Have we been penalised by Google?
-
Hello guys,
Looking for some help here hope someone will be able to point us to the right direction, we have been scratching our heads for months!
Basically our Google rankings and organic traffic from Google have dropped signficantly in the last 12 months. At one point we ranked as high as page 3 with the term "holiday lettings". Now we are on page 16, and sometimes not found at all... This has been the case for months now. Curiously, Bing and Yahoo have been much more generous to us, we have been and still consistently rank at No. 2 with the same term.
We are in the vacation rental industry - our website is www.alphaholidaylettings.com and most of the sites that rank above us are of much less relevancy, quality and authority. We just could not understand why we would rank so poorly on Google (both US and UK). Organic traffic has also dropped by more than 50% steadily in the last 12 months.
One thing we thought might have affected our site is the quality of content. Most content/listings on our site are user generated, and it is not uncommon for users to copy and paste details from an existing listing that they have on another site. Having said that, the same would apply to our competitors too. In this case, might Panda or Penguin have had any negative effects on our seo? We have been adding unique content to the site in the form of a blog and "Holiday Feature" articles.
Could the actual design/structure/coding of our pages contribute to our poor rankings too?
Any opinions or feedback is much appreciated!
Thanks guys,
Tom
-
Got you, thanks again Yiannis!
-
Hello Tom,
It is an advanced segment you can use in Google analytics which scans all the Ws keywords that brough traffic to your web site such as "how", "why", "what" etc....that way you can see questions people ask on the internet and capitalise in content opportunities. You can then check which one of these posts converted (for example more than 3 visits and goal conversions from Google analytic) and again write further content.
To start with create advanced segments of the 5Ws, select january-Today 2013 in google analytics, go to organic traffic and keywords and apply the segment. There you go
I can not attach a picture here but your segment should be:
Include Keyword MatchinRegExp Who
Include Keyword MatchinRegExp Why
Include Keyword MatchinRegExp What
Include Keyword MatchinRegExp How
Include Keyword MatchinRegExp When
Include Keyword MatchinRegExp Where
Include Keyword MatchinRegExp Can(I know more than 5 but I like including how and can too :-))
-
Thanks a lot Yiannis, your reply is certainly very helpful and much appreciated. It gives us faith to continue with writing content. Just one quick question, when you mentioned "5 Ws keywords", what do you mean by that?
Cheers,
Tom
-
Yes tom thats correct.
The idea of a press release is that you use it to reach your audience and not for link building. The fact that someone found that press release and decided to post/link it to his blog is totally ethical and you pretty much earned that link due to the "quality content" strategy you decided to implement.
In regards to your original query I jsut did a quick back link profile check on your web site and the term you mention is at 8% of your total link building profile. I checked the domains and they are mainly article directories and link submission web sites. While I understand this is a necessary evil I highly doubt you will rank for such a high profitable and competitive keywords "holiday lettings" by jsut doing that, you will need high authority web sites to link to your content. If you ask me my advise would be to carry on writing quality content, use contexual keywords along with your targeted keyword and things will pick up naturally. For example you must have data from your clients as to how your special works on particular seasons or top countries brining traffic, or high referal sites..You could maybe do a white paper based on this report. use google analytics not for keywords but to drug out intelligence data. 5 Ws keywords that generated good traffic or page depth visits is one example. See which content works best and capitilise on that
Hope I helped a bit!
-
Hi Yiannis,
Thanks for your reply. As far as I know, the links in our press releases are nofollow. I was told that by releasing quality content press releases via sites such as PR Web, it would have a positive impact on our seo. But if the links are nofollow, is it a practice worth pursueing?
I have also noticed that when the releases were picked up by other online outlets, the links have in some cases become "follow". I guess this is a good thing?
Tom
-
please make sure that the links in your press releases are Nofollow as google recently stated that the links on all PR sites should NOT pass any link juice. Check with your agency!
-
Hello,
Thank you for your reply. We are not flagged in Webmaster Tools as having any manual actions placed against the site, really lost as to what is causing the issues.
We are not currently doing any link-building, but have started doing some press release marketing. Not sure how much this would help I guess it will tell in time.
-
Hi,
I'd go into Webmaster tools for the affected site & see if you have any alerts in there. Also I think the quality of the customer content may be as you suspect an issue.
But your still listed so Is suspect you have not been google whacked just merely pushed down by better contnet. You may think about sourcing a cintnet strategist & give up on waiste of time activities like link building ( Not to assume you do this)
Dont worry with a bit of top contnet in there you climb back up!
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
-
Is there a way to apply the same google analytics filter to multiple properties?
I manage WordPress multiple sites for my clients. Some of these clients are SEO customers. One issue I have with the analytics reports is the occurrence of spam and ghost spam. I know how to create filters to block however there are always more and more. Is there away to export the filter and import it to all the other properties i manage? Or do they just have to be done manually every time i need to block spam?
Reporting & Analytics | | donsilvernail1 -
Testing IP Exclusion Filters in Google Analytics
(I hope I haven't missed something simple 😉 I have add IP exclusion filters in Google Analytics. What I haven't been able to determine is how to test to see if it is working. I'd imagine there would be a dip in traffic but if a site is low volume it might not even register. Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | AUDigitalMarketing0 -
Major practices which helps to index pages by google.
Actually, We have submitted more than 100 pages in to google through xml sitemap. But, we see in that 75% of the pages where indexed by google. Note : Excluding the duplicate pages
Reporting & Analytics | | Webworld_Norway0 -
Google Analytics Goals are not recording
Hello! I've set up Goals within Google Analytics and they aren't registering. I'm wondering if someone can review what I've set up to see if I've entered something wrong. I'm trying to track enrollments. Here's the site info: Enroll URL: http://www.careplusdentalplans.com/individuals/enroll-careplus/ Upon completion, the user goes to a Thank You page and our CMS generates a trailing URL parameter. For example: http://www.careplusdentalplans.com/index.php/individuals/enroll-careplus-thank-you/#123456789 My Goal info in GA: Goal URL: /individuals/enroll-careplus-thank-you/
Reporting & Analytics | | SmileMoreSEO
Match Type: Head Match (to disregard trailing URL parameter)
Goal Funnel: Step 1: /individuals/enroll-careplus/ I'm curious if the problem lies in either: The URL: Notice how the URL adds /index.php/ on the thank you page. In that case, should I enter the full URL in the Goal instead of the truncated URL? The Funnel: Is it necessary to show the initial Enroll page or if I'll see that in the Flow Visualization regardless? Thanks in advance for helping me out. Erik0 -
Google Analytics Custom Filter
Hello, Quick question, when I create a custom filter on a profile that already has data collected will that filter apply to already collected data or will the filter only apply from the day it was created? Am doing a custom exclude IP filter. Much thanks,
Reporting & Analytics | | Unity
Davinia0 -
How can I verify if someone is Google Analytics certified?
I am looking to hire an IC to help with analytics. I need to know how I can verify if they are GA certified. They gave me a link to a http://www.starttest.com profile. Is that legit?
Reporting & Analytics | | inhouseseo0 -
Google Bot blocked
Google says that they are blocked from crawling my site. I have tried to get my web masters to look into this and they say the site apears fine. However, my SERP results have been falling and the errors are increasing. http://www.RealEstateMarketLeaders.com https://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2409441 I have sent an e mail into Google asking for help and I have been looking into every possible channel to find a solution for this problem. The site does have a 301 re direct pointing in from my old site http:///www.TriCitiesRealEstateAgent.com into my new site http://www.RealEstateMarketLeaders.com. However, I am not sure if that is the problem or if something else happend to make me see such a huge drop in SERP results.
Reporting & Analytics | | Brandon_Patton0 -
Disclaimer about using Google Analytic?
When using GA on my Website do I need to have a disclaimer that 'We are using Google Analtyic to Track information'?
Reporting & Analytics | | daracreative0