toronto, Richmond Hill, Markham, Scarborough, Mississauga, Thornhill, Etobicoke, York, East York, Woodbridge, Vaughan, Concord, North York, Maple, New York, Barrie, Ajax, Pickering, Oakville, Newmarket, Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Montreal, Ontario, Canada, Handmade, Wedding Invitations, Thank-you Cards, Save the date, Menus, Programs, Placecards, Stationary, Stationery, Pocketfolds, Pocketfold, Trifold, Tri-fold, Trifolds, Tri-folds
The meta descriptions are very much the same. As a rough guide (length is based on pixels, not characters), page titles should be kept to a max of around 55 characters. The above is 501 characters, by comparison.
These guides are great resources for writing page titles and metas:
Thin Content
The other major factor I noticed was thin content. Of the landing pages I opened, they seemed to have ~100 - 400 words which can be enough if done very well, but I typically suggest more like 1000+ words for your landing pages, making sure you answer all the common questions you users might have about each product. Make the content genuinely helpful for users rather than just telling them all about your business
404s (Broken Links)
There are a few broken links on the site, pointing to the following pages:
http://www.stephita.com/img/swatch/paper_japanese/268.jpg
http://www.stephita.com/img/swatch/paper_japanese/449.jpg
http://www.stephita.com/img/swatch/paper_japanese/460.jpg
http://www.stephita.com/img/swatch/ribbon/488.jpg
http://www.stephita.com/img/swatch/ribbon/489.jpg
http://www.stephita.com/img/swatch/ribbon/490.jpg
http://www.stephita.com/img/swatch/ribbon/644.jpgThe above are images that must have been either moved, removed or renamed. Each of them are referenced on the Swatches page.
Also, they're actually showing me a "soft 404" meaning rather than present me with a 404 page to suggest I clicked a broken link, it keeps that link in the address bar but shows me the home page. Very confusing from the user's perspective since it looks like they've gone to the page they tried clicking yet it's identical to the home page (because it is the home page... kind of!) If you copy/paste one of the above links into your browser, you'll see what I mean.
302 Redirections
If a page is being permanently removed and you want to redirect traffic, strength and search engines to another, you should always use a 301 redirect (a 301 is a permanent redirect) rather than the current 302's (temporary redirect).
This is quite a minor detail compared to the other issues but something to mention anyhow.
Helpful Tools You'll find these tools handy in fixing these issues up and perhaps identifying more with a thorough look through everything.
Moz On-Page Grader - This one will give you a "grade" for your onsite optimisation and highlight potential issues. Screaming Frog SEO Spider - This too will crawl your site much like a search engine and show you a bunch of elements they can "see". It's great to see an overview of all the elements I've listed and so many more.
I know this isn't really what you were looking for but it is the answer I'm afraid. I hope you find it helpful!
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
-
Content Page URL Question
Our main website is geared toward the city where we are located and includes the city name in content page URLs. We also have separate websites for three surrounding cities; these websites have duplicate content except the city name: MainWebsite.com
Local Website Optimization | | sharon75025
City2-MainWebsite.com
City3-MainWebsite.com
City4-MainWebsite.com We're restructuring to eliminate the location websites and only use the main website. The new site will have city pages. We have well established Google business locations for all four cities. We will keep all locations, replacing the location website with the main website. Should we remove City-IL from all content page URLs in the new site? We don't want to lose traffic/ranking for City2 or City3 because the content pages have City1 in the URL. Page URLs are currently formatted as follows: www.MainWebsite.com/Service-1-City1-IL.html
www.MainWebsite.com/Service-2-City1-IL.html
www.MainWebsite.com/Service-3-City1-IL.html
www.MainWebsite.com/Service-4-City1-IL.html Thanks!0 -
Unsolved What are the best SEO plugins for WordPress?
Before embarking on a programming language learning journey, the first thing to think of is your motivation.
Local Website Optimization | | Kate_balls0 -
How about a No-index backlink in the eye of Google
I have a doubt - when I create a backlink as a part of SEO in some website when I rechecked the same couple of days after. It hasn't indexed and I checked its robots file. It showing **User-agent: ****Mediapartners-Google ****Disallow: ****User-Agent: * ****Disallow:**However, is this create any backlink support or just this for the purpose of not indexing in google.I make it simple -"Is this kind of backlink creation support my SEO activity or Not?" In this No-index website.
Local Website Optimization | | LayaPaul0 -
I have followed all the steps in google speed ranking on how to increase my website http://briefwatch.com/ speed but no good result
My website http://briefwatch.com/ has a very low-speed score on google page speed and I followed all the steps given to me still my website speed doesn't increase
Local Website Optimization | | Briefwatch0 -
Which are the best off-page SEO techniques for 2020?
I have just published an awesome website or blog, and i really worked hard keeping everything perfect. Do you think it’s enough? Having a perfect blog, website or business is just enough. i need readers for my blog, visitors to my website, and customers for my business. So, what to do?
Local Website Optimization | | boxinghunter0 -
How many backlinks from one domain?
How many backlinks from one domain is too many? 1? 3? 10? For example, directory listings. If you have 5 separate links to one website in lets say DMOZ (good for you!), is it really only "juicy" one time? Or each one just as awesome? What about multiple guest articles on a related website? If I had 2 or 3 articles on one website that each have different contextual links, is it just the same as if I had one article?
Local Website Optimization | | Cantor-Crane0 -
Content spinning or duplicate content — a potential penalty or a safe technique?
Currently I’m working on the local UK business website www.londonlocksmith.london and I have to say a few practises of the competition got me confused. For example websites like these:
Local Website Optimization | | PayPro
http://lambeth-trusted-local-locksmith.co.uk/
http://clapham-trusted-local-locksmith.co.uk/
http://streathamhill-trusted-local-locksmith.co.uk/
http://hernehillse24-trustedlocallocksmith.co.uk/ All of them rank decent for the main regional keyword (e.g. Lambeth locksmith) and have an ok-ish DA. But as you scroll through these websites you see that the content is the same for all of them except for the location name, plus they all link to each other (see the footer). Now my question is: can this be a good technique for higher local ranking by creating dedicated websites (not just landing pages) with the target keyword in the domain name? And also: what is your experience with such ways of keyword targeting; what do you think in general about content spinning for local services with high competition?; what are your suggestions?0