Algorithm Penalty?
-
I've read the FAQs and searched the help center. The URL in question is: http://goo.gl/9lGqxDSince this website was relaunched around the same time as the Panda algorithm update, it's dropped from the 1st page of results down to page 6 or lower. Essentially, this website no longer ranks well in the Google UK for relevant keywords to the business when combined with the place names in it's geographical operation areas.It's worth noting that the website ranks very well in other search search engines such as Bing! The website had a lot of spammy links which we've requested to be removed from the respective site owners. Most of which are either non-responsive or want extortionate amounts of money to remove the links so we have used Google disavow links tool. We suspect the site is being penalised as a result of the spammy inbound links something which is supported by the fact that only the new pages or pages with fresh content are ranking (http://goo.gl/D1NpxH). However, Google Webmaster tools reports no messages or critical issues.On the whole the website is updated occasionally. The writing is very easy to understand, it's quick to load, URLs are clear and the titles and descriptions are partly optimised.We're believe that our only option is to abandon the current domain and completely rewrite the content for a new domain. Does anyone else have any ideas how we can fix this before we go ahead?Many thanks, Ben
-
I'm getting a 403 error for the entire site at the moment (?) Could you double-check the URL?
Interesting that you mentioned geo-targeted pages and that this happened around when Panda hit. Do you have a ton of pages of the form "[brand] [city]" (dozens or hundreds, maybe)? If those pages are very similar - with only a few details switched out, this is definitely the kind of thin content that Panda hit pretty hard. Google views those pages as low value, and can devalue the entire domain based on that perception. This wouldn't appear as an error in GWT, since it's an algorithmic action.
Unfortunately, I can only speculate, without taking a peak at what Google has indexed.
-
Hi Ben, I can't advise, but I have the exact same issue on a UK website of mine. Let's hope someone on here can help.
Paul.
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
-
Duplicate content created by website Calendar - A Penalty?
A colleague of mine asked me a question about duplicate content coming from their event calendar. I don't think this will affect them negatively, but I would love some feedback and thoughts. ThanksOne of my clients, LifeTech Academy, is using my RavenTools software. Raventools has reported a HUGE amount of duplicate content (4.4K instances).The duplicate content all revolves around their calendar and repeating events (http://lifetechacademy.org/events/)The question is this - will this impact their SEO efforts in a negative way?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Bill_K0 -
Help with 50 Plus Penalty, No Manual Action Reported
We have a client who had been ranking in Google’s top ten organic results for 2 of his major keywords last year. Currently Bing and Yahoo ranks his site #1 for both of these terms; the ranking pages that are appearing were specifically targeted with these words. As of now, the client appears to have a 50 plus penalty for these two keywords. Appearing #76 for one term and # 60 for the other. We were thinking of submitting a reconsideration request through Google Webmaster tools, but discovered that you aren’t allowed to do that unless a Manual Action has appeared, which in this case has not. The only problem we’ve had with the site from an SEO standpoint is that we recently discovered a website that had copied some of the product descriptions verbatim. The client contacted the site owner who took it down immediately (about a month ago), but we still have not seen any improvement in rankings for these keywords. Does anyone have any ideas on how to communicate this Google and get the suspected penalty lifted if a reconsideration request is apparently not available?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | roundabout0 -
How to handle a pure spam penalty (from GWT) as a blogging platform
Hello, I have a blogging platform which spammers unfortunately used a few years ago to create spam blogs. Since them, we've added spam filters and even if I can't not assume there isn't any spam blog left, I can say that most of the blogs are clean. The problem is, in Google Webmasters Tools, we have a Pure spam message in the Manual actions page. (https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2604777?hl=en), with a list of 1000 blog links. All these blogs have been marked as spam in our system for at least 1 year, technically it means they return a 410 header and display something like "this blog doesn't meet our quality requirements". When I've first seen the manual action message in GWT, I have asked for reconsideration request. Google answered within a week saying that they had checked again our website, but when I go went to the manual actions page, there was still a "pure spam" message, with a different list of blogs, which have already been marked as spam for a year at least. What should I do ? Ask for reconsideration requests as long as Google answers ? Thank you in advance,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | KingLouis0 -
Manual and algorithm ban
Hi guys, what is the difference between a manual penalty in the results and an algorithm? If its algorithm its usually a couple of pages but a manual do you get deindexed or put say 10 pages back? Any advice on how to best determin if a push back in results is manual or algorithm would be great. This will best help me judge how long it will take to get back to where I was with one of my sites once i have cleaned up some of my back-link profile. Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | pauledwards0 -
Penguin Penalty?
The past 2 days, specific keywords Ive been ranking well for have disappeared. If I google specific with brand it still shows up. So I havent been removed from the index. Is it possible that I was hit by penguin without any type of notice in the webmaster account? Organic traffic dropped substantialy in the past couple days without any warnings. Any help greatly appreciated! Thank You
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TP_Marketing0 -
How to tackle google penguin algorithmic penalty?
My Website ranking went down mid of april, I sent a Reconsideration request and the reply was : “ We reviewed your site and found no manual actions by the webspam team that might affect your site's ranking in Google. 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.” My site was classic asp and i change that to a new word press theme I change the site structure and created new fresh content on the entire site focusing on user experience. But still no positive result in the ranking. I further did a test and created 3 new landing pages that target long tail keywords with low competition. Once these pages got indexed the start appearing on first page for couple of days and then gradually the started to go down in ranking now they are not in the top 10 pages. Now someone told me to buy a new domain and start fresh before i follow this route I would like to if anyone could help me should i buy a new domain and start fresh or should i wait till i start getting my ranking back My link profile according to open site explorer is 190 links from 74 domains and domain authority is 31. Can anyone help please
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | conversiontactics0 -
Google Penguin Penalty
Howdy Guys,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ScottBaxterWW
We have been battling our way the Google penguin penalty and have just received our 3 knocked back reconsideration request. I posted a find on here the other day about a simple change of page title made our site jump back up... In the meantime I've built 1 hight quality link back to our site and we have moved again from #50 to #46.Have Google ever removed a penalty without telling you?Should we ask for another reconsideration request?Thanks,
Scott0