Website Recovery
-
We have a client who is experiencing much in the way off duplicated content and broken, spammed inbound links. While we are removing and correcting everything using google webmaster, I'm hearing stories of websites not being able to recover from algorithms/penalties applied because of this.
My client had around 250 inbound links to their website and over the space of 3 weeks mounted over 8,000 unethical links.
Any information surrounding this issue would be much apprecited.
Thanks
Gary
-
This question is one that probably can't be answered without a thorough investigation. But, what I have seen is that sites definitely can recover form algorithmic issues or manual penalties. However, the most important factor in whether a site will recover is if the site has a good base of good natural links when the unnatural ones are taken away.
You may be looking at multiple issues. If the duplicated content is truly an issue then there may be issues with the Panda algorithm. If the bad links are truly an issue then Penguin could be the culprit. For either of these, recovery involves completely fixing the issues and then waiting till the next refresh of each algorithm. Penguin refreshes sporadically. It could be 1 month or 6 before the next refresh. Panda tends to refresh monthly although Google no longer announces the refreshes.
IMO the first place to start is to determine which algorithms likely affected the site and work on that first. If there is a drop in organic traffic coincidental with a known Penguin refresh date then the links need to be cleaned up. You'll need to do a very thorough audit and disavow everything self made.
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
-
What does it mean to build a 'good' website.
Hi guys. I've heard a lot of SEO professionals, Google, (and Rand in a couple of whiteboard Friday's) say it's really important to build a 'good' website if you want to rank well. What does this mean in more practical terms? (Context... I've found some sites rank much better than they 'should' do based on the competition. However, when I built my own site (well-optimised (on-page) based on thorough keyword research) it was nowhere to be found (not even top 50 after I'd 'matched' the backlink profile of others on page 1). I can only put this down to there being 'good quality website' signals lacking in the latter example. I'm not a web developer so the website was the pretty basic WordPress site.)
Algorithm Updates | | isaac6630 -
Any risks involved in redirecting low quality Infringement website?
Hi all, Recently we have over taken one of the websites (with Trademark Infringement )who been using our domain name in their domain. That website got no traffic or backlinks. Is there any risk involved in redirecting that website to our website? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
How long does it take for a website to starting ranking once the website becomes live?
I am in the process of finishing the last touches on my new company's website and I am wondering about the process of getting my new website to rank on google. I've heard many different things from many different people who believe they know everything about SEO, but they can't all be right. Is there a definite timeline? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | uofmiamiguy0 -
Linking to authority / competitor website!? Yes or No?
Here is the dilema .... People say, don't be afraid to link to authority website! What if an authority website in particular niche is actually competing with you in the Search, but you do have a review profile there? Is it ok to link to that profile ? Should I include a no follow tag ? Another case : some other authority high ranked website competing in search with mine directly has a profile page for my company, but this authority website has blocked Google bot to crawl the profile page all the reviews there !? Can I still link to that page and will this be appreciated by Google ? Am I passing PR and link juice from my website to those direct comeptitors / authority websites ?
Algorithm Updates | | montauto0 -
Organizing Website Content
Hey everyone! I am looking for some opinions on organizing website content. Here are two thoughts. I am open to alternative suggestions as well. Thanks for any consideration in this matter! **Aviation Supply Store Thought A ** **Helicopters Airplanes Rockets ** Helicopter engines Airplane engines Rocket engines Helicopter Fuels Airplane Fuels Rocket fuels Helicopter Accessories Airplane Accessories Rocket Accessories Aviation Supply Store Thought B Engines Fuels Accessories Helicopter Engines Helicopter Fuels Helicopter Accessories Airplane Engines Airplane Fuels Airplane Accessories Rocket Engines Rocket Fuels Rocket Accessories I simply chose aviation as an example. I'm just having difficulty deciding on how best to catagorize. Thank You!
Algorithm Updates | | APICDA0 -
Website taken a hit?
We have recently (yesterday 12<sup>th</sup> April) taken a hit for our main keywords it seems that there is no constant fall but it seems to be the most competitive words as anything that ranked purely on content still seems to rank which makes me assume that we have just lost a lot of power from links (are SEO did build quite a few links from article sites he also built a few blog network links which we did not know till we got the webmaster message 3 weeks ago (24<sup>th</sup> may) and we have made him remove them all but some still show which a) he can’t contact or b) were scrapers). But on the other hand we still have decent on site content and some good links from graphic design blogs (review articles) which would suggest a penalty as some sites with poor links and poor on site content are outranking us for a couple of our good keywords. I cannot decide if this is a penalty, keyword anchor text penalty (this is wiping more power out than the bad links) or just devaluation of links (but as said before our good links are still much more powerful than the competitors out ranking us and with our content we should easily not have lost many places). If I was going to come up with an idea it would be like the bad links have taken twice there power away from the site, so our on site content is still good but compared to medium on site and crap links they are out ranking us. (we did use a lot of anchor text with keywords in) If this is the case if we build gooad quality review links, press releases and make them more natural not go for normal link building – articles ect would this help and has anyone ever dealt with this before and have any idea how to know what is happing and how long it might take to recover.
Algorithm Updates | | BobAnderson0 -
Perfect Landing Page for jewelry website?
What would be the Perfect Landing Page for jewelry website? Show me some examples and tell me why do you think so. Thanks in advance to everyone who participated.
Algorithm Updates | | DiamondJewelryEmpire0 -
Selling same procucts from more than one website
I would like to know whether it's ok to sell same products from 2-3 websites. Design and URL structure will be different but same e-commerce platform. Would google penalise or drop the rankings, etc. How google deall with this sort of thing? If problem arises how can we get around it? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | Jvalops0