Payday Loan or Panda? Any thoughts?
-
So this is a very old problem, but I'm finally getting around to trying to figure it out. My site experienced a dramatic organic traffic drop from Google (-40%) on May 17th 2014. It then drops another 30% on May 19th 2014. See graphs. According to Moz these two dates correlate with Payday Loan 2.0 and Panda 4.0.
Panda makes complete sense, as this site (www.ausedcar.com) has a large amount of content that is syndicated across other sites (used car inventory is essentially the same everywhere on the Internet). Payday Loan on the other hand, which seems to be the primary traffic drop doesn't make any sense at all. Is it possible I started getting hit by Panda on the 17th and then it completed on the 19th? I know the dates for algorithm changes are not perfect.
Next, assuming it is Panda, what are some things you guys have done to help with this? As I mentioned this content is duplicated all over the Internet, so it seems like Google arbitrarily picks winners and losers (my site is twenty years old!). I know I need unique content, but not sure how exactly to do that besides rewriting words so it doesn't appear duplicate.
-
Oh no!! So sorry to hear that Phil & sorry for the "loan" mix up. There are some great
There are some great disavow tools available. Here's a great resource to start: https://moz.com/blog/guide-to-googles-disavow-tool
Cleaning up those spammy backlinks will help a lot.
Best of luck!
-
Actually I just Googled backlink audit, and holy hell, what a find! Someone was definitely deliberately attacking me with negative SEO (looks like a bunch of hacked wordpress sites pointing at us with various keywords). Thank you for the idea!
-
Thank you Britney, just to be clear my site isn't about loans at all, it just showed a traffic drop when Google's "Pay Day Loan" algo went live.
-
Thank you for responding, what specifically would the back link audit entail, do you have a good resource that discusses this? Google hasn't marked me for any bad links, but the site has been around so long I'm sure some directories and things we were in back in the day which were considered white hat are now black hat etc...
-
Yes, definitely duplicate content could be your problem. I would also recommend you do a back link audit.
Also the main page content looks quite sparse (sorry, I know it property took you ages. But it's worthwhile beefing it out, if you've got a few minutes spare).
Strongly recommend you do a full site audit from the ground up and include both on and off page.
-
Hi Phil,
It would 100% be worth it to rewrite some of your content and add unique value adds (graphics, video, audio, etc.) to help round out the page, better fulfill your user intents and provide multiple consumption options for your visitors. Google also loves to see old pages updated and improved. It would also be interesting to test this out on one of your payday loan pages to see what kind of organic traffic you can gain back through some on-site content improvements.
It would be interesting to test this out on one of your payday loan pages to see what kind of organic traffic you can gain back through some on-site content improvements. Bonus points for tapping into key influencers in the loan space to try to get some natural link love that could go a long way in re-indexing your content.
Sidenote: I just did a ton of keyword research for an upcoming blog post on keyword research. Looked into "loans", there is huge opportunity for "loan calculator" content. --Lots of volume, low competition.
Hope this helps,
B
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
-
Do I have panda issues?
Hi , I m looking for suggestions for my website i believe is suffering from the panda updates. Can someone point out what possible issues within the site that might be causing with recent panda updates? here is the link http://goo.gl/St3aP thanks nick.
Technical SEO | | orion680 -
Rankings drop after Panda
Hi All, My site dropped completely out of the SERPS on September 27th. I've tried everything I know to do (re-wrote all content, disavow links tool, filed DCMA complaints, de-optimized on-page content, made anchor text less aggressive, etc). Can you all please take a look at www.doctorloanusa.com and let me know what you think the problem is and how much you'd charge to help? Keywords used to be: doctor loans, physician loans. I ranked 2 or 3 for those keywords consistently for over 4 years. I know I need more content, but I feel like it's a waste of time creating it. If a thin site was the issue, wouldn't I at least rank SOMEWHERE in the 1000 results? Thanks for your consideration. At my wits end.
Technical SEO | | Cary_Forest0 -
Link Indexing Thoughts
We have have several promotional Articles put out for a few client sites, (posted on sites - not article directories) That was in Sept, it looks like they have not yet been indexed - any ideas on best to get them indexed? Not just these, but a lot of external links indexed quickly -Google seem to be slowing getting to them (big web after all....)
Technical SEO | | OnlineAssetPartners0 -
Panda Victim still looking for recovery looking for help
I am an internet retailer hit by Panda and have made many changes to my site since first being hit on feb 2011. I had a slight recovery last september but have since slipped back again. I have scoured the internet for panda recoveries for internet retailers like me but I have not seen any. If anyone knows of recoveries of a site like mine (wackyplanet.com) -- we are on a yahoo store platform I would aappreciate any info as I am looking for an SEO who has experience with Panda as it relates to sites like mine.
Technical SEO | | bobforesi0 -
Thoughts about stub pages - 200 & noindex ok, or 404?
With large database/template driven websites it is often possible to get a lot of pages with no content on them. What are the current thoughts regarding these pages with no content, options; Return a 200 header code with noindex meta tag Return a 404 page & header code Something else? Thanks
Technical SEO | | slingshot0 -
How to publish duplicate content legitimately without Panda problems
Let's imagine that you own a successful website that publishes a lot of syndicated news articles and syndicated columnists. Your visitors love these articles and columns but the search engines see them as duplicate content. You worry about being viewed as a "content farm" because of this duplicate content and getting the Panda penalty. So, you decide to continue publishing the content and use... <meta name="robots" content="noindex, follow"> This allows you do display the content for your visitors but it should stop the search engines from indexing any pages with this code. It should also allow robots to spider the pages and pass link value through them. I have two questions..... If you use "noindex" will that be enough to prevent your site from being considered as a content farm? Is there a better way to continue publication of syndicated content but protect the site from duplicate content problems?
Technical SEO | | EGOL0 -
Have I been mauled by the Panda?
I mentioned my problem a few nights ago, but since then I think I may have found my problem. I have a site that was never really promoted to any great level, but for the main keywords I could find it in serps with out clicking though too many pages. I came up first for the company name in both Bing or Google. Recently I finally decided to promote it and did a bit of a ranking check. First I still come up first for my company name in Bing, but in Google I come up 900+ out of 1000, virtually last. For my main keyword, the title of my site and optimized well for, I come up last, absolutely last. For long tail terms from my home page where I am the only site in the world to have the exact term, I come first in Bing, and absolutely last in Google. I don’t do black hat, but I thought I must be flagged by Google and I asked for reconsideration, they replied that no manual actions had been taken again the site, and referred me to the usual Google guidelines. It was very frustrating, I then had a thought, I had a long forgotten sub domain that had a load of duplicate content, it was a load of Microsoft documentation and other dev stuff from other sources, rss feeds and the like. Nothing sinister, but duplicate all the same. I am now thinking that this maybe my problem. I have 410’ed the whole sub domain as the site has not been maintained for some time anyhow. Does anybody know of simular, sub domain causing loss of ranking for root domain
Technical SEO | | AlanMosley0 -
Panda 2.2 Full Recovery In Action
I have had several new clients come to me after Panda and Panda 2. Lots of audits. The client who had the worst problems, and has since corrected the worst issues based on my audit just bounced back in an epic way, and while it could be a short-term thing, I don't believe that's the case - it's just too big of a jump back - full recovery. I'm curious to find out if anyone sees a similar recovery on your sites. FYI the biggest problems (most of which have been resolved now) include: Content organization - it was a mess of a site Extreme over-use of ads on the page and in the content Topical focus - there was so much going on across every page of the site that confused Google Major site speed issues 5ewacr
Technical SEO | | AlanBleiweiss1