Site Has Not Recovered (Still!) from Penguin
-
Hello,
I have a site that just keeps getting hit with a ton of bad, unnatural backlinks due to the sins from previous SEO companies they've hired. About every quarter, I have to add more bad links to their disavow file... still. Is it time to move them to a new domain? Perhaps a .net? If so, do we just completely trash the old domain & not redirect it? I've never had a client like this in the past but they still want to maintain their branded name.
Thanks for your feedback!
-
hey guys,
Any updates on the ahreflang tests?
I'm in a similar boat - one site got a manual hit in Feb2014...sitewide penalty, at one point brand name was even deindexed.
Got penalty lifted in 5 months. But traffic has not recovered one bit since then.
-
Please keep me posted what you decide to you. As awful as this is, it is nice to know we are not alone. We may just be rebranding and starting from scratch since Google has not provided any indication when they will release the next update. Also, I came across this a couple of weeks ago so it could be several months: http://searchengineland.com/google-we-are-working-on-making-the-penguin-updated-continuously-222247.
-
no need, all hreflang sites are linked in the eyes of Google. Also you still want people going to your original url which is where all your brand building and everything else was done.
At some point Penguin will refresh and your original site will regain the ability to rank. At that point you can decide what you want to do.
I had set mine up so that my co.uk was set to "EN" this capturred all english enquiries. Then in OCT 2014 my site regained its ability to rank and So I switched it so that my co.uk was set to "en-gb". The co.uk extension is an additional signal in google.co.uk for ranking and we are a truly global company with plans to expand into dedicated sites for certain countries. So it was a welcomed find.
However there is no harm in setting up the second site to target your main audience.
Lets say you are a company in the United States with a .com that is waiting for a penguin refresh.Get a second domain, point it to the same directory on your server. Do some clever coding to manage it so that you only have one set of code. (also think of a plan for the future to deliver separate content to both sites, maybe two database tables serving up content based on TLD).
Lets say you get a .netThen apply the following
Do this for each page making sure to keep the same url structure. (John mueller just started the importance of maintaining the same URL structure)
Once your original site regains the ability to rank again from an algo refresh go into webmaster tools and set the region of the new site to your desired specific location such as United States.
Then change the hreflang to:This way you are now telling Google to send only english searches from the US to your site and it will be a localized domain with a higher chance of ranking than the original site.
OR you could at that point remove hreflang and drop the newsite.net
This is the only way I was able to KEEP my original site up maintain my brand and all the people that go direct to my main brand website and also have a way of ranking again.
Its complicated to explain WHY it works but at some point I will write a big article for MOZ on this subject.
Hope that makes things more clear.
-
Yes the domain does not matter.
You can even test it out with just one single page. I spoke to John Mueller about this a while ago, he said when using hreflang you can use it in the same way you use a canonical tag. So maybe you could test it on an internal page that you know should be ranking better than it currently does.
Setup the new domain, create a blank index.php page and just replicate the internal page and URL structure.
FYI, John actually talked about URL structure for hreflang just 2 days ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=1sewHcbKTJw#t=2171In an ideal world you want to create a clever bit of PHP so that your code is being pulled from one directory otherwise you will have 2 versions of your site that you will need to maintain and that would just be a royal pain in the a$$.
Before you do anything I suggest you read the page below and watch the video by Maile Ohye on there too.
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/189077?hl=enFell free to ask me any questions I have had to do this on a few sites and have been doing it for a long time now.
Setup your current site as the x-default and the new one as "EN" so that all english inquiries are served up by Google to your new site.
I look forward to hearing how it goes. FYI its possible you may see your results drop for a day or two and then popup with the old URL again and then the new one, It can take a few days for it to recalibrate. It can also happen right away and then random adjustments happen over the next few weeks.
Also make sure to use fetch as Google in WMT on both site pages to get Googlebot looking at your pages ASAP. I have seen results in 30 seconds before.
-
@Gary, Would this work between a .com & .net website? I'm willing to test anything at this point. Thanks!
-
@ruth
I urge you to try the hreflang solution sometime as a test.
"but it's not something I would test unless you actually do have different English-speaking audiences."
You can Always set the old domain to "x-default" and the new one to "EN" so that all English search results switch to the new site, this is great for sites not willing to wait up to a year for a Penguin refresh or affected by other SERPS suppression. Both sites can be identical and will not cause duplication issues. hreflang is amazing tool for testing.
-
Thanks Ruth for your feedback. I just wanted to address your 2 points above:
-
we actually have been adding all new links to our original disavow file, so we are all set there.
-
yes, we do understand that the loss of links did cause a drop in rankings. Due to this, we've actually started building out natural links throuhh outreach & PR, redesigned the entire site & updated all content as well Along with ongoing contemy creation on site and off.
With those things in mind, is there anything else left? I'm just wondering if we're completely missing something and in getting desperate - is this domain just dead?
And thanks for the heads up on the hreflang, that was a little over my head.
Thanks for your feedback
-
-
A couple of things to keep in mind:
- When disavowing new inbound links, make sure that you're adding them to your existing disavow file - if you just submit the new sites, that new disavow file will overwrite the previous one and un-disavow links.
- A manual penalty is only part of the traffic/ranking loss you'll see with Penguin. Don't forget that you also lost the link value of a bunch of spammy links that previously were providing value. The penalty may be gone, but so are your links! To regain traffic levels, you'll need to build new quality inbound links, so make sure that's a big part of your strategy going forward.
I haven't tried the hreflang solution, so I can't comment on its effectiveness, but it's not something I would test unless you actually do have different English-speaking audiences.
Good luck!
-
Thank you for the lengthy response! I am not sure how to use hreflang but will look into it more this week. As for the your final question, our manual penalty was revoked in Oct. 2013 & it just hasn't performed worth a damn since. We updated all content and are working on a design refresh now in order to support responsive design - hoping that would help as we'd hate to change the domain but we're just at a loss & getting desperate. This is out only client who came to use for this type of cleanup service that has not yet recovered.
-
I have the ultimate answer for you and you will not find this elsewhere online.
I have been through this process and it was a huge pain the a$$
I spoke with John Mueller at Google for years trying to resolve our issues until one day we spoke about hreflang. At which point John said to me that it would be OK to use it. So we played with it and it turned out that we recovered IMMEDIATELY from penguin for a new domain that was hrefland linked from our original site.
So basically this allowed us to keep our original brand name site up while traffic was going to our new co.uk site (in your case .net)
Let say for instance your client is US based. Take the .com site and set it as x-default, then set the new .net site as "en" or if you want to be more specific "en-US".
All Google traffic in english or english from google.com in the US will now start flowing in your non penalised site. the hreflang simply does a swap in those search engines but it happens before the penalty is enforced. So your rankings will return right away depending on where you would now rank after the penalty is lifted and your new content will also be back to their rightful ranking positions. Basically all the suppression is gone.
Dont worry about duplicate content as hreflang handles all that. Its very common for sites to have just a few small changes such as $ to £ or a few spelling changes like color and colour. There is no downside.
If you are clever with the way you code your site you can make it a seamless transition without having to maintain code on two domains. Only took me a few hours to code something up.
The best thing is it opens the door to targeting multiple regions of the world with other languages. (When you are ready).
Hope that answers your question.
Also FYI, when did your manual penalty get revoked? It can take up to a year for your site to be ready for the refresh to consider it OK to lift the suppression. Based on that you may have not been ready for the OCT 2014 refresh and may be waiting for the next one which could be a long way away.
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 site causes massive drop off in ranking, old site restored how long to recover?
Hello, We launched and updated version of our site, mainly design changes and some functionality. 3 days after the launch we vanished from the rankings, previous page one results were now out of the top 100. We have identified some of the issues with the new site and chose to restore the old well ranking site. My question is how long might it take for the ranking to come back, if at all? The drop happened on the third day and the site was restored on the third day. We are now on day 6. Using GWT with have used fetch as Google and resubmitted the site map. Any help would be gladly received. Thanks James
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JamesBryant0 -
Competitor sites vs mine - No links, lower DA, and still beating me.
Thank you for taking the time to read my question. I have a website - berneseoftherockies.com - it is a bernese mountain dog website My competitors are Rockymountainpuppies(dot)com and Coloradobernesemountaindog(dot)com When using the Moz tools, I see they have no incoming links, except for one site has 5 links from its own pages. But when I type in Bernese Mountain Dogs Colorado - I am no where to be found, except for a you tube video. So what am I doing so wrong? They are basically doing nothing, and killing me in the serps. I have gotten social media stuff like Google +, facebook, twitter, pinterest, and youtube. They are still behind the times. So any thoughtful advice is appreciated. I mainly cater to the state of Colorado where I live. So just curious if there is something at the top of your head that you may think of that's causing my issues? Like could it be my hosting? Like can you have a black listed host? I am with Hostdime I did have a few, like 10 foreign backlinks, which I did remove or disavow I think its called. I have used the title tag tools here to get proper size title tags, and decent keyword density. I built the site for people first, then Google etc. So not sure if you are allowed to tell me, but maybe you can advise me on a decent seo company, or maybe give me a couple tips that may help me out. Please no - read the moz book, I am reading it and trying to do what I am reading. But maybe something simple is keeping me from showing up, while these other sites are. Thank you so much for any advice.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Berner0 -
Site Redesign - Inbound Links
Hello all. What would be some of the best practices or good resources on site redesign while maintaining inbound links? We would hate to have the natural, organic links to the site we have generated over the past 3 years to all of a sudden become broken. The domain is not changing but the URL structure very well may. For example, www.domain dot com/blog/postabouttopic which has many inbound links may move to www.domain dot com/news/blog/postabouttopic Is it a matter of simply using 301 redirects from the old pages to the new pages? Is there any issues to be aware of when having hundreds of 301 redirects? Is there a best practice? A good site that explains this in detail? Thank you for your time! Have a great day!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | S2RSolutions0 -
Micro Site Penalty?
I have been carrying out On-Page optimisation only for a client www.shade7.co.nz. After three months or so I have been getting some great results, improving to the top three positions for at least 30 of 45 keywords targeted. Couple of more tweaks and I would be a very happy camper. Disaster overnight! Rankings CRASH! Unbeknown to me the client a month or so back decided to link just about every product/link on a micro site he owns (www.shademakers.com/ ) plus one other site he owns. Explorer I think discovered over 350 back-links (follow) from these sites! As this is a site he owns and it is targeting the same keywords I presume this falls into the EVIL bucket of SEO. Two part question do you believe I am correct that this is the reason for this rankings crash and what would be the best way to resolve this! server-side 301 redirect for the micro site? Delete the micro site (drastic measure) Remove all the links other than maybe one in the contact page saying visit our other site shade7 other options? The client or I have not received any bad link Emails from Google.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Moving-Web-SEO-Auckland0 -
medical site with no unique content
Hi I'm trying to promote an ecommerce site that sells vitamins and health goods. The site owner doesn't want to add texts in the product pages because it is medical material. therefore he Currently has non unique (duplicated) content in each product page' It is the same exact content all others have (taken From the manufacturer)' Any ideas? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeytzNet0 -
Noindex a meta refresh site
I have a client's site that is a vanity URL, i.e. www.example.com, that is setup as a meta refresh to the client's flagship site: www22.example.com, however we have been seeing Google include the Vanity URL in the index, in some cases ahead of the flagship site. What we'd like to do is to de-index that vanity URL. We have included a no-index meta tag to the vanity URL, however we noticed within 24 hours, actually less, the flagship site also went away as well. When we removed the noindex, both vanity and flagship sites came back. We noticed in Google Webmaster that the flagship site's robots.txt file was corrupt and was also in need of fixing, and we are in process of fixing that - Question: Is there a way to noindex vanity URL and NOT flagship site? Was it due to meta refresh redirect that the noindex moved out the flagship as well? Was it maybe due to my conducting a google fetch and then submitting the flagship home page that the site reappeared? The robots.txt is still not corrected, so we don't believe that's tied in here. To add to the additional complexity, the client is UNABLE to employ a 301 redirect, which was what I recommended initially. Anyone have any thoughts at all, MUCH appreciated!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ACNINTERACTIVE0 -
Sites banned from Google?
How do you find out sites banned from Google? I know how to find out sites no longer cached, or is it the same thing once deindexed? As always aprpeciate your advice everyone.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | pauledwards0 -
One site or five sites for geo targeted industry
OK I'm looking to try and generate traffic for people looking for accommodation. I'm a big believer in the quality of the domain being used for SEO both in terms of the direct benefit of it having KW in it but also the effect on CTR a good domain can have. So I'm considering these options: Build a single site using the best, broad KW-rich domain I can get within my budget. This might be something like CheapestHotelsOnline.com Advantages: Just one site to manage/design One site to SEO/market Better potential to resell the site for a few million bucks Build 5 sites, each catering to a different region using 5 matching domains within my budget. These might be domains like CheapHotelsEurope.com, CheapHotelsAsia.com etc Advantages: Can use domains that are many times 'better' by adding a geo-qualifier. This should help with CTR and search Can be more targeted with SEO & Marketing So hopefully you see the point. Is it worth the dilution of SEO & marketing activities to get the better domain names? I'm chasing the longtail searchs whetever I do. So I'll be creating 5K+ pages each targeting a specific area. These would be pages like CheapestHotelsOnline.com/Europe/France/Paris or CheapHoteslEurope.com/France/Paris to target search terms targeting hotels in Paris So with that thought, is SEO even 100% diluted? Say, a link to the homepage of the first option would end up passing 1/5000th of value through to the Paris page. However a link to the second option would pass 1/1000th of the link juice through to the Paris page. So by thet logic, one only needs to do 1/5th of the work for each of the 5 sites ... that implies total SEO work would be the same? Thanks as always for any help! David
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | OzDave0