Lost 75% of my traffic on Oct 25, help appreciated
-
So I've been running coolquotescollection.com since 1997 (!) as a hobby project. I lost about 75% of my organic search traffic on the 25th of October, literally overnight. I've been doing a lot of research but I still don't know why I was penalized. Image attached.
I naturally thought this was because of Penguin (Oct 17, my drop was Oct 25). However, after checking backlinks I only discovered 11 domains with about 100-400 links each, the major ones were forum signatures and blog sidebars, 6 domains were spam sites / directories. They almost exclusively used the same anchor text (domain name or similar), so this doesn't seem like a black hat attack. Some of the directories used keywords in their urls however (like "funny quotes").
1. Is this really enough for such a heavy penalty?
I added these domains to be disavowed today, I'm aware this might take weeks or months to change.I've automated so that pictures gets uploaded to my Facebook page with a link to my page. This started in early 2014.
2. Can Facebook links be considered link spam?
They don't even show up in webmaster tools.
Example: https://www.facebook.com/CoolQuotesCollection/photos/a.510328825689624.1073741825.326096120779563/615403025182203/?type=1&theaterI analyzed keywords and the major ones dropped between 2 and 6 positions. Notable exception: I seem to still rank nr 1 for "cool movie quotes" even though page is not optimized for that keyword.
Moz warned about over 5000 pages with duplicate content. It was a single page that used a querystring url parameter I have excluded in webmaster tools. I have now entered a canonical link on these pages. Example:
http://coolquotescollection.com/Home/TShirts?url=http-url-example...
http://coolquotescollection.com/Home/TShirts?url=http-another-url.......
3. Could the Google algo penalize this even though I have excluded the "url" parameter?I have a lot of internal links in the page navigation. Can this cause problems? See the absolute bottom of this page where I have 94 links for example: http://coolquotescollection.com/laughs
4. Could a lot of internal links (navigation to page numbers) be the problem?Some more facts:
- Site is http://coolquotescollection.com/
- Domain is 14 years old.
- The web site launched in Sep 1997, a year before Google! (Not relevant but you might understand why this is important to me).
- I haven't done any SEO work for at least 12 months, probably closer to two years.
- The only SEO work I've done is to optimize the pages, no link building at all, no black hat stuff.
- I'm automatically building a sitemap that contains all pages, see here: http://coolquotescollection.com/robots.txt
- I've used webmaster tools for years, haven't gotten any warnings. I checked backlinks there, also here from moz and ahrefs.
I'm annoyed that a quality content site can be penalized so hard (75% drop) when there are no, or just smaller issues. I'm just lucky this is not my business site, if so I would have gone out of business.
Any help in this matter would be greatly appreciated!
-
Traffic decreased about the same on all pages. I was however surprised that the thin pages was 40% of all landing pages. This might actually be one explanation. It still doesn't explain the extremely sudden drop however, since I've read content-related algo hits are usually more gradual (over one or several weeks). I might be wrong however.
Stats:
75% decrease in traffic on thin quote pages (40% of all landing pages)
80% decrease in traffic on all other content rich pages (60% of all landing pages)My plan now is to hide (NOINDEX) the thin pages.(http://moz.com/community/q/noindexing-thin-content-pages-good-or-bad)
-
That's right. You might want to check your analytics. See if your traffic on those thin pages dropped. You might also want to check your indexed pages on webmaster tools to see if it dropped.
If you see signs in any of those, then you found your main problem.
That's the only thing I would work on right now actually. Edit them or redirect to meatier, relevant pages.
One thing I'm sure of is that this isn't Penguin as you never really did create any links to it
-
Yeah I've heard this as well. Some still seem to think Penguin only happened on the 17th of Oct, but I find that hard to believe.
I manually looked into all domains with more than 20 links to my site and disavowed all spam and low quality sites. Did you mean something else?
-
I assume you mean the detail pages with just a single quote on? Like http://coolquotescollection.com/1/
Do you think I would see improvements if I removed these pages completely? Or is there another solution I can try? -
I'd still look at the link profile as well. Penguin 3.0 is still rolling out http://searchengineland.com/google-penguin-3-0-rollout-still-ongoing-209886. Look into the profiles/content of the linking domains to rule you out being collateral damage as well.
-
There was an update during that final week of October but it wasnt widely reported on. I think it's even bigger than the panda/penguin that came before it. I still dont have a conclusion on what it was but looking at your site, I would think it could be about the content. The indexed pages are really thin, hence possibly being the cause for the big drop.
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
-
Am I hit by an update????? Please help
Hello. Is possible to have just a page or two penalized?? From 24th april ( around that date i heard was an update) two of my pages ( out of 37) do not rank for their main keywords but are indexed. Also, lately a lot of my pages drop out of top 100 and get back on their position. Any help? Am I in trouble? Anyone has the same problem?
Algorithm Updates | | Ag96adc0 -
Traffic, CTR AND AdSense eCPM Down ... Keyword Rankings Unchanged
Since the last week in March, one of our sites with ~ 1 million high quality page-views per month has had a 25% drop in traffic, CTR drop from 4% to 3%, and AdSense eCPM has dropped from $8 to $5 ... however, all of our keyword rankings have remained unchanged. Also, it is an extremely consistent niche with no drop in relevant searches ... The only thing that we KNOW for sure has changed is the removal of the separator and indentation from the Google search ads to our #1 ranking positions. Could such a simple alteration in the Google search results UI have such a significant impact on our numbers? Is anyone else experiencing a similar revenue drop without a rankings drop in the past two weeks? Besides punching up the titles to make our search results more appealing to users, is there really anything that can be done about Googles new paid results placement? Your thoughts and suggestions are invited. Thanks guys and gals 😉
Algorithm Updates | | Humanovation0 -
A web audit for web traffic? Need answers please..
Hi, We are a PR agency based in Dubai and we produce a lot of web content. The website is build on ruby on rails and we have implemented keywords and SEO strategies but sadly the traffic pattern has not changed since the past three years. What surprised us today that we created a page 2-3 days ago for a client who is participating in Arab Health (a very prestigious healthcare event) and suddenly our page comes on top 3 on google.ae as well as google.com We are kind of convinced that there is something wrong with our code.. Do you think this could be a possibility? and the lack of change in the traffic pattern might not be an SEO issue but a code issue? What could be the possible reasons for this pattern? In such a scenario what would experts like you recommend we do? Do a SEO Audit? Web audit? code audit? hire a seo/ web / code consultant? Thanks - helpful answers are really appreciated and just btw if anyone feels they could professionally help us out of this mess, we are willing to work with him/her. Thanks in advance
Algorithm Updates | | LaythDajani0 -
Significant drop in traffic
Hi there, We run 3 websites in a similar niche (bins) but tend to have a different area of focus on each site, wheelie, recycling and general litter. They all have unique descriptions, images etc (as much as possible) One of our sites has been a long standing penalty sufferer and we still dont want to give up on it. They are all located on unique IP's but on the same server with the same owner in whois. My question is could our site that has struggled with a penalty in the past be effecting our other sites which havent had problems? I know google likes to see brands and we do regular content, social media etc on all the sites, The drop came today and appears across all our sites. The main site that had the penalty usually gets around 50 visits a day from search, so far today it has had 10 and that is most of the working day now gone. I hope someone can shed a little light on the issues we are facing Thank you Jon
Algorithm Updates | | imrubbish0 -
Our company is mentioned on some high-traffic, authoritative sites and some of our products are linked as well. If we link to those pages, does it affect our SEO? How can we take advantage of those mentions?
I heard that if you link to another site, when Google indexes your site, they crawl that page that is referenced. By whatever metrics they use, if that site has your name or a link to your site, Google would rank it higher. I am not sure how true that is, but what value does another site mentioned our site have on our SEO?
Algorithm Updates | | JonathonOhayon1 -
Old Site But No Traffic - Can Anyone Tell Reason ?
Hi , Can anyone please tell me why this site http://www.travelscience.com is not getting any traffic? Its 13 years old domain having 2340 indexed pages and Its Alexa rank is 6186158 Can anyone please identity the problems with it. I found it from Google doing the keyword research on the Travel topics. I am curious to know the potential problem with this site. Thanks in advance for your time. Regards
Algorithm Updates | | kywebsol0 -
Can anyone help me to understand why specific key words are no longer searchable on Google
I’m not sure where to start so please bear with me. I apologize now for the length of this question.Like so many others that I have read about over the past few weeks I lost my presence on Google search results beginning on April 24th. My website iswww.getyourphotosoncanvas.com .I have spent the past few weeks trying to figure out what the problem is and have read and participated in many forums and have read and re-read Google Webmasters Help and anything else I could to try and resolve this problem. I have submitted my website for reconsideration by Google twice and have gotten the following message: Reconsideration request forhttp://www.getyourphotosoncanvas.com/ : No manual spam actions foundMay 23, 2012Dear site owner or webmaster ofhttp://www.getyourphotosoncanvas.com/ , We received a request from a site owner to reconsider http://www.getyourphotosoncanvas.com/ for compliance with Google's Webmaster Guidelines. We reviewed your site and found no manual actions by the webspam team that might affect your site's ranking in Google. There's no need to file a reconsideration request for your site, because any ranking issues you may be experiencing are not related to a manual action taken by the webspam team. Of course, there may be other issues with your site that affect your site's ranking. Google's computers determine the order of our search results using a series of formulas known as algorithms. We make hundreds of changes to our search algorithms each year, and we employ more than 200 different signals when ranking pages. As our algorithms change and as the web (including your site) changes, some fluctuation in ranking can happen as we make updates to present the best results to our users. If you've experienced a change in ranking which you suspect may be more than a simple algorithm change, there are other things you may want to investigate as possible causes, such as a major change to your site's content, content management system, or server architecture. For example, a site may not rank well if your server stops serving pages to Googlebot, or if you've changed the URLs for a large portion of your site's pages. This article has a list of other potential reasons your site may not be doing well in search.I read this carefully and have tried to address all aspects of the message. I am not a SEO or website expert and have been learning along the way.First, we did not just loose ranking on Google, we went away from the top 100 on all key phrases searched including specific page titles that all rank #1 on Yahoo and Bing. Example: "Free Digital Proofs Photos on Canvas". This search returns our Like Us on Facebook page #5 and our webpage Free Digital Proofs is not listed in the top 100?Like Get Your Photos on Canvas on Facebookwww.getyourphotosoncanvas.com/like-us-on-facebook/UPLOAD YOUR PHOTOS TODAY! WE PROVIDE FREE DIGITAL PROOFING OF YOUR PHOTO CANVAS BEFORE WE PRINT! Customer Favorite Example... Basically get back what they think you want and not necessarily what you had in mind.The description text above is taken from the sidebar that is on all pages of our website and not from the title and description meta tags._Page Title: Like Get Your Photos on Canvas on FacebookPage Description:_Like Us on Facebook and keep in touch with Special Offers and information about Get Your Photos on Canvas!This page also shows up for other title page searches? It’s like Google is all confused?Sorry this is long, if you are still with me; Thank You for hanging in there!I have followed all of Google’s Rules, I’m not perfect but not bad either:I have not participated in link buying or building schemes, I have not used hidden text or Keyword stuffing, I use rel=canonical tags, I use noindex, nofollow on pages such as privacy policy, terms of use, and order confirmation pages, and blog comments.I have not considered a server problem with Gooblebot but maybe? The server seems to work fine for Yahoo, Bing, Ask and SEOmoz.I did change a significant number of page urls in January when we rebuilt the website and changed to a new WP format and Bluehost. That didn’t seem to effect Yahoo, Bing or even Google before April 24<sup>th?</sup>Using the tools at SEOmoz the website has no Errors, had a few warnings, fixed and in all looks OK.The On Page grade for "Free Digital Proofs Photos on Canvas" is "A" Here is an interesting test:Search: Gallery Wrap vs Museum Wrap (we show up as number #2 on Google)Search: Gallery Wrap vs Museum Wrap Canvas (we are not in top 100 on Google)Search: Gallery Wrap vs Museum Wrap Photos (we are not in top 100 on Google)Gallery Wrap vs Museum Wrap Photos on Canvas www.getyourphotosoncanvas.com/gallery-wraps-vs-museum-wraps/****Gallery Wrap vs Museum Wrap, two options for your Photo on Canvas Prints. Find out the difference between Photo Canvas Gallery Wrap vs Museum Wrap.**I have considered the possibility that Google may see us as keyword stuffing. Our url has photos and canvas, our website title is "Get Your Photos on Canvas" and in our content we talk about "Canvas" allot, how can you not? We have used Picture and Photographs in content to reduce the number of uses of Photos. The content was not written for stuffing it is well written and reads well. I can’t think of substitutes for "Canvas" it is what it is.
Algorithm Updates | | rdominey
My Question is simple, Can anyone HELP?
What else can I do to try and find and fix the problem**0 -
Lost 50% google traffic in one day - panic?
Hi girls + guys, a site of us were hit by a google update or a google penalty. We have lost 50% google traffic in one day (25th april, 2012). (Total visitors in average per day: 6k, yesterday: 3k) It's a german website, so I think google.de (germany) was updated. Our rankings in google.at (austria) are also affected, but it's not that bad as in google.de. We have not done any specific on page seo activities in the last two months. GWT doesn't have any message for us (no critical errors). After my first analyse I can say this: google has indexed 17k pages (thats fine) we are on 1st place with our domain name the last three days, the google traffic went up (+20%), but yesterday it was 50% below average (so -70%) last week we had a very good day, we had twice the traffic than normal, but this calmed down the following days we have lost number no. 1 places at two high traffic keywords. We had these no 1 rankings for years. We have been outranked by two of our competitors, but they have not done any onpage changes. We have lost a lot of positions at a lot of keywords. But there are also keywords which moved up. We have good content, useres are visiting 5 pages in average. No virus, no hacker (no hidden cloaking page) it's an old domain (2002) Lot of (good) inbound links Lot's of likes, g+. Good twitter activty. So, all in all I think it's more likely a ranking algo change than a penalty (a penalty for what reason?) My specific question(s): Is there any "check list" which could help me to find out the reason for this mess? What is the best strategy to regain the positions? New HTML code? New On page seo? (seomoz grades most of our important pages an A) Any idea would be appreciated! Best wishes,
Algorithm Updates | | GeorgFranz
Georg.1