Trying to figure out why Penguin has completely buggered us up, and what to do about it
-
Hola All,
This is a update of http://www.seomoz.org/q/gah-unfaorly-hit-by-massive-google-penalty
Updated because:
-
Google webmaster has gotten back to us that there have been no manual actions taken against us
-
Results haven't improved one jot
-
We're completely flummoxed as to why this is happenin
Quick summary:
We run the larest WordPress news site on the web, WPMU.org
We're completely legit, a team of 4-5 great writers, amazing original content, massive fanbase on twitter and facebook, a 60k email list etc, established for years and years.
We're absolutely not and haven't done anything gray or black, the worst we've done is including links in the footers of some themes we've distributed
Since the 24th April our google referrals are down from an 8.5k daily peak to 1.5 - see the attached.
Articles which have consistently attracted several hundred referrals per day have disappeared from the rankings to be replaced by republications or just links to the, for example, here's one on the dangers of searching for free WP themes, decimated:
http://wpmu.org/why-you-should-never-search-for-free-wordpress-themes-in-google-or-anywhere-else/
Check out how legit we are!
http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/links?site=wpmu.org
And the problem:
How to get our google traffic back?
We're completely stuck
We can't find issues within the site content, or even particularly within the backlinks (we've removed all links from Edublogs)
We haven't been manually whacked, so we can't get that changed.
Absolutely nothing within the penguin update should have hit us... in fact by their reckoning we should have had a massive improvement over all the trash that competes with us in the WordPress space.
Help / Ideas / Feedback / Criticism / Anything desperately sought.
Thanks for your time,
James
-
-
Thanks again for the feedback.
I see what you;re saying but to be honest I cannot fathom as to why they would be of any significant importance, and so them being taken away shouldn't count a jot really.
Our content is v popular (just check out facebook.com/wpmudev where's it's reposted plus other stuff, we've got stunning social metrics as well as a vast array of quality, genuine, interested organic links.
And we never went about it in any serious way, and stopped in 2009 or so when we were picking up 300 visits per day rather than the 20k we were prior to the 24th
-
Hi Me again!
You wrote:
"the worst we've done is including links in the footers of some themes we've distributed"
So, perhaps you should start with the worst and see if that is it?
I have a feeling that these Client Footer Links used to provide rankings and now don't because of adjustments to the algorithm. I think that rather than view it as a penalty, you may be best to view it as a previous gift that is now gone. I am formulating theories as to why, and I am currently somewhere beyond my original hunch (which was that they look like paid links), and not yet to my actual theory (which is much broader, but I haven't fully formulated, so I will keep to myself for a bit).
Anyway, I have figured out how it would be quite easy for search engines to devalue Client Footer Links, along with the blog networks and paid links they have been taking down, by using some available metrics. So, when my theory comes together, if the search engines are not using it, they will be forced to sometime in the next few years. (Stroking my own genious ego here, I know).
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
-
GSC Performance completely dropped off, but Google Analytics is steady. Why can't GSC track my site anymore?
Hey everyone! I'm having a weird issue that I've never experienced before. For one of my clients, GSC has a complete drop-off in the Performance section. All of the data shows that everything fell flat, or almost completely flat. But in Google Analytics, we have steady results. No huge drop-off in traffic, etc. Do any of you know why GSC would all of a sudden be unable to crawl our site? Or track this data? Let me know what you think!
Algorithm Updates | | TaylorAtVelox
Thanks!2 -
Landing page redirect along with complete content
Hi Moz community, We have a page with "keyword" we are targeting in slug like website.com/keyword/. This page doesn't have much back-links or visits like homepage. So we decided to redirect homepage to /keyword page along with complete content. Will this going to hurt? Only change anybody can notice is URL. Are there any risks involved. I think this is the best way to highlight the page we been thinking about. Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Recommended action for site hit by penguin ?
What is more advisable, though there surely could be debate on this? Back in '07 till sometime around a year ago it seems our site got hit by google's updates, no manual action though, and have seen in past few months disavowed what we could find as well as deleted a lot of links. We are also working on getting word out on the brand as well and trying to get on some business websites to have articles and offer some discounts. Our keyword rankings seem stuck in limbo the past year or so though. Some main keywords for example seem stuck around page 8 when they used to be on page 1. Question is, can what seems to be a penguin update be recovered from? Is Google likely to refresh the algorithm? Also could starting a new site be more worth the investment - starting fresh with natural links, etc And if googles system could pick up that the site is run from same ip, etc. would they care? Also the keyword competition one of Moz's tools said around 46% if that makes a difference for one of the main keywords. Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | xelaetaks0 -
Recent Rank drop after Penguin 2.1?
Recently, a lot of pages from our website have moved from page one or ranking number one, to page ten or something. We got a manual penalty message from Google Team, we removed a lot of unnatural links pointing to our pages and disavowed the rest. This got the penalty removed and we got a message from Google confirming the same. Before the manual penalty we were getting about 140,000 visits per day, after the penalty about 80,000. However, after Hummingbird or Penguin 2.1 all our ranks have vanished. We are nowhere in Google for our primary keywords and we getting like 40,000 visits per day. Most are direct or from sources other than Google. We had another look at the links we disavowed, a list of about 11000 domains, we found about 3000 domains to be good. We fixed the disavow file about one week back, but no changes in traffic since. We checking the domains again to see if we have missed more good domains in there; yes, we have. There are still a very few good domains in there. But we are not touching the disavow list; waiting to see the change for the last submitted. We have a dedicated user base, good liking on Facebook, all the stats in Analytics speak good, about 40% repeat visits about 30% direct. About 3000 people search for the site using our brand name as reported in Analytics. I doubt the on-page optimization, the pages could be over-optimized. But the on-page factors for other pages ranking for the keywords are similar. The keyword density is similar, so are the usage of headings and stuff. We have not made any recent changes to these on-page patterns. Our team is not able to figure out what could have gone wrong.
Algorithm Updates | | Develop410 -
What our next step after hitting by Penguin 2.0
Hi Everyone, Any idea about what the next step after hitting by Penguin 2.0 We go for more link building or content optimization or some thing else..?
Algorithm Updates | | lucidsoftech0 -
Lost and confused after Penguin!
I own an EMD which was hit by google penguin. I lost my #1 position to Google US SERP and went to #5 for the keyword which applies to the EMD. What I have tried so far is deleting the exact anchor text links from the footers of my c-block sites. That did not seem to help because i did not gain any position from that change. I also altered my meta title, description and keywords because they were spamming a bit. Things did not improved. My Links w/ Exact Anchor Text is at 5%, Linking Root Domains w/ Exact Anchor Text at 3% The web pages that are above me are to 0% to both categories because they are not showing up with their main page. What is going on? The thing that confuses me the most is that i am also targeting for two other markets, Australia and Canada. In Canada I have maintained my #1 and to Australia I lost my first position falling to #2. I did not receive any message to my webmaster tools account and never made any black hat link building. Is the EMD fact the problem, but why not for other markets except US? Penguin has run to other markets(CA, AU) as well becuase i have seen a drop to other keywords and also to my traffic. Really what do you think?
Algorithm Updates | | Tz_Seo0 -
A rating on report card - Massive drop in rankings (Is it Penguin?)
Hi All, I would really like a second opinion on my current issue and I'd be very grateful for the communities knowledge please . I have a been running a successful campaign for one of my clients, increase in natural SERP's, etc. But since the 24th of April they were hit and hit hard and continued to decline now. They had many top 5 listings for terms and now most are not in top 50 serps. Openly I know they have a bad or not great backlink profile which was inherited from the past agency, but we're working on this using white hat techniques, contextual copy, brand etc. The copy is a great, contextual and no where near spammy at all... Very nicely written, factual, etc. What I don't understand is this SEOmoz's On-Page report card gives an A rating for the target term which is also a secondary term but was ranking high. Factor Overview <dl class="scoreboard clearfix"> <dt>Critical Factors</dt> <dd>4 / 4</dd> <dt>High Importance Factors</dt> <dd>6 / 7</dd> <dt>Moderate Importance Factors</dt> <dd>7 / 9</dd> <dt>Low Importance Factors</dt> <dd>8 / 11</dd> <dt>Optional Factors</dt> <dd>2 / 5</dd> <dd> On-Page Keyword Usage for </dd> </dl> Title 1 URL 0 Meta Desc 1 H1 1 H2-4 0 Body 1 B / Strong 1 IMG ALT 0 Total Keyword Usage for this Page = 5 Fall from grace is SERP 5 to 25 and still going down. So the questions are: 1. Has this happened to you? 2. Could it just be down to their bad backlink profile which now needs much more attention? 3. Is this Penguin for sure? 4. What would you recommend? If anyone requires any further info please let me know and thank you in advance. Cheers,
Algorithm Updates | | JosephGourvenec
Joseph Gourvenec
SEO and Search Specialist0 -
Hit hard by Penguin
We've been hit hard by the Penguin update. To start - we have never paid for a link or participated in any link scheme. Never. I'm sure you've heard that - but in this case it's true. Our site - www.annuity.com - has been in existence since 2004. Because of our name, we've always been ranked on page 1 of Google for the search term "annuity". Now we aren't even on page 50. We got the dreaded letter about links, but we've never bought, exchanged, paid, etc. or participated in any link scheme. We have not needed too. We are referenced by sites such as Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Bankrate.com, etc. Our content is original and our own. We've spent years writing it. Because of our sites name - Annuity.com - we get a lot of web spam. Looking at some of our inbound links - companies are linking to us because of our name (keyword - looks like a auto link generation or something like that) or our reputation. Any suggestions or advice on how to get our ranking back without becoming the Web Police? We don't buy, purchase, spam, or need links that are not earned by the quality of our content. I'm at a loss.
Algorithm Updates | | galis421