Created the content, yet we don't rank for it. Toxic website?

[purpleindigo]

Hey everyone,

I'm beginning to think our site is toxic i.e. it'll never rank properly again irrespective of what we do.

I recently published some data (2 months ago) in an interactive visual called the "iPhone 5S Price Index". I outreached and got thousands of links from sites including Forbes, Gizmodo (various international versions), Washington Post, The Guardian, NY Times, etc etc. All of these results dominate the Google rankings, all with links pointing to us. YET, we're no where to be seen. What incentive are Google giving content creators, like me, to continue producing content that is obviously popular if we can't even rank for it?

The traffic we received was fantastic. In one day the traffic was 40 times our average, which made me smile like a Cheshire Cat from ear-to-ear but we need to improve our rankings overall otherwise the value to us is lost. The traffic wasn't there to buy our service, they were there to see the graphic. Hopefully our brand exposure leads to future sales, but it's a pittance compared to our previous rankings income.

I've had this type of success 3 times in the last few months on this site alone. Yet nothing changes. We suffered from a loss of rankings in September 2012, fighting ever since to get it back. Now I'm losing hope it is even possible.

Does anyone know why our site wouldn't rank when we're undeniable the source that created the work? Also, why wouldn't the increase in domain authority (which has jumped about 10 points according to OSE) have a knock on effect for the rest of our keywords - or even let us appear within the top 100 for ones we obviously serve?

We do Real Company Shit - and we're good at it. But I need these rankings back. It's driving me nuts.

Thanks.

[Cyrus-Shepard]

For now, I will have to stick to my over-optimization theory, in part because I have seen it too many times and have nothing else to go on short of a full audit. Even natural links can cause it. It is not fair, to an extent, but it happens a lot.

[purpleindigo]

Hey Cyrus,

That's really interesting - thanks.

I'd ruled out Penguin as our penalty because originally we lost traffic on September 29th 2012 - Panda 20/EMD date. However, we at least now rank for some keywords, suggesting Panda is no longer a problem. We also have a fantastic, naturally built backlink profile (www.mobileunlocked.com if you're interested in looking) and aren't aware of any dodgy links, but have looked into it nonetheless. OSE hasn't shown up anything obvious and Webmaster Tools doesn't show any sites linking to a variety of our pages that could be a problem.

The biggest question marks I can see are some sites linking to our iPhone 5S Price Index over 1,000 times but I'd assume this is natural when content like this goes viral. Our page for it has now moved up to 9th in the rankings, but it really should be first and not taking this long to resolve (3 months since we published).

Do you know what other potential causes of a keyword penalty?

[Cyrus-Shepard]

Sorry for my late reply... just saw this and trying to catch up.

Yes, I have seen very specific keyword filters/penalties applied. Often is caused by over-optimization of inbound anchor text. Think of some site linking to you somewhere with "phone" in the anchor text located in a sidebar or footer, and linking 1000s of times.

This can either be a normal over-optimization filter or part of a Penguin hit. Either way, the solution is to either remove/de-optimize backlinks, or de-optimize your site. (like, remove sitewide or footer links with the word "phone" in them)

These can be tough problems to diagnose and root out. Hope you get to the bottom of it.

[purpleindigo]

Hi Cyrus,

Yes - we quickly identified that it was the same date as the Panda 20/EMD update.

I've posted on here several times before in relation to it but it has always appeared that what we were doing was a good thing to try. Out of a working relationship on another site, I've also got a good relationship with some of the people at SEO Gadget and have often ran ideas past them.

Being an eCommerce site, we had a large number of pages with snippets of duplicated content (in our industry the product, which is phone unlocking, doesn't change - only the phone that is being unlocked). That meant that for very old phones or ones that weren't really important, there was no point creating content (we do an under H1 paragraph, offer unique instructions, provide a video of us unlocking, etc) for it so we'd include the delivery time and other important information a customer would need, which was the same or similar on a lot of pages, but importantly necessary.

When Panda 20 hit we had around 10,000 pages noindexed and only indexed those that we had created unique content for. This was on a .co.uk version of the site. After a year of not ranking, we then had to buy and move to a .com version, without redirecting the old site as we didn't want to take the "penalty" with us. We changed a handful of important links and took the design (which we always A/B test on) with us but essentially started anew.

We've tried blocking the bots altogether from visiting the pages we knew shouldn't rank and are now trying an old method of ours, which inclues a # in the URL for the vast majority of pages. We've left only a handful of phones with a full URL to see if they rank but no luck so far.

The thing that really miffs me is that the "iPhone 5S Price Index" page we've created ranks number 1 in Bing and doesn't exist to Google. Yet all of the results link to us. We also rank 5th for one of the keywords we use to, which shows we don't have a complete penalty on us.

Have you, or anyone, ever seen this before? It really makes no sense that we rank for "unlock mobile" but as soon as you add "phone", we again don't exist.

BTW - we did do an audit just before Christmas, a few changes here and there but nothing major. I honestly believe this is one of the most advanced penalties an SEO can work on.

Thanks.

[Cyrus-Shepard]

There were several Panda updates around September 2012 that may have impacted your site: http://moz.com/google-algorithm-change#2012

Many times, when you are hit with an algorithmic penalty this is exactly what it feels like - you get a burst of new links and traffic, and everything feels like it's going to be okay, and then traffic drops back to depressed levels once again. I've been there many times where it feels like you're banging your head against a wall.

My best advice would be to take a serious look at both your site by doing a full audit both on-site and off-site, and take another serious look at your backlink profile. If I had to take a stab in the dark, I'd guess your looking at a lingering Panda problem. This would actually be good news, as these are often correctable.

Keep us updated and let us know how it goes!

[Asjad]

Hey Buddy,

I can feel your pain and can totally understand it.

But Few Important Internet Marketing things of 2014 is DO NOT Relay on Google Alone..

as You said You writing awesome Content and People are loving it.

Ask your visitors to Share your Posts on their Social Profiles. create an Email capture form Where You can send your new Posts to the People.

Build Social ; forums  Presence ; Interact with Related people. help them with your answers and make long term loyal Readers.

Thanks