A couple of our main domains have disappeared from Google
-
I work with a company that has way too many domains. Over the last year or so I have been working on consolidating them, and removing duplicate content. Yesterday I did Google search for a couple terms that we are normally number one for, and we don't show up anywhere in the first 300 results. I see no warnings in Webmaster, and I can see that this happend a couple days ago.
Here are the domains that have gone missing:
www.gaso.com
Desc: Tons of good info about Gaso Pumps
Tems: Gaso, Gaso Pumpswww.gasopumpparts.net
Desc: Part Lists for specific Gaso Pumps
Terms: Gaso Pump Partswww.IEQindustries.com
Desc: Company Website
Terms: IEQ IndustriesHere are some domins that still show up:
www.wheatleygaso.com
Desc: Searchable Pump Catalog with pump specswww.wheatleypump.com
Desc: Used to be a "duplicate" gaso.com, but mostly has links to gaso.com now.www.trenchless.org
Desc: An old incomplete siteWe also own a bunch parked domains that we created a generic landing page for, like:
http://www.gasopump.co/
http://www.gasoparts.co/Many of the sites are on the same VPS server, not sure if that is causing a problem. To me it shouldn't matter, we are not trying hide anything. The sites with content serve different purposes, but we are working at consolidating them to simplfy things. The landing pages are mainly meant to park the extra domains we have.
I am not terrible concerned as we are offering legitimate products and services, and we are trying to do the right things, but my client is very concerned.
My question is this, what is your best guess as to what happened, and what should I change?
Thanks in advance!
Torey -
Thanks Adam,
This is the strategy I have been wanting/planning to implement, I think this temporary drop will give me the opportunity I have been looking for to make it happen.
Torey
-
Hi Torey
For example lets say one of your websites pushed a particular type of pump (not familiar enough with the product vertical to know if that makes sense but bare with me), you'd want gaso.com/pumpa to be the landing page (page specifically dedicated to that pump type) that you direct the old domain that covered that pump too with a 301.
Gaso.com should come back, focus on it and give it sometime I understand that if this is a client site they are probably freaking out (also worth checking if perhaps they've just dropped into a Google dance and are not fully removed from the search results). Build it out with proper landers as entry points (this avoids all your search traffic coming into the main page which isn't ideal) and redirect the old websites to their appropriate internal page. This will give you a real boost over time.
If you need to explain the time process to a client let them know that this is a strategic investment in the future. The consolidation of the sites, and the time it takes for gaso.com to re-appear is about getting it done right to grow their results significantly in the long run, but work on consolidating the sites as soon as possible because it can be a real drag on both time and authority.
-
I agree with Adam. I grabbed a few random sentences from random pages on the site and there are lots of other sites publishing same stuff.
This might be just one problem. A person could spend lots of time digging into every possible issue... but since you seem to have a lot of gaso sites that made me think "short cut publishing".
-
What do you mean by "single landing pages?" Are you talk about pages under gaso.com like gaso.com/gaso-pump-parts, and then redirect gasopumpparts.net to that page?
Also gaso.com is our most "valuable" domain, but since it now seems to have disappeared from Google, should we invest our efforts there or choose a different domain?
Thanks again,
Torey -
If you have a lot of duplicate content (or overlapping content) on the same server it may not be a penalty but Google simply lowering the value of the properties due to a lack of uniqueness.
Make sure as you rid of old domains you are 301 redirecting back to the main site and continue to simplify your site and consolidate it into single landing pages. Also make sure none of these old sites are inter-linking in any method other than a 301 redirect as that would have a negative impact on your SEO.
In a way I wouldn't worry too much - it's kind of what you want a push in the right direction long term. If you are going to have secondary websites they need to be unique enough (by the nature of intent) to actually warrant their on place in the search engines. If you are really just having a slightly different spin to the same intent and content each time then Google is going to continue to lower the value of the sites across the board.
I've had the same thing happen to me with old clients that started back in the day that owning multiple domains made sense, a lot of them dropped off and the clients freaked. We streamlined the content into unique and hyper targeted landing pages and 301'd the old domains - within a few weeks not only were we back up and running but we were simply crushing our competition. We shot up in SEO across the board, our traffic was up almost 30% and our users were converting at a higher rate due to ease of use.
Think about it from the user perspective and you'll always win, streamline it, make it easy, make it accessible and the rankings WILL come. (Well worth reading Cyrus' post about that mantra: http://moz.com/blog/seo-satisfaction)
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
-
How to build Domain Authority?
My site: https://www.fishingspots.com.au/ has started to drop Domain Authority in the past weeks, however less quality sites like http://silverstories.com.au/ are rising... I am not sure why? Is there someway I can understand why my site would suddenly start dropping authority?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | thinkLukeSEO0 -
Google not indexing images
Hi there, We have a strange issue at a client website (www.rubbermagazijn.nl). Webpage are indexed by Google but images are not, and have never been since the site went live in '12 (We recently started SEO work on this client). Similar sites like www.damenrubber.nl are being indexed correctly. We have correct robots and sitemap setup and directions. Fetch as google (Search Console) shows all images displayed correctly (despite scripted mouseover on the page) Client doesn't use CDN Search console shows 2k images indexed (out of 18k+) but a site:rubbermagazijn.nl query shows a couple of images from PDF files and some of the thumbnails, but no productimages or category images from homepage. (product page example: http://www.rubbermagazijn.nl/collectie/slangen/olie-benzineslangen/7703_zwart_nbr-oliebestendig-6mm-l-1000mm.html) We've changed the filenames from non-descriptive names to descriptive names, without any result. Descriptive alt texts were added We're at a loss. Has anyone encountered a similar issue before, and do you have any advice? I'd be happy to provide more information if needed. CBqqw
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Adriaan.Multiply0 -
New domain or subdirectory?
I noticed my domain authority has dropped slightly in the recent update, and it has me re-thinking a strategy for a website I just recently launched. I purchased the domain name kansasisbeautiful.com about a year ago and have been working on building it for most of that time. Earlier in August, I went ahead and launched it. However, towards the end of the development of the website, I decided to just put it in a subdirectory of my parent company (my photography business) at mickeyshannon.com/kansas and redirected the kansasisbeautiful.com domain to the subdirectory. mickeyshannon.com is my photography business website. The Kansas website has it's own distinct design, but is powered completely by my photography. I created it for a few purposes, including promoting tourism to the state of Kansas and to publish a book on Kansas travel next year, but one of it's main goals is also to help sell my photography prints. I decided to put it in a subdirectory (mickeyshannon.com/kansas) as I had hoped it might drive more traffic into buying photo prints if it lived on my main website. However, I've been re-thinking my strategy and have been wondering if I'm competing against myself too much. Many of my photography prints have the name of a location in them and have their own URL per photo (for example: "Flint Hills Spring Sunrise" is at http://www.mickeyshannon.com/photo/flint-hills-spring-sunset/). It makes me wonder if the new Kansas travel website page for the Flint Hills (http://www.mickeyshannon.com/kansas/flint-hills/) is competing for that keyword. Would I be better moving mickeyshannon.com/kansas to kansasisbeautiful.com? I was worried having so many backlinks back to my photography site would send up red flags with Google as if the kansasisbeautiful.com website was just a spammy website created to push traffic to mickeyshannon.com when it really has it's own purpose. Any thoughts on whether using the domain name or keeping it at the subdomain level is better? Hopefully that made sense. Thanks, Mickey
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | VSphoto0 -
Page disappears from search results when Google geographic location is close to offline physical location
If you use Google to search georgefox.edu for "doctor of business administration", the first search result is http://www.georgefox.edu/business/dba/ - I'll refer to this page as the DBA homepage from here on. The second page is http://www.georgefox.edu/offices/sfs/grad/tuition/business/dba/ - I'll refer to this page as the DBA program costs page from here on. Search: https://www.google.com/search?q=doctor+of+business+administration+site%3Ageorgefox.edu This appears to hold true no matter what your geographic location is set to on Google. George Fox University is located in Newberg, Oregon. If you search for "doctor of business administration" with your geographic location set to a location beyond a certain distance away from Newberg, Oregon, the first georgefox.edu result is the DBA homepage. Set your location on Google to Redmond, Oregon
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RCF
Search: https://www.google.com/search?q=doctor+of+business+administration But, if you set your location a little closer to home, the DBA homepage disappears from the top 50 search results on Google. Set your location on Google to Newberg, Oregon
Search: https://www.google.com/search?q=doctor+of+business+administration Now the first georgefox.edu page to appear in the search results is the DBA program costs page. Here are the locations I have tested so far: First georgefox.edu search result is the DBA homepage Redmond, OR Eugene, OR Boise, ID New York, NY Seattle, WA First georgefox.edu search result is the DBA program costs page Newberg, OR Portland, OR Salem, OR Gresham, OR Corvallis, OR It appears that if your location is set to within a certain distance of Newberg, OR, the DBA homepage is being pushed out of the search results for some reason. Can anyone verify these results? Does anyone have any idea why this is happening?0 -
What's the best way to check Google search results for all pages NOT linking to a domain?
I need to do a bit of link reclamation for some brand terms. From the little bit of searching I've done, there appear to be several thousand pages that meet the criteria, but I can already tell it's going to be impossible or extremely inefficient to save them all manually. Ideally, I need an exported list of all the pages mentioning brand terms not linking to my domain, and then I'll import them into BuzzStream for a link campaign. Anybody have any ideas about how to do that? Thanks! Jon
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JonMorrow0 -
Google Tag Manager
Has anyone used Google Tag Manager and do you feel it is worth it?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ChristinaRadisic0 -
Google Experiment
Hi there, are there any implications for organic seo for implementing google experiment. Where you send users to a new page?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | pauledwards0 -
Redirecting One Page of Content on Domain A to Domain B
Let's say I have a nice page of content on Domain A, which is a strong domain. That page has a nice number of links from other websites and ranks on the first page of the SERPs for some good keywords. However, I would like to move that single page of content to Domain B using a 301 redirect. Domain B is a slightly weaker domain, however, it has better assets to monetize the traffic that visits this page of content. I expect that the rankings might slip down a few places but I am hoping that I will at least keep some of the credit for the inbound links from other websites. Has anyone ever done this? Did it work as you expected? Did the content hold its rankings after being moved? Any advice or philosophical opinions on this? Thank you!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EGOL2