Hit by Panda 4.1 and it couldn't be more wrong!
-
Hi,
I'm scratching my head with this one, I have a website with around 40 pages of unique content produced by a professional copywriter who works magazines and PR agencies - each page has around 750/1000 words - according to Google the reading age is intermediate as you would expect from a good copywriter, I have anchor points jumping around the page to information the user shows an interest in - this happens I have video recording and heat maps.
I also receive 100s and on some pages 1000s of social shares from Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and G+. I wanted to build a site the way Google wants you to so I have done no link build at all, everything focused onsite so I just spent the last 2 months making the whole site responsive for mobile and tablet devices - I also spent time getting the load time down and 'was' in the process of hooking into a CDN for extra performance.
Ive done everything I can to make the site just good and its reflected in the social sharing and natural links from sites such as huffington post.
On the 23rd my sites rankings which were solid for over 2 years have crashed, but what's worse is ive been dropped and replaced with sites using the same tactics as the Payday Loan industry, and it seems great favouritism has been given to sites containing Adsense - I can see ranking one page sites with less than 300 words content and 3/4 ad units above the fold and sites which have taken chunks of content off Wikipedia and rank.
Thumbs up Google, great job.
-
Thanks for letting me know others are experiencing the same. If I find anything interesting I will be sure to let you know on this thread - Likewise if you notice anything interesting would be appreciated if you could come back and share also.
-
Hi there, I know that I can't help but just wanted to let you know that we are in a similar situation. We have an e-commerce site (so slightly different) but we have no dodgy back links, have been as clean as possible and each and every description we write is original. We have a lot of content and none of it is duplicated anywhere on web.
On Sep 23 we dropped from #1 or #2 down to page 2. Yet in our place are some sites with copied content. The top 2 spots seem to have gone to newer sites which do have original descriptions which has me wondering if we should be changing our product descriptions on a regular basis (any ideas?)
One last note if this is also about customer behaviour we have pretty good interaction, a lowish bounce rate and good engagement for a retail site.
So like you I am at a loss to see why we have been penalised by an change which is supposed to help small sites with original content and good engagement!
-
Hi JVRudnick,
No worries, see the above post and thanks for showing an interest in my problem/discussion.
-
No worries,
I can share here for you to look at and to help others who may also be interested (or disagree).
So the domain is Followuk.co.uk and seems the whole site has taken a hit but to make this more targeted im looking at the page Followuk.co.uk/bank-holidays - and the target term for this page is -> Bank Holidays 2015 in Google UK and although this may seem a small term this term and its variations receive millions of queries a month.
I could except the drop if it was related to the link profile as currently a little weak but according to my analytic's traffic dropped on the 23rd (inline with the panda rollout) which targets thin/low quality sites if im correct.
Now where it becomes interesting is im not complaining about not being higher up, but the fact I WAS on page 1 and had been for over 2 years, on the 23rd the page was demoted to page 6/7 while thin/low quality sites have been given higher positions or stayed neutral.
In this case the Panda update looks to be doing more damage then good for example take the second result - http://www.year-planner-calendar.wanadoo.co.uk/2015-public-holidays-bank-holidays-bank-holiday-dates.htm
Surely this comes under the types of sites Panda is looking to target -> thin, low quality, advertising heavy, spammy etc - BUT Google's algo thinks this is the second most relevant 'quality' site it should show to it's millions of users querying those terms and its not the only site like that in the top 10.
And I just want to say I dont think I should be number 1 or 2, 3 because there are better sites which deserve those positions but do I think I should be in the top 10... Yes.
I would love to know if Google thought the above was the right thing for the algo to do because to me looking at it as if I was an outsider (which I try) this is a straight out.
Fail.
-
LIke iQ above, yes, I'd like to see the URL too...if you'd PM me too I'll take a look/see and get back to you as well...
Jim
-
Do you fancy PM'ing me details of your site & search terms for me to take a look? I would be interested to see cases like this.
-Andy
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 do I hide comment reply's from google? Do I need to?
Reason for asking is Moz reports them as URL too long. Should these even be indexed by google if not, how do I hide them? Example URL : https://www.tansleyphotography.co.uk/farnham-castle-wedding-claire-chris/?reply-to=1876 This really doesn't need indexing, as it's just a comment on a blog post. Does it matter?
On-Page Optimization | | paultansley1 -
I still don't understand how rel=canonical works. Help?
So here's the deal. I write for many different outlets. I also have many different pages on my blog that have duplicates (authorized, of course). On my blog, I have many different pages that redirect to "the original" content. I've only recently discovered the existence of rel=canonical. However I don't understand how it works. I have very specific questions. Can anyone help? If, on my blog, I have a blog post that's the original. And another website has the same content, used with authorization. If I want to tell search engines that the original content is on MY blog, what can I do? Is the only solution to ask the owner of the other blog to add a rel=canonical in the header of the specific post? If, on my blog, I have a blog post that's NOT the original. Do I simply add rel=canonical to the header, then add a link to the original in the body? If, on my blog, I have THE FIRST 300 WORDS of a blog post, then add a link saying "to read the whole article, click here" with a link pointing to the original, do I need to have a rel=canonical tag somewhere? Does it HAVE to be in the header? Can rel=canonical be used in the - What penalties are included with having duplicate content of my work everywhere on the web? I've been trying to find specifics, but can't. Thanks for the help. I'm quite confused, as you can see.
On-Page Optimization | | cedriklizotte0 -
Can't figure why ranking dropped after SEO improved.
I took a website that never had any keyword research performed, meta data filled in or anything strategic regarding getting ranked on the search engines. We rebuilt the website from an old Dreamweaver install using Wordpress, did keyword research, optimized one page per keyword term, filled in all the appropriate meta data and alt tags. The site has dropped in rankings and I've been working for the past 3 months to attempt to raise it up. Can you see what I am doing wrong? (This is the client site: http://www.atozqualityfencing.com).
On-Page Optimization | | JanetJ0 -
How to rank well on 2 keywords - 2 separate pages or 1 combined page
Hi, I have a website about allergy. We ar developing new content, and through keyword research I have discovered that "dog allergy" and "cat allergy" are both very common searches. However, the cause, and symtoms are very alike for these 2 types of allergy so it would make sense to combine the two allergies on one page. So my question is: What do I choose to increase my chances to ranke the best I can for both "cat allergy", and "dog allergy"? Should I develop 2 separate pages for cat & dog allergy or should I do a combined page? (We would of course review the texts so no duplicate content/text would be used if we chose to have 2 pages) I would be so greatful for your advice!! Kind regards, Jeanette
On-Page Optimization | | Mylan-GDM0 -
Hit by Panda - Google Disavow Help
Hi I hope you can help me A Website I manage has been hit hard by the Panda Update. I am really struggling to understand what is seen as a Spammy link. The Website use to be on page 1 for "fancy dress" now it isnt visable for that term at all and most other terms the site has dropped for. I have looked into what might have gone wrong and have removed several links , used the disavow tool 2-3 times and submitted re-consideration requests, but each time google informs me that they are still detecting unnatural links. Could somebody please take a look at our link profile www.partydomain.co.uk for "fancy dress" as an example and show examples of links you would consider that google might not like. It would also be good if anybody had any contacts in the UK that could help thanks Adam
On-Page Optimization | | AMG1000 -
Website redesign and it's impact on ranking
Hey Everyone, I have had a website in place for over 7 years and I am now at the point where I need to implement a redesign in order to sell our product more effectively. -URL's will stay the same
On-Page Optimization | | Justin45
-Content will change but be very similar page-to-page
-Title & Meta tags will remain the same I'm planning on taking the site from a non-backend site to a wordpress site so the navigation will change. Does anyone foresee that this change will have any dramatic effect on site ranking? Thank You!0 -
Im being graded an F but im number 1
im an f grade for one of my urls but im ranked number 1 for the keyword im chasing, this doesnt make sense??
On-Page Optimization | | swimby0 -
How do you avoid getting hit for too many links with an ecommerce site?
On my campaign for www.fourcolormagnets.com one of my warnings was "too many on-page links". Is there any thing to do for ecommerce sites? and also, my page www.fourcolormagnets.com/rectangle-sizes.php is listed as having 744 links but, I count nowhere near that number. And idea where this comes from?
On-Page Optimization | | JHSpecialty0