Panda and Penquin Fall - Could HTML Design an Issue?
-
Hi,
We were hit hard by Panda 3.4 on March 23rd 2012. Then Penguin came along and slapped us down a little farther on April 24th. White hat SEO for 13 years on the site.
I have been trying to discover the reason we got hit so hard, to date 90% down. We ae wiped. I have a couple of keywords still #2 and #3 and we see up and down changes in Google webmaster tools, i.e. a keyword is supposedly up 50 points then another down 50. All other 150 keywords that we used to rank on the first page for are not even showing up.
I have a person that is about to do a full link analysis but since we never went after links I just never had the feeling that is where our problem is at, but definitely going to explore it.
The reason for my post is that last night I spoke with an SEO person that has some pretty good credentials (9 years experience and works currently at large online marketing company with seo with clients like Honda) and he was nice enough to just take a quick look at the site.
He said he saw nothing really wrong and did not think that we were hit for any of the normal issues people are listing, i.e. duplicate content, backlinks. His first impression was that we were knocked down because the site is "hard to index". He said the site still uses tables and a lot of our Doc Statements were for HTML 4.01 from 1999.
As we all know, there are 'many' experts in this industry. So I wanted a little feedback from the community.
Our main site was built in Dreamweaver using tables. We do have a Wordpress blog that is very small and just now posting to add fresh content. (posts seem to rank pretty good, this is why I thought, you know he may be right)
Would an older site be penalized like this for using tables?
What would you do at this stage if you had a site that is not recovering? I have now reached panic mode and have to do something, just not sure of the next step.
I will be happy to post the URL if anyone wants to help with advice.
Thanks,
Force7 -
Thanks for the comments Cyrus, I think your post is making me rethink my strategy
I guess I am just tyring to fix the wrong items, I was focusing on other areas because I never really went after backlinks to any degree so I thought how in the world could I be demoted for links.
We have a small online directory where we offered backlinks but we only allowed links that really was a benefit for our customers. Mostly translators who did a service we did not offer.
I think where we got in trouble is we had it set up with a sample link with a keyword in it so they would put a link to us in hopes we would exchange but they were never accepted but they did not remove the link to us.
Our directory only has 65 links after panda/penquin, we had 100 before.
Again thanks, I will focus on the backlinks more now.
Never thought we would be hit by negative seo :-(. So much for doing White Hat all these years.
Force7
-
Sorry to hear you got hit by both Panda and Penguin - were there particular keywords that got hit harder than others?
Looking at your backlink profile...http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/links?site=www.translationsoftware4u.com%2F
... I see a number of high quality links. Unfortunately, I also see a huge number of low-quality directory links. For example (I purposely didn't include hyperlinks)
- http://www.premiumsites.org/business/business_services/
- http://www.link-city.com/reciprocal_links/Education.htm
Many of these appear to have been de-indexed in the past few months. I might look for a message in Google Webmaster about unnatural linking activity.
Directory links like these were completely natural a short time ago, but Google has been particularly harsh on them lately, along with article distribution sites, which also make up a significant portion of your backlink profile.
If you can:
- Try to clean up as many of these types of links as possible
- Document everything
- Submit a reconsideration request with Google
- Wait for their response.
Once you submit a reconsideration request, Google should be a little more specific (although not much) about what they would like you to address. In the meantime, continue to build high quality, authoritative editorial links that your competitors can't match.
Hope this helps, best of luck with your SEO!
-
We did not receive anyGoogle messages. We did have some blog duplicates where tags created extra copies but those pages still ranked after the Panda/Penquin strikes. Seems it liket he Wordpress area where we have a very small attached blog.
-
many websites got penalized for small duplicated content paragraph , fix all duplicate content and the website will be back , however if you receive any webmaster tools messages , chances that your website will ever recovery are very small. Google just did a wrong step, his search quality is much lower now , I started to use bing more times per day because google is not able to provide me the best results , they block to many websites to be able to show best results.
-
Check webmaster tools again today , it seams that many messages are just sanded today from google.
-
I did check manually more sentences from your content
probable are more problems like this , you can check for this more
-
Oh, how did you find that so quick? I do see a site where it looks like even though they backlinked they 'scraped' sentences from many different websites to create one page. This is the type of backlink that concerns me, we never ask them for a link, so seems a site like that would be considered unfavorable.
-
I can easily reduce these.
-
I did notice some duplicate content
this also can be a problem
search on google for
"I bought your European language pack and I'm pleasantly surprised to see what your software can do. I'm an interpreter who speaks 4 languages fluently. While a computer will never replace a human's interpretation and translation skills, it can certainly be a great aid. Of all the different kinds of software I have seen, yours is definitely the best!"
-
It seams that you have the same problem , I know that many people from here will not agree with me , but your generic anchor texts are missing , the generic anchor text are anchors like this : "click here" "read more" "check this out" "source" , I did make a lot of investigations over penalized websites and the single difference is this problem. I recommend you add about 30 generic backlinks, and your website will came back in about 3 weeks.
-
I usually keep an eye on this and we do not see any duplication.
Site is at www.TranslationSoftware4u.com
The video on the front is going to be replaced with a jquery slider, I have had people say that videos that automatically play are annoying.
Thanks so much for taking the time to comment!
-
Tables are ok , they will not create you problems , are you sure that your content is not stolen ? try to search some of you content on google using quotes "sentence here" and if you will see some other websites listed in front of your website than you know that you have "duplicate content penalty". If this is not the case you can write your URL here so more people will take a look.
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
-
Pageless/Single Page Design and Migration Questions
Hello, We are starting a content audit and migration to a new CMS. We would like to take content and present more on a pageless/Single Page type design instead of having visitors drill down so many levels to find the content. What should we be aware of from an SEO perspective. Here is Example of current pages and structure: http://www.saintpetershcs.com/GraduateMedicalEducation/PediatricResidency/
Web Design | | sphcs
Subpages include: Overview, Curriculum, Faculty, Residents, Benefits, How to APply Here is example of what we would like to do:
http://themeforest.net/item/medicalpress-health-and-medical-wordpress-theme/full_screen_preview/7789703 As you scroll information is populated: Duke Medicine also has something similar. https://www.dukemedicine.org/treatments/cancer What are your thoughts?0 -
Is it okay to design different mobile site for different browsers
Hi, Is it okay to design different mobile site for different browsers on same url. The content of the site will also be different on different browsers. Will it be treated as black hat by Google. The mobile site & desktop site has same url across devices & browsers. Regards
Web Design | | vivekrathore0 -
SEO Value to Improving HTML Code of Website That Validates According to W3C?
Greetings MOZ Community: My real estate website www.nyc-officespace-leader.com, originally designed in Drupal, was relaunched using Wordpress in 2013. The code for all URLs validates. The relaunch was performed by developers in Argentina. As part of an SEO campaign, I very reputable design/coding company in the has provided new wire frames to correct useability issues holding back conversions. In the course of the design adjustments they inspected the code and have told me that it is inefficient, that a number of shortcuts were taken and that the code does not conform to Wordpress best practices. What concerns me most is their claim that the quality of coding makes it more difficult for Google to index the site and this may be detrimental to ranking. Is it possible for the original developers to clean up this code if the deficiencies are pointed out to them? Or once coding shortcuts are taken are they impossible to fix? Would it make sense for me to request that the new design team put together a list of HTML deficiencies and provide to the original developers and ask them to correct? I am spending tens of thousands of dollars on content optimization, content marketing. It would be absurd if these coding issues would ultimately prevent improvement in ranking and traffic. At the same time, I hate to be a cynic but the domestic design/coding firm, while being very professional, does have an incentive in getting me to ditch the original design so I commit to an costly rebranding. If these issues are really minor maybe it is not worth making the effort to clean up the code (assuming that is even possible) and focus the budget on content marketing. Any thoughts?
Web Design | | Kingalan10 -
Quality Designer with Photography Skills? Any Firm recommendation?
Looking for freelancer or firm that can do the following? Any recommendation here? Graphic designer needed for a women apparel brand. Our business is mainly online and we are seeking designers to design graphics for each section of our website. (Homepage, category pages etc) I'd love to find someone who's very good not only at the graphic design of websites, but can provide design into the UI / UX of the actual tools & back-end dashboards. Thank you for considering this opportunity. Candidates who possess ALL three experiences are preferred. Graphic Design (Photoshop, Illustrator) Photography Clothing, Shoes, Bags or at the very MINIMUM female products or services experiences You are both a talented graphic designer AND possess female product (Clothing/shoes/bags) or services experiences. Job Description:
Web Design | | WayneRooney
We are looking for a talented Graphic Designer who will be responsible for creating compelling and innovative visual design solutions. We need good design and inspiring photography that looks inviting and signals quality for our website. You do not need to code CSS/HTML, you just need to provide us high end designs that will look as good as the design sample attached.
Here's what you need to know. Your responsibilities: Use bespoke homepage imagery and design to set a positive first impression of the site and convey its brand values. Great product photography is particularly important in visually-driven industries. Understand business and user requirements for each section of our websites (Shoes, Clothing etc) Translate requirements into highly engaging and compelling design concepts Effectively conceptualize, design and create high-quality visuals in a variety of formats Good design and inspiring photography is essential. Your qualifications: -Photoshop & Adobe Illustrator expert with a lot of experience in designing homepages, category pages and other pages of the site. Firm understanding of intelligent UX/UI Design Strong grasp of visual design principles, information design, typography, color, imagery and iconography Compelling portfolio that demonstrates elegant and innovative visual design Site that we think is awesome and example of graphics/photography design of our standard: Crateandbarrel.com Potterybarn.com llbean.com macys.com Anyone knows where to get quality designer which has the skills above? Thanks0 -
Website design chnage and massive traffic drop?
I changed my Drupal theme to "Bootstrap 3" and now my traffic is down 50% gradually in past 5 days, can this be theme related? Answers to checks below : 1). There were no redirects involved, I just flipped a switch and changed theme for my Drupal blog. 2). No issues reported by Google WMT except the fact that impressions fell, see stat images for comparison at - http://imgur.com/a/5PssH#0. 3). site:mysiteurl.com shows healthy "About 201,000 results". 4). Checked slow loading times and browser issue, nothing there. 5). It's not a seasonal drop. Pls. suggest what else should I focus upon to find the reason. @Prateek_Chandra where can I share my analytic report with you privately. I can also enable guest access to my account for you to have a look.
Web Design | | techdna11 -
Web Design Colors
Does anyone have any experience comparing the effectiveness of website colors? Does background color make any difference?
Web Design | | casper4340 -
Tips for Panda-Proofing an Image Gallery
I'm currently working on a website that has a video, image and media gallery with over 9,000 items. The gallery can be found here:
Web Design | | Peter264
http://flyawaysimulation.com/images/16/microsoft-flight-simulator-x/ Every image has a page of its own. Therefore, essentially 9,000 pages of very thin content, especially the image pages with no UGC comments. Does anyone here have any tips to "panda-proof" these pages? The images still need to be indexed. What can we do here? The site also hosts videos, which of course the page the video resides on needs to stay in the index too (like youtube). Example of the video page here: http://flyawaysimulation.com/images/media/9371/fsps-3d-real-cockpit-effect-for-fsx/ Really want to hear your thoughts. Thanks in advance!0 -
Duplicate Content for index.html
In the Crawl Diagnostics Summary, it says that I have two pages with duplicate content which are: www.mywebsite.com/ www.mywebsite.com/index.html I read in a Dream Weaver tutorial that you should name your home page "index.html" and then you can let www.mywebsite.com automatically direct the user to index.html. Is this a bug in SEOMoz's crawler or is it a real problem with my site? Thank you, Dan
Web Design | | superTallDan0