What to do with bad webpage
-
Hello everyone,
I have a page in my website that has a terrible link profile (95% exact match keyword links.) What is the best thing to do with this page? It provides no value, and if anything it is hurting me.
Should I just delete the page, 301 it to an obscure page or something else?
Thanks!
-
Well there you go.
If you have a page (Page A) that was ranking poorly due to over optmization, then you 301 Page A to a new page (Page B), the 301 passes pretty much all the negative link equity from Page A to Page B. Therefore, Page B is going down the toilet now.
You just kicked the can further down the street, vs fixing the initial issue. aka You just kicked yourself in the pants. (you can insert what ever kicking analogy you like here for emphasis and/or humor, but don't beat yourself up over it).
That is why I mentioned above, the 301 is really not a solution in this case and you need to noindex the page or 404 it.
I am of the group that I try and minimize 404s as much as possible. There is only one page to 404 here, so is really a non issue.
-
CleverPhD pretty much hit the nail on the head with a much more concise version of what I was trying to say. +1 internets for you good sir or madam.
As for the 404... Google will not penalize you for having a page that isn't there. Too many 404s can be bad for user experience but in this case the pages you'd be 404ing are causing much more trouble.
-
Thanks!
The reason I am doing this is one of my pages has dropped from page 2 to outside of the top 500. I currently have this over-optimized page 301's to the (formerly) ranking page. I think this may have something to do with it.
If a page a page is 404, does Google penalize the entire site?
-
Ok, if you think there is a problem, see steps 1-4, but you have to ask yourself, is this really a problem? See end of this post.
Steps to consider
- Look at the link profile and determine if you can see where are these links generated.
We had one case where we determined that the issue was a competing agency that was building negative links to properties that we managed for a client vs the web properties that they managed for the same clients! We tactfully made courtesy calls to the clients to help them by describing the negative link patterns and inquiring if they used anyone else for web marketing etc and suggesting that they contact the other agency as the other agency may not be aware that this is going on.
We were able to not only stop getting the links being built, but we looked good to our clients. This may or may not apply to you, but just throwing it out there that you need to look at this at a higher level to help with a) stopping additional links from being built or b) getting links removed.
- I saw this in a tweet by @dr_pete the other day and I retweeted it as I thought it was a good article
http://www.distilled.net/blog/seo/the-latest-5-tools-ive-added-to-my-seo-toolbox/
There is a tool rmoov that is mentioned
http://www.rmoov.com/index.php
There is a free version and so this may work. Note, I have not used this tool, but it looks interesting enough that I would try it. May be worth asking the group here - have they used it and what do they think of the tool.
- Redirect or 404. If you 301, then all you are doing is redirecting the negative link equity to other pages on your site, or externally. Probably not what you want to do as then you are just spreading the negative link "juice".
You can either 404 the page and let it die. Or, if you want to leave up a simple page with no other links to other pages on your site and then add a noindex tag so that it gets removed from Googles index
- The Disavow tool. This would be only for extreme examples and if you had proof that these links were negatively impacting this page and/or had a penalty notice from Google. I only mention to be complete, but this is probably not appropriate for you.
All of that said, let's just ignore everything I mentioned above. If the only issue here that you have 95% exact match anchor text. While that can be a symptom of a "bad link" profile, is it really impacting this page? Are you seeing a decrease in rankings for that page for those key terms? More importantly, are you seeing decreased traffic to that page (as rankings are relative). Are you assuming there is a problem, when there is not one? So you have a page with a "too perfect" of an anchor link profile. Then just stop doing it on future pages and move on. You may not have hit a threshold that triggers a penalty just yet. Have to consider where you are spending your time. May may more sense to work on building value, vs correcting things that may or may not be negatively impacting you.
My 2 cents plus a dime.
-
No, no warnings. I would doubt it is a manual penalty also. I am not in a super competitive niche, and I am not a huge name in my niche either from an SEO standpoint.
-
Large amounts of spammy looking exact match keywords creating an unnatural link profile will do that nowadays. Have you received any unnatural link warnings because of them or seen anything that appears to be an algorithmic penalty?
-
Thanks for the response!
They provide no value. They are not bad per se as they are original articles that I wrote. What I did was the old Article Syndication trick about 6 years ago. These article databases point to a page of a product that I don't even really sell anymore.
The bigger issue I face is the page I 301'd these links to suddenly dropped out of the rankings in early March. It went from page 2/3 to outside of the top 500. I would assume that the article links may have something to do with it.
-
How bad are the links? Sure exact match can hurt now but would it be better to attempt gaining some more natural links to the page. Have you attempted to get any bad links pointing at it removed?
Does the page really provide no value? Does it get any qualified traffic which then disseminates to the rest of your site? Or is the page DOA?
Personally I'd say NoIndex it for now, see if there's better content you could add, work on removing links and getting better ones, and see if that helps. You wouldn't want to 301 bad links to another place on your site because it doesn't fix anything... it just deflects the issue for a while.
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
-
I have a same paragraph appearing on two webpages of my site!
is it gonna affect rankings if so what should be done thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Sam09schulz0 -
Bad Backlinks to my website. Rankings Dropped
Hi guys, My name is Flavius and I work for a website named LaserPRocessing.ro from Romania. In april this year the site was infected with a virus and got around 1k bad backlinks. I found those backlinks on Moz Backlinks Tools. I added them on GSC disawow file. What next steps do you recommend to tell Google to block those links? Cheers!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nojaflaviusalex0 -
How bad is duplicate content for ecommerce sites?
We have multiple eCommerce sites which not only share products across domains but also across categories within a single domain. Examples: http://www.artisancraftedhome.com/sinks-tubs/kitchen-sinks/two-tone-sinks/medium-rounded-front-farmhouse-sink-two-tone-scroll http://www.coppersinksonline.com/copper-kitchen-and-farmhouse-sinks/two-tone-kitchen-farmhouse-sinks/medium-rounded-front-farmhouse-sink-two-tone-scroll http://www.coppersinksonline.com/copper-sinks-on-sale/medium-rounded-front-farmhouse-sink-two-tone-scroll We have selected canonical links for each domain but I need to know if this practice is having a negative impact on my SEO.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ArtisanCrafted0 -
Are pop-unders bad for SEO?
Hi all, I run a travel site that specializes in hotel bookings. We're working with a third-party advertiser to launch a pop-under unit when someone searches for hotels on our site. (This unit is of the "also try your search on these competing sites" variety.) I'm worried, however, that this might affect our SEO, especially in light of this on their site: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2721313?hl=en Would Google even see these pop-unders? (Are pop-unders treated the same as pop-overs?) And, if so, would G see them as unwanted and treat them as a nuisance? Could it lead to negative SEO consequences? Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks! Tom
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TomNYC0 -
More bad links
Hi, After a recent disastrous dalliance with a rogue SEO company I disavowed quite a few domains (links he had gained) which I was receiving a penalty of about 23 places. I cleaned up the site and added meta descriptions where missing, and deleted duplicate titles and pages. This gained me another 5 places. In the meantime I have been getting a few links from wedding blogs, adobe forums and other relevant sites so was expecting an upward momentum. Since the high point of bottom of page 1 I have slowly slid back down to near the bottom of page two for my main keywords. Just checked my webmaster tools latest links and another 4 domains have appeared (gained by the dodgy SEO) : domain:erwinskee.blog.co.uk domain:grencholerz.blog.co.uk domain:valeriiees.blog.co.uk domain:gb.bizin.eu They all look bad so I am going to disavow. I expect to find an improvement when I disavow these new domains. As I have said, have started using the open site explorer tool to check my competitors backlinks and getting some low level links(I'm a wedding photographer) like forum comments and blog comments and good directories. I know there is much more than this to SEO and plan on raising my game as time progresses. I have also gained more links from the domains I disavowed on the 8th January mostly from www.friendfeed.com. will webmaster tools ignore any new links from previously disavowed domains? Like I have said I know there are better ways to get links, but are these links (forum comments, blog comments and respectable directories) one way of raising my rankings? To be honest that is all my competitors have got other than some of the top boys might have a photograph or two on another site with a link. No-one has a decent article or review anywhere (which is my next stage of getting links). Thanks! David.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WallerD0 -
What is a "Bad Link" in Google's eyes? Low DA?
Hi there, I'm going through my link profile and I noticed I have a few links that are from <10 DA sites. One has a DA of 6. Should I remove these? Aside from any referral traffic I receive from these links (I know there is none), are these links hurting me?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Travis-W
What should I look out for in a site I may guest post on? Thanks!
Travis0 -
High Bounce with Long Time on Page - Good or Bad?
Hi, I have few articles on my site that are quite good both SEO wise (getting organic search traffic) and as a reading material. They get lots of traffic and people are staying and reading them (2-4 minutes on page). The problem with these articles is that people are reading them and then leave. These are landing pages for certain queries so I assume that the readers are getting what they wanted but when they finish they exit. The bounce rate is 70%-85%. Are these type of pages good or bad for my site? Last note, my site is an e-commerce store. I do try to "motivate" more people to navigate to other pages but the majority do and will probably leave (because they were looking for answers and not products). Needless to say that the articles are related to my site's subjects and products.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeytzNet0 -
How long a domain's bad reputation last?
I catched a dropped domain with a nice keyword, but poor reputation. It used to have some malware on the site and WOT (site review tool available at Chrome among others) has very negative reviews tied to the site. I guess that Google has to have records about that as well, because Chrome used to prompt a warning when I entered the site. My question is: how long will the bad reputation last if I build a legitimate website there?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | zapalka0