Are we being Penalized? Can someone Assess Please!
-
We have two eCommerce sites. Both the sites can broadly be divided into 3 pages
- 1. Home Page.
2. Detail Page.
3 Category Pages (Altogether our site has approx 3 Million pages each)
These are the site URLs
http://bit.ly/9tRZIi - This is targeted for USA Audience
http://bit.ly/P8MxPR - This is targeted for UK audience
The .com domain which was launched earlier in 2011 is doing okay with decent organic traffic
Precautions Taken: To avoid content being duplicate on both the sites we are using:
a. Geo-targeting through Google webmaster tools
b. rel=alternate tag on printsasia.co.uk
Problem
1. The .co.uk domain which was launched in May 2012 started gaining organic traffic slowly but then suddenly dropped to almost 0 after September 18.
2. When we use operator site:printsasia.co.uk and apply a filter on past week/month we don't see any result. While when same operator used for "any time" we see some results.
3. According to webmaster tool, Google has indexed 95% of our URLs in the sitemap
Our concern: Is our UK site penalized for some reasons? If yes, what could be the possible reason(s) for this penalty and possible steps to get out of it? Would request if experts here can review our site and help us.
-
It doesn't necessarily matter if the auto generated content is unique or not - Panda was intended to penalize low quality content (such as auto generated content), not just duplicate content.
Even if you were able to figure out a way to auto generate content that didn't get penalized, there's a good chance you'll get penalized in a future update.
-
Yes what you see through copyscape is correct as those content comes along with the book and will be true for all retailers and marketplace websites, be it amazon, bn or abebooks.
Since we could not think of any other way to come up with unique content we thought of auto generated content. I slightly differ here as these auto-generated content is unique for each page at least partially. Though I am not 100% confident if this is great way to go about it.
Yes review is something we are definitely coming up and this may help.
-
Hi Cyril,
I doubt that the rel=alternate tag will help. Copyscape shows that at least some of the content is duplicated across other sites, not just your two sites.
I also doubt that auto generated content will help avoid Panda. That's one of the things Panda was specifically created to penalize - auto generated content.
If you're getting unique reviews from users and/or writing editor reviews, that very well may help.
I realize that it is impractical to write content for 3 million pages, but you may find that is what you need to do. You may need to start with your top pages and work from there, and in the meantime block indexing of all pages without unique content. I would not take that step hastily, but it may be what you end up having to do.
~Adam
-
Thank you Adam for your time and valuable feedback. We were also thinking of being hit by Panda but thought and as correction we used rel=alternate tag on printsasia.co.uk
It's been just a few days since we implemented this we are unable to say if this is working.
2ndly to increase the content we are introducing some review program and at the same time have also generated some auto generated content since it is impossible to develop content for 3 mn and increasing pages. If you can see the last "Book Information" Section on this page http://bit.ly/QqMAFR you will understand what i mean.
This section will be there on all book detail pages. Your comment post reviewing this will be appreciated
-
According to this, there was a Panda update on Sept 18, so I suspect that's what hit your site. Panda mainly targets the content of your website - my guess would be that your site was penalized because it has a lot of "thin content" pages. In other words, all your book pages have very little (no?) unique textual content.
FYI, I would say your US site is also in danger of being penalized by Panda and/or Penguin. I see that over 1/3 of linking root domains link to you with the anchor text "<a class="clickable title link-pivot" title="See top linking pages that use this anchor text">buy books online". Over-use of keyword anchor text like that is strongly correlated with getting a Penguin penalty.</a>
-
Good plan. I would wait at least 4 weeks after removing the link before you decide whether or not it's worked
-
Mark thanks for your time and valuable feedback. I think you almost answered my doubt why only one site being penalized and not the other.
Mark you are right when you say "Looking at your link profile, you simply don't have sufficient volume or diversity of links, nor do you have enough links from high-authority sites within your space"
As i mentioned co.uk is just 5 months old site and its taking us sometime to build links. But we are definitely working on it.
I believe having lesser links can only be the reason of poor page rank and low rank in SERP it should not be the reason of being penalized. I hope you will agree with this.
As immediate step
1. I will first remove the sitewide link and see if this was the reason. If thinks improves over the time, we will keep the link back with changed anchor text
2. We will definitely take care of the blog comments considering the importance of it in brand reputation
-
see my answer below!
-
Thanks for your time. You mean blog.printsasia and not (blog.bookshopasia) right?
Juts a question- blog.printsasia.com is our own official blog, we have placed links for both the sites on subdomain blog.printsasia.com. If that is the reason for penalty then why our other site is not being penalized? or why only co.uk is penalized and .com is having no issues
-
I agree in part with easyrider2. There may be a problem caused by the sitewide header links from your own blog (blog.printsasia.com). These currently use the keyword-rich anchor text "Online Bookshop UK", although I suspect you previously had this as "Bookshop UK", as this is what OSE has picked up. Either way, they look like the kind of links that might be targeted by Penguin, as they don't use your brand name as anchor text.
If the blog was a subdomain of your UK site (blog.printsasia.co.uk), I don't think this would be a problem. But because it's a subdomain of a US site (albeit the same company), this could look like a spammy type of link.
Note: it may be that Google has not penalised you, but has simply decided to discount a set of links, perhaps these ones.
The good news is that as this is your company blog you can quickly change the link.
You could try one of the following:
1. Remove the sitewide link from blog.printsasia.com altogether
2. Change the anchor text to your brand name (eg Printsasia UK)
3. Remove the sitewide link and add a few more "natural" links into blog posts (as easyrider2 suggests)
Personally, I would try 1, assuming it doesn't drive significant traffic to your site. If that helps then you know you've identified a problem.
However, I don't think this is your only problem, and I'm not even convinced it is a problem. Looking at your link profile, you simply don't have sufficient volume or diversity of links, nor do you have enough links from high-authority sites within your space. So even if you "fix" this immediate problem, you still need to focus on some serious linkbuilding (by which I mean relationship building) within your industry.
I agree with easyrider2 about the spammy blog comments. These may not cause a problem with Google but they look very poor to users (and webmasters who might potentially link to your sites).
-
Looking at open site explorer for your UK bookshop I would say with 99% confidence you are being penalised because of over optimisation. Sounds like you got hit on the penguin refresh around sept 18.
Your anchor text is nearly all pointing with Bookshops UK. In fact 236 times and the nearest alternative is printasia.co.uk 4 times. Plus they are all coming from the same domain (blog.bookshopasia). You need to vary your anchor text. However, i am guess that link is the page template, although I could only see a link for "online bookshop UK" it has to be in there somewhere as OSE picks it up.
Make sure that if it is on the template, make that link no-follow and get links from different domains for different keywords.
You also need to get on top of your blog commenting. People using names such as "how to build your own iphone app" are just spam and worthless comments. Even if you disallow websites to be linked, crap content is worthless to your site.
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
-
Important category pages that can and should be found in SERP but can not be reached by navigating on the webshop itself
Hi, On a webshop we are optimizing, the main navigation consists of the 5 main categories to which all of the products can be assigned. However, the main tabs in the navigation just activate a drop down with all of the subcategories. For example: the tab in the navigation is 'Garden equipment' and when you click on this tab, the drop down is shown with subcategories like 'Lawn mowers', 'Leaf blowers' and so on. Now, the page 'Garden equipment' is one of the main category pages and we want this page to rank of course. This shouldn't be a problem, since there is a separate URL for this page that can be indexed and that can be reached through internal links on the website. However, this page can not be reached when a visitor initially comes on the homepage of the webshop, since the tab in the navigation isn't clickable. This page will only be reached when a subcategory is selected, and then when the visitor goes back to the category page through the breadcrumb or through an internal link. Is it a problem that these important overview category pages can not be reached immediately? Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Mat_C0 -
Can noindexed pages accrue page authority?
My company's site has a large set of pages (tens of thousands) that have very thin or no content. They typically target a single low-competition keyword (and typically rank very well), but the pages have a very high bounce rate and are definitely hurting our domain's overall rankings via Panda (quality ranking). I'm planning on recommending we noindexed these pages temporarily, and reindex each page as resources are able to fill in content. My question is whether an individual page will be able to accrue any page authority for that target term while noindexed. We DO want to rank for all those terms, just not until we have the content to back it up. However, we're in a pretty competitive space up against domains that have been around a lot longer and have higher domain authorities. Like I said, these pages rank well right now, even with thin content. The worry is if we noindex them while we slowly build out content, will our competitors get the edge on those terms (with their subpar but continually available content)? Do you think Google will give us any credit for having had the page all along, just not always indexed?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | THandorf0 -
Strange internal links and trying to improve PR ? - Please advise
Hi All, I've been looking at the internal links on my eCommerce site to try and improve PR and get it as efficient as possible so link juice isnt getting wasted etc and I've come across some odd ones I would like some advice on My website currently has between 125-146 links on every page (Sitemap approx 3500 pages). From what I read ,the ideal number of links is under 100 but can someone confirm is this is still the case ?..Is it a case of less is more , in terms of improving a page PR etc ? in terms of link juice strength etc so it's not getting diluted to unnecessary pages. One of my links is a bad url ( my domain + phone number for reason) which currently goes to a 404 page ?. - Is this okay or do we need to track down the link and remove it. I don't want link juice getting wasted as it's on every page. Another one of my links is my domain.name/# and another one with some characters after the # which both to the home page. Example www.domain.co.uk/# and www.domain.co.uk#abcde both go to homepage. Is this okay or am I potentially getting duplicate content as If I put these urls in , they go to my home page. I have a link on every page which opens up outlook (email) on the contact us. Should this really be changed to a button with a contact us form opening up instead ? I currently have 9 links on the bottom on every page i.e About it , delivery , hire terms,.contact us , trade accounts , privacy, sitemap. When I check , these pages seem to be my strongest pages in terms of PR. Is that because they are on every page?.. Should I look to reduce these links as they are accessible from the navigation menu apart from privacy and sitemap. Any advice on this would be greatly appreciated ? thanks Pete
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PeteC120 -
404 Pages. Can I change it to do this without getting penalized ? I want to lower our bounce rate from these pages to encourage the user to continue on the site
Hi All, We have been streaming our site and got rid of thousands of pages for redundant locations (Basically these used to be virtual locations where we didn't have a depot although we did deliver there and most of them was duplicate/thin content etc ). Most of them have little if any link value and I didn't want to 301 all of them as we already have quite a few 301's already We currently display a 404 page but I want to improve on this. Current 404 page is - http://goo.gl/rFRNMt I can get my developer to change it, so it will still be a 404 page but the user will see the relevant category page instead ? So it will look like this - http://goo.gl/Rc8YP8 . We could also use Java script to show the location name etc... Would be be okay ? or would google see this as cheating. basically I want to lower our bounce rates from these pages but still be attractive enough for the user to continue in the site and not go away. If this is not a good idea, then any recommendations on improving our current 404 would be greatly appreciated. thanks Pete
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PeteC120 -
Can URLs blocked with robots.txt hurt your site?
We have about 20 testing environments blocked by robots.txt, and these environments contain duplicates of our indexed content. These environments are all blocked by robots.txt, and appearing in google's index as blocked by robots.txt--can they still count against us or hurt us? I know the best practice to permanently remove these would be to use the noindex tag, but I'm wondering if we leave them they way they are if they can still hurt us.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nicole.healthline0 -
Accidental Noindex/Mis-Canonicalisation - Please help!
Hi everybody, I was hoping somebody might be able to help as this is an issue my team and I have never come across before. A client of ours recently migrated to a new site design. 301 redirects were properly implemented and the transition was fairly smooth. However, we realised soon after that a sub-section of pages had either one or both of the following errors: They featured a canonical tag pointing to the wrong page They featured the 'meta noindex' tag After realising this, both the canonicals and the noindex tags were immediately removed. However, Google crawled the site while these were in place and the pages subsequently dropped out of Google's index. We re-submitted the affected pages to Google's index and used WMT to 'Fetch' the pages as Google. We have also since 'allowed' the pages in the robots.txt file as an extra measure. We found that the pages which just had the noindex tag were immediately re-indexed, while the pages which featured the noindex tag and which were mis-canonicalised are still not being re-indexed. Can anyone think of a reason why this might be the case? One of the pages which featured both tags was one of our most important organic landing pages, so we're eager to resolve this. Any help or advice would be appreciated. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | robmarsden0 -
Please I need some optimism for this (not provided)
Does anyone see this getting any better. It is getting absolutely ridiculous and almost to the point where it looks like soon analytics will be pointless! Can Rand pull some connects and tell Google - Hey Camon! This is ridiculous, we need to see at least a little bit more of these! notprovided.jpg
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | imageworks-2612900 -
Can you be penalized by a development server with duplicate content?
I developed a site for another company late last year and after a few months of seo done by them they were getting good rankings for hundreds of keywords. When penguin hit they seemed to benefit and had many top 3 rankings. Then their rankings dropped one day early May. Site is still indexed and they still rank for their domain. After some digging they found the development server had a copy of the site (not 100% duplicate). We neglected to hide the site from the crawlers, although there were no links built and we hadn't done any optimization like meta descriptions etc. The company was justifiably upset. We contacted Google and let them know the site should not have been indexed, and asked they reconsider any penalties that may have been placed on the original site. We have not heard back from them as yet. I am wondering if this really was the cause of the penalty though. Here are a few more facts: Rankings built during late March / April on an aged domain with a site that went live in December. Between April 14-16 they lost about 250 links, mostly from one domain. They acquired those links about a month before. They went from 0 to 1130 links between Dec and April, then back to around 870 currently According to ahrefs.com they went from 5 ranked keywords in March to 200 in April to 800 in May, now down to 500 and dropping (I believe their data lags by at least a couple of weeks). So the bottom line is this site appeared to have suddenly ranked well for about a month then got hit with a penalty and are not in top 10 pages for most keywords anymore. I would love to hear any opinions on whether a duplicate site that had no links could be the cause of this penalty? I have read there is no such thing as a duplicate content penalty per se. I am of the (amateur) opinion that it may have had more to do with the quick sudden rise in the rankings triggering something. Thanks in advance.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | rmsmall0