Building a new website post penalty and redirects
-
A website I'm working on is clearly algorithmically penalised.
I've spent a lot of time mass disavowing spammy links, but it doesn't seem to make a difference.
We have been planning to build a new website anyway since we are rebranding.
1. Is it possible to tell which pages are most likely to have a penalty applied?
2. If the website as a whole has a penalty, will redirecting certain pages to the new website carry the penalty?
3. Our website is structured as sales pages and blog content. It is the sales pages that have the spammy links, yet most of the blog content does not rank either. Would it be a good strategy to only redirect all the blog posts (which have natural links pointing to them) to the new website and not the sales pages?
4. The homepage has a mix of spam and very good editorial links. If I have disavowed links and domains, can I safely redirect this page?
-
Daniel - No worries…
If there hasn't been a manual action (just a big drop in rankings), disavow is a great tool to use.
I think on the darker side of SEO, there has certainly been competitors in highly competitive spaces who have tried to create spammy links pointing to competitors as a means to win at this often zero-sum game. So my hunch is that is why Google realizes that sometimes links show up beyond your control.
Best practice, though, is to contact the other website and ask for links to be removed. But sometimes this can fall on deaf ears… Thus, Google's disavow tool…
If it was my site, I'd try to get some of the bad links removed.
And then really focus on a high-quality end user experience… including site load time, engaging content, etc...
Hope this helps guide the decision…
- Jeff
-
Hi Jeff, thanks for your response.
There has been no manual action, just an algorithmic penalty evidenced by the fact that posts do not rank for ab almost exact match for the name and sales pages that used to be page 1 arent in the top 50.
I have literally disavowed any link that is not an organic link or a link from a partner website.
Is disavowing (for a anlgo penalty) enough, or do we need to contact websites and have the link removed?
-
Daniel -
Have you had a manual action taken against the site? The place to look for this is in Google Webmaster Tools, and this describes it in more detail: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35843?hl=en
If you have, you'll want to clean up everything and ask Google to reconsider the site. This process can take weeks.
Google can either take action against your entire site, or just parts of it, according to their blog here:
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2013/08/manual-actions-viewer.html
You might just want to start over, though, and do things with a clean slate.
Because repeat offenders, according to Google's Distinguished Engineer Matt Cutts, will face ever more challenging hurdles if additional manual actions occur.
If you haven't had a manual action against your site, you might want to do as much cleanup as possible, and monitor the performance. Try focusing on the end customer experience. What do they need to know? What enriches their lives? (Instead of what's great for the company's revenue.)
To answer the question about redirecting the blog posts - yes, that probably makes sense to do using 301 redirects, especially if that content is solid and has great inbound natural links.
Hope this helps!
-- Jeff
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
-
New website - not showing in Google?
This site was launched 3 days ago, bimcosupply.com and I'm trying to get it to show in Google just for a branded search for the moment (Bimco, Bimco Corporation, etc). The old site is still showing in search, bimcoplumbingsupplies.com instead. This site was taken down a while back. I set up a redirect for the domain in cPanel, and also set individual pages to redirect in WordPress on the bimcosupply.com site. I've verified the site in Google Search Console, submitted a sitemap and did URL inspection on each page. Each page is showing as indexed, though now when I search site:bimcosupply.com not all pages are there, and there are two results for the home page, one "https" and one "http." (Before today, all of the pages were showing so not sure what changed). I know this new domain does not have any (or very little) domain authority yet, but I would have thought that the site should display for branded search by now. So I'm concerned that something is wrong with the site, how the redirects are set up, etc. that is preventing it from displaying. Could anyone take a look and help me figure this out please?
Technical SEO | | browncreative0 -
Redirect Chain Issue
I keep running into a redirect chain issue trying to get a non-https/non-www domain to forward directly to the https/www domain on an Apache server. For background, we are forcing https and forcing www, but it appears the non-https/non-www domain is first redirecting to https/non-www and then redirecting again to the desired final https/www version of the domain. (Hope I am making sense here) I am trying to find code to add to my .htaccess file that will perform the following... 301 Redirect
Technical SEO | | FitzSWC
http://example.com directly to https://www.example.com (without 1st redirecting to https://example.com)
http://www.example.com directly to https://www.example.com Any experts in this with any thoughts? Thanks,
Fitz0 -
Setting Up A Website For Redirects
I've got an old defunct domain with a lot of backlinks to individual pages. I'd like to use these backlinks for link juice by redirecting them to individual pages on the new domain (both sites belong to the same company). What is the best way to set this up? I presume I need some kind of hosting & site, even if it's just a default Wordpress install, which I can then use to set up the redirects? Would it be best done using .htaccess file for 301 redirects or some other way?
Technical SEO | | abisti20 -
301 Redirects
Hi, I have switched my site from a http .co.uk site to a https .com site. I have set a 301 redirect in the .htaccess file pointing all traffic going to the original .co.uk site to go to the new https: RewriteEngine on
Technical SEO | | imoprojects
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^up-bus.co.uk$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.up-bus.co.uk$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ "https://www.up-bus.com/$1" [R=301,L] however when i search in google for keywords the original .co.uk site is still registering in search, is there something else I am required to do to tell google to use the new https site instead? Do i need to do redirects for every page, or is what I have done above sufficient? Hope you can help, I am struggling with getting our site to register on google search, any advice greatly welcome Thanks in advance, Ian0 -
Help Website Plumetting :(
Hi I have been smacked by the penguin/panda and traffic plumetted back in April/May. We are still trying to recover and am looking at all of the potential issues. I have since cleaned up the site as much as i can and attempted to remove as much duplicate content as possible which is automatically generated by Zencart. We add content regularly and have new product reviews everyday and all product page are kept fresh as they show the last 12 customers engraving details which change daily on popular items. Could someone give me some pointers as i am hitting my head against the wall and only seeing traffic drop all the time, it's soul destroying just how much work i am putting into this every day without any effect. Site is www.keepitpersonal.co.uk Kind Regards Andy
Technical SEO | | SmithyWhiffy0 -
Redirecting website page to another
Hi there one of my old pages on my site is currently ranking for a phrases that I want to rank for on a new page I created. My old page from 1 year ago is ranking for 'Property Management Training' (it's a blog post dating 2011) I have cretaed a new main Page on my site and would like to rank for 'Property Management' as it's more relevant. What is the best suggestion to keep my ranking but have people go to my new page? 301 redirect old page to new page? Thanks,
Technical SEO | | daracreative1 -
Redirecting Parked Domain
I just recently switched hosting. We have 3 domains and 1 being the main domain. Right now they are set up as parked domains. Can I redirect the parked domains under my main websites .htaccess file ? I am just worried that good we will get hit for duplicate content, even though technically the content is only on our main domain. right now if I type in my parked domains in Google, they appear in search. The site is all hand coded and not using a CMS.
Technical SEO | | hfranz0 -
Feedburner - Why Sending My Blog Posts A Day After I Post Them?
I have my feed setup through feedburner for my wife's blog ktlouise.com. Whenever she posts a new blog post, it doesn't get emailed to her subscribers until the next day. Does anyone know how to change this so that the updates go out the same day? Thanks for the help! REF
Technical SEO | | FergusonSEO0