Suspended YouTube account causing havoc in ranking and traffic
-
Hi SEOmoz community
This is my first question in the forum and I'd prefer it was more on the constructive side rather than introducing an issue on my website. I hope someone can still shed a light on the issue.
Just over a week ago, YouTube has suspended my account for what I would call dubious reasons. Suspending my account meant lots of dead videos on my site and potentially other people's sites, who embedded my videos. I have only recently managed to take down all references to my blocked YouTube account (off my site).
Now here it comes, literally since that week my traffic numbers have dropped below half of what it used to be and less. I hardly have any more organic search entries and my keywords have plummeted (in some cases 20 - 30 positions). Keywords, that ranked well are currently not searched via my site at all. I am not 100% what is going on and doing my reading on the side, but I am starting to get a little paranoid over a potential Google penalty that may have been issued to my site.
Maybe someone has experienced similar issues or simply knows the answer. Someone suggested that due to the 'Trust' that YouTube has passed on to my site is now gone, it caused this massive drop. However, it still makes me think, is an element such as various YouTube videos on your site such a big thing that makes and breaks a site??
I appreciate your input on the issue. Many thanks everybody!!
-
Thanks for your answer Ryan
I understand the point you're making about the duplicate anchor text back links and will look into this. It's still ironic that the problems surfaced once the issue with the YouTube account set in. I'll see how to turn the rudder.
Thanks again
-
One of the first things I notice is the site's backlink profile is incredibly spammy. Google has issued many manual penalties for sites with similar backlink profiles. About 40% of your links show "Online Casino" as the anchor text.
Penguin is an algorithm update designed to target spammy profiles such as yours. It seems highly likely your rankings are being suppressed either manually or algorithmically due to manipulative links. Those links are a clear, black hat tactic.
-
"If Google took action against your YouTube account, they may have taken action against your website for the same reason."
My thoughts exactly. Someone may have reported or Google may have discovered something on the site, and the YouTube account may have just been a tentacle. As Ryan suggestions, can you provide more information?
Best,
Christopher -
Hello Hermski,
First let me share I have never had a YouTube account suspended nor worked with a client in that situation. Accordingly, my advice is more generic in nature.
Why exactly was your YouTube account suspended? I share your concern that your site may have been penalized. If Google took action against your YouTube account, they may have taken action against your website for the same reason.
I do not believe in the "trust" logic you suggested being shared from YouTube. According to your inquiry, your site suffered a "massive drop" in traffic. Assuming you did not make a change on your site such as blocking the site with the robots.txt file, the logical conclusion is your rankings are being suppressed by Google.
Without your site's address or any other information, we can only take wild guesses as to the cause. We require more information to be helpful.
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
-
Subdomain Ranking Question
Hi All - Quick question that I think I know the answer to, but I feel like I've been going around in circles a bit. My client is launching a new product and wants us to build a microsite for it (product.clientname.com). My client really dislikes their brand website, and wants to use paid media to push their audience to this new microsite. However, they also said want it to rank well organically. I feel uneasy about this, because of the subdomain vs. subfolder argument. I believe that the product will also be listed/featured on their main brand website. What is the best way forward? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | AinsleyAgency0 -
How to track my actual traffic source using Google Analytics which are now showing as referral traffic?
Hi Mozzers, I went through many Q&As in the community this morning. I found a solution where I could just remove the referral site in analytics>admin>property>tracking info>referral exclusion list. So I removed paypal.com which was the main referral traffic. I thought the problem is solved. Later today I got another order, now the referral traffic is from eway.com, now what? Yes I know I will add this to the exclusion list but there will be many more referral sites. My main concern is I am not able to track the actual traffic source. How do I do that? 1. Do I need to use google url tracking for all my pages?
Technical SEO | | DebashishB
2. Do I need to add tracking code in each page of the site?
3. Is there a way to track the actual source of this traffic, now that the transaction is already made but reflects as referral traffic in Google Analytics? jZjTN0 -
Site Ranking Ahead of Us - Why?
I don't want to give details, but a competitor's site ranks ahead of us by a spot or 2 for some of our major keywords, and we can't figure out why. We have more content indexed, we have better content (my opinion), we're better optimized, we have significantly better MozRank and Majestic rankings, we have more links, we have better links. They have a plain Jane Wordpress blog, and their pages don't even have 300 characters. They don't have any awesome links. There are plenty of other sites besides ours that should outrank them. When I am using the various tools at my disposal, I can see why a competitor outranks us. I'm not obsessing, but this one, I just don't understand. Has anyone had this experience?
Technical SEO | | CsmBill0 -
Sudden drop in website ranking
Since past 2 week my website www.micromaxtablet.in is experiencing sudden drops in the site ranking. I can understand this regression in the site ranking is not because of Goggle Panda update, and their is some other reason. Kindly let me know what could be the other possibilities, and plz also suggest how to get it fixed. Keyword for which the site had the best rankings (in top 3) was "micromax tablet". Now it shows on the second page in the google search and to make it worse, it's losing its position almost every second day.
Technical SEO | | nishant9110 -
Website not ranking for noncompetitive terms
Hi, We've took over a website last July and no matter what we do we just can't get it ranking in Google, even for noncompetitive terms. here is the website in question: http://www.alignandsmile.co.uk Ideally the client would like to rank for Canary Wharf but that location is competitive, the site doesn't even rank for 'Dentist New Providence Wharf E14' despite it being included in the title tag on the home page and in the content throughout the website. Directories with Align and Smile's business information do rank however. I opened a case with google through Webmaster tools and they 'reviewed your site and found no manual actions by the webspam team that might affect your site's ranking in Google.' So I'm a bit stuck. The site ranks top for the keyphrase in Bing and Yahoo...we are really struggling with Google! Any help would be much appreciated. many thanks Marcus
Technical SEO | | dentaldesign0 -
Can someone tell me how in the heck this site is ranking?
Just saw a huge update on the Serps for "SEO Company" and "Seo Firm " and this site has tons of big Google no's no's going to it. www.seospecialists.co it has links coming from Porn and Gambling sites. It is heavily over optimized for both keywords. I won't cry the sky is falling[SEO is broke] but I am curious to know why Google thinks they are worthy to rank that high.
Technical SEO | | MattieMac0 -
Incredible rank variations!
Hello, I recently received a project that has incredible SERP variation - one month in the top - next month not even in 100. I tried fixing some problems, I also found out the website owners were changing their content - taking their offers down, and so on, and I thought that was the main reason the SERP variate so often. Now I discovered a page that wasn't changed - meaning it's place in the menu and dropped down from the 4'th page to ..i have no idea where it is. The page is: www.filadelfiaturism.ro/oferte-Cazare-Romania/116/oferte-1.html - I looked for the exact title and it didn't ranked at all. Could someone give me some advice?
Technical SEO | | A.Popoviciu0 -
Ranking above PLACE PAGES
What does it take for results to show up above Place Page results. It seems like Google Local gets a lot of emphasis . Any thoughts?
Technical SEO | | musillawfirm0