Why has my site dropped to page 2?
-
I haven't been paying attention to my sites SERP for the past year, and only realized I've dropped to page 2 on a keyword search.
Specifically, on Google.ca, searching the keywords "wedding invitations"
My site, www.stephita.com, used to consistently rank in the top 3 links. While my competitors have leapfrogged me.
I realized that my site wasn't "mobile-friendly", and had a few other issues like keyword stuffing, long meta descriptions and titles. I've fixed these issues "now", but wanted to know does this mean my site was severely penalized by the Panda/Penguin updates for the last few years?
Does having a PR3 site mean anything? My competitors who our rank me on SERP, are all PR1 sites.
Greatly appreciate any feedback you can give me!
-
Yes, I've removed all the "shortcuts" of bad thin content now.
But I'm a little confused by your comment:
But anyone who looks closely at these cookie cutter pages will see that the wording is awkward, the photos don't match the names or the colors listed, and problems like Oren & Bar Mitzvah sneak in.
Do you see something in particular that is bringing this to your attention?
-
When a site is hit by Panda, most pages of the site suffer a rankings decline. There are different levels of Panda severity. Sometimes the losses might be just a couple of positions, other times the losses might drop many positions.
You seem to have a nice business and you've gotten away with using shortcuts to create your content for a while. But anyone who looks closely at these cookie cutter pages will see that the wording is awkward, the photos don't match the names or the colors listed, and problems like Oren & Bar Mitzvah sneak in.
It's time to invest the time needed to do a proper job. That's what most people who have Panda problems and want to get out of them are doing.
-
As always, I appreciate your knowledgeable feedback on these issues.
I'm cleaning up my site, and removing some of the 'black-hat' SEO techniques that I had thought worked 5 years ago... I had created a script to generate "doorway" pages on my site.
i.e., if you searched "wedding invitations" + random city, like "wedding invitations thornhill, wedding invitations richmond hill, wedding invitations brampton, etc...
http://www.stephita.com/wedding/invitations/thornhill
http://www.stephita.com/wedding/invitations/richmond+hill
http://www.stephita.com/wedding/invitations/brampton
My site is listed on the first page for most of these "wedding invitation city" type searches.
Assuming my site has already been "Panda Demoted", does it make sense that these links are still on the first page for those "long tail searches"? Is it because of these specific pages that my site's index page (www.stephita.com) has been demoted in SERP when searching for the broader "wedding invitations" locally? ** I hope I am making sense here **
I used to have links in the footer and sitemap that would lead crawlers to these "doorway pages", but I have removed all traces of it from the site now. How long will the pre-existing indexed pages live in their results? Should I take steps to pro-actively remove them?
-
Is it re-calculated daily, or only when there are Panda updates (how often?)?
Nobody knows how often google injects new Panda evaluations into the ranking results. It's really irrelevant because the sooner you improve the content of your website the sooner your visitors will have a quality experience. Thin pages can produce a negative impression of your business on the visitor, especially when your competitors have done an excellent job.
**I'm just thinking in the case where I create 1000 product display pages, does that mean I would really need to write 1000 content HEAVY pages? **
Generous content is the cost of becoming competitive. The fact that you realize that and make it happen gives you a huge advantage over your competitors.
**If my site is built 80% product pages, and I suddenly add the NOINDEX meta tag, will that negatively impact the result? **
Nobody really knows the answer to this. If I had a site that was 80% thin product pages, I would delete them instead of noindexing such a large part of the site. Each time you improve one into a good substantive page and publish it, that page will become and asset that pulls traffic and converts visitors.
Is there a "magic number" of number of words to make it a suitable content page?
Since you have a walk-in store, you probably have a lot of experience with customers. Take that experience and produce a page that explains the product, answers common questions, counters objections, explains the questions that they should have asked but didn't.
My main focus for any searchers is to reach my main index page.
I don't agree with that goal. Most of the people who purchase from my sites never see the homepage. They land on a product page from search and add an item to the cart. They might land on an article that I have written and use a house ad or a link to my store and then buy the product. I am quite confident that if many of these customers landed on naked pages I would have never gotten their business.
-
If you remove all your thin content you are sure to bypass panda and you wouldn't be penalized.
And there aren't really a magic number of number of words to make a suitable content page but make sure that the html and content ratio is 70% to 30%.
-
I'll make an effort to improve the THIN content pages. Assuming I've "fixed" all issues that the Panda Algo doesn't like - how "soon/long" would it take to be "out of demotion". Is it re-calculated daily, or only when there are Panda updates (how often?)?
Is there anyway to flag a "product page" so that Panda wouldn't look at it? I'm just thinking in the case where I create 1000 product display pages, does that mean I would really need to write 1000 content HEAVY pages? -- Sorry, I just realized there is the META NOINDEX method...
If my site is built 80% product pages, and I suddenly add the NOINDEX meta tag, will that negatively impact the result? Or would that benefit me in this situation? It was never my intention for any searchers to land on any direct product page. My main focus for any searchers is to reach my main index page.
Is there a "magic number" of number of words to make it a suitable content page? (i.e. NOT-THIN)
I really appreciate you helping me out with this!
-
Would Google penalize me for having THIN content then?
I would be very surprised if your site does not currently have a Panda demotion. Most of the links in your persistent navigation lead to thin content. If you decide to improve these pages it is really important that the content be unique, very different from page to page and substantive.
Another method of escaping Panda is to remove thin content from the site. Here is an article by Marie Haynes that explains how a couple sites improved after thin content removal.
Lastly, does PageRank matter anymore? My site was a PR3 - does that matter when the other local competitors that have leapfrogged me are all PR1s?
PageRank can be important. However, your search results are heavily influenced by the geographic location of the searcher and their distance from your location.
If I owned your site, my priorities would be to improve it by a combination of content writing and thin content removal, then put my main effort into optimizing and promoting my site for local search.
-
Thanks for giving me a better understanding of how Panda works.
I agree, I'm targeting my local market, but I noticed when using "google.ca" (vs. .com) Searching for the keywords "wedding invitations" (without Toronto), does yield a few of my local competitors (along with the big boys like vistaprint) that have leapfrogged me this past year....
So if my site had, hypothetically speaking, 1000s of product pages, but with a simple one line description, along with photo and price to be simple. Would Google penalize me for having THIN content then?
Lastly, does PageRank matter anymore? My site was a PR3 - does that matter when the other local competitors that have leapfrogged me are all PR1s?
-
Panada is a part of the Google algorithm that looks at the quality of a website. If a website has lots of duplicate pages or thin content pages then Google will demote the rankings of the entire website.
Google's recommended way of fixing the problem is to improve the content of those pages by adding substantive, relevant, unique content that is useful for the visitors. You could easily do this for your site. It will simply take a dedicated effort to improve those pages.
Will that enable you to compete effectively with vistaprint, etsy, partycity and others? I am not optimistic it will.
However, you might be able to optimize and promote your site so that it appears in local searches such as "toronto wedding invitations". I see you on the first page, but with some work and investment you might be able to get a better position on both the page and the map results.
-
Thanks for your feedback!
Yes, I agree, I feel that my page 1 placement was more due to my searches based on my geographic location. That is my biggest concern at the moment, that other customers in my area are not finding my site anymore.
I'll definitely remove those footer links that serve very little purpose other than to direct users to content that they can get from the main navigation.
To get a better idea of how Panda works, or Google Search Algo in general... does it look at my site as a "whole" when it scores the value of sending users to my index page?
For pages on my site that obviously are only meant as a "product" with simple photo, sku and price. Does that mean it would see it as very thin content, and penalize my site as a whole?
-
The query "wedding invitations" is quite competitive.
If I look at the .ca SERPs I see well-known, highly deserving, world class brands at the top such as vistaprint, etsy, zazzle, partycity.
Your site is on page three for me.
Perhaps when you searched in the past, Google delivered some personalized SERPs on the basis of your past browsing history or on the basis of your geographic location.
Is your site penalized? It would not surprise me if you have a Panda problem. There are a lot of thin content pages on your site. Clicking on the keyword links in the footer of the site yields pages with an image, a name, and really nothing more. Many of the links in the top navigation produce pages that are about the same. If you don't have a Panda problem yet, you will probably have one soon.
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
-
Loss of search visibility-consecutive drops in one month - something I did or competitors?
I am fairly new to Moz. I co-manage a national website with about 400 common pages and separate location areas for cities in Australia. 1 city starting their own separate website a year ago. A drop in search visibility of the whole national site and my location page started in mid July according to Moz stats.- 8%>12%>$38% consecutive drops per week. In google analytics the organic search has dropped 8% overall & 2% on my location page in last month. I did minor optimisation to the my page and articles using Moz in July - upped H2 to H1 title, tweaked main keyword, wrote slightly different SEO title and included keywords in body copy. The rankings of the target keywords went up but other keyword rankings went down. The other thing that started in June was Facebook advertising of our blog articles (click-throughs have a high bounce rate of 95%). The office with its own website (with a similar brand name) also started doing Facebook advertising and SEO for it earlier this year. I can see their own website traffic really shot up in June/July, and they also maintained their traffic on the national site. Wondering if any of these are causing the drop, or if this is more an indicator of competitor activity or alogorthms? Any ideas about causes and solutions appreciated.
Local Website Optimization | | SueMclean0 -
Should I mention locations in service-specific landing pages?
I'm writing new landing page copy for a client in the HVAC industry. The client has one office, but its service area includes several cities in a metropolitan area. I'm writing two types of pages: Service-specific landing pages (e.g. "Air Conditioner Repair," "Furnace Inspections") Location-specific pages (e.g. "Dallas Heating & Air Services," "Plano Heating & Air Services") My question is whether I should also include specific locations within the service-specific pages if I'm already doing the location-specific pages as well. For example, would it make sense to do a page on AC repair with title/H1 elements like "Dallas Air Conditioner Repair Service" or "Air Conditioner Repair in Plano and Dallas" in light of the fact that there will already be 10-12 location-specific pages? My preference is to NOT include location-specific stuff in the service landing pages except for maybe a passing reference to something like "...need HVAC services for your Dallas-area home" or similar. It just seems more natural that way. Thoughts?
Local Website Optimization | | Greenery1 -
I can't get my page to rank. What am I doing wrong?
I'm new to this forum and this is my first question. So if I'm not supposed to ask this type of question, please forgive me. I'm trying my best to get http://www.westcoastflenterprises.com/#!roofing/bbb1e to rank on the first page in Google for "roofing contractors" in the following SW Florida cities: "Naples, Bonita Springs, and Fort Myers." Our company has a physical address in Fort Myers only so I understand it's going to be harder to get it to rank for Naples and Bonita Springs. But I can't even get this page to rank well for "roofing contractors in Fort Myers." The page authority is 25 and our domain authority is 27. Our home page authority is 39. Our primary category in Google is building restoration & preservation. But we have divisions in our company: Roofing Concrete Ornamental metals I would love it if our roofing page could rank higher than the third page, which is where it currently sits. I worked really hard to get each of our roofing-material manufacturers to link directly to our roofing page, not the home page. My hope is that you can help me because I'm really discouraged. Thanks in advance.
Local Website Optimization | | Jason_Taylor0 -
Question about landing pages
I currently have a service based website with landing pages for surrounding towns. For example the keywords targeting and url for the town are "service+town+state". I recently noticed that I am not showing up at all for "service+zip" even though I have the zips included in all the landing pages. I was told if I made more landing pages dedicated to zip I would risk killing the rank on other landing pages. Would it be advisable to make another totally different website that focuses on just the "service+zip" landing pages. The name of the page would be the same the company obviously but the phone numbers and content would be different along with domain url. Any advice or suggestions are welcome. Thanks.
Local Website Optimization | | Spartan221 -
Client with business website as well as franchise site
I have a client who has created a Weebly web presence alongside his provided franchise website. What is my best strategy as he does not wish for the franchise site to out-perform his Weebly presence.
Local Website Optimization | | Sans_Terra0 -
Having portal page that takes you to website with a different url
We are in the planning stages for this. Our client wants his (as yet) domain name to be a portal page for this new campaign. His domain name is a non-keyword company name (i.e. widgetsgalore.com) We already have a website with content tailored to his business ready to go. In fact, we did a campaign back in '06 to '09 that was highly successful. At that time it was just the webpage with a keyword rich url. Now for some reason the client wants his company name url (widgetsgalore.com) to be the portal page (landing page) that once potential clients click on it takes them to the website with the content. What are the pros and cons of doing what client asks about making his widgetsgalore.com a portal page vs. going directly to the url with all the content/forms, etc? This is a local site, with audience limited to southern california.
Local Website Optimization | | Manifestation0 -
HELP, My site have more than 40k visits by day and the server is down, I do not want all this visits...
Hello... I have a website for a local spa in ecuador, this website have a blog with some tips about health... and suddenly one of the articles goes viral on south america profiels on FB and I am receiving 40k visits by day from other countries that are not interested to me because my site is for a local bussines in ecuador... I already block some countries by IP , but Im still receiving visits from other south america countries, for this reason My hosting server company put down my website and I can not put it back online beacuse this thousands of visits use more than the 25% of the CPU of the server and the hosting company put down my website again... I really need to know what to do, I do not want to pay for a expensive special server because all this visits from other countries are not interesting to me .and as I said before my bussines is local.
Local Website Optimization | | lans27872 -
International Site Geolocation Redirection (best way to redirect and allow Google bots to index sites)
I have a client that has an international website. The website currently has IP detection and redirects you to the subdomain for your country. They have currently only launched the Australian website and are not yet open to the rest of the world: https://au.domain.com/ Google is not indexing the Australian website or pages, instead I believe that the bots are being blocked by the IP redirection every time they try to visit one of the Australian pages. Therefore only the US 'coming soon' page is being properly indexed. So, I would like to know the best way to place a geolocation redirection without creating a splash page to select location? User friendliness is most important (so we don't want cookies etc). I have seen this great Whiteboard Friday video on Where to Host and How to Target, which makes sense, but what it doesn't tell me is exactly the best method for redirection except at about 10:20 where it tells me what I'm doing is incorrect. I have also read a number of other posts on IP redirection, but none tell me the best method, and some are a little different examples... I need for US visitors to see the US coming soon page and for Google to index the Australian website. I have seen a lot about JS redirects, IP redirects and .htaccess redirects, but unfortunately my technical knowledge of how these affect Google's bots doesn't really help. Appreciate your answers. Cheers, Lincoln
Local Website Optimization | | LincolnSmith0