How to remove a thin site penalty
-
Wondering if anyone could help out. A while back I made an affiliate store using wordpress and merchants products feeds. I didn't get found to adding any unique content to the site and, as was to be expected, I gained a penalty and my search traffic died.
A few months back I redesigned the store, still using merchant csv but now with 98% unique content on each page. However, try as I may I still cannot get anywhere in the engines. The domain doesn't even rank for it's own name!! I have submitted reconsideration request but they have replied saying no penalty on the site.
The domain is www.digitalcatwalk.co.uk. While the domain isn't massively strong I would prefer not to have to start again as I feel it is a very good domain name.
Any advise would be most gratefully received.
Thanks
Carl
-
Thanks for your help gents'. All the content on the site was meant to be 100% unique (I got someone in my company to create with the help of external suppliers). I checked samples and they seemed fine but it appears that all isn't what it first appeared.
I'll get the content replaced and get back to it.
Thanks
-
Content of your website still bears some similarities with some external websites - http://digitalcatwalk.co.uk/store/product/lady-loose-coat/ - content of this page bears some similarities with the following URL - http://goarticles.com/article/Fashion-Advice-You-Shouldn-t-Pass-Up-On/6997768/
H 1 tag is wrongly implemented –
_All the internal pagination series have duplicate content:
http://digitalcatwalk.co.uk/category/968016/sandals-flat/2
http://digitalcatwalk.co.uk/category/968016/sandals-flat/148
http://digitalcatwalk.co.uk/category/968016/sandals-flat/147 `__Suggest removing the content from all pagination series. _
-
Yes unoriginal content will get you penalised very quick. Even if it's your content, if another site steals it and they have more authority google will most likely penalise you for it. Great to be given the benefit of the doubt isn't it? So clear that up but contacting other webmasters to have them remove it, or simply rewrite your content. After you are happy, resubmit your sitemap and update it if necessary before you do.
-
I am copying sentences from your site and putting them into Google and it looks like other websites have that sentence. So from my viewpoint, there looks to be some "unoriginal" content.
I don't really know how Google handles affiliate site. I know that they got blasted a few years ago for spamming. Your site is clearly an affiliate website.
Here is an example of what I see:
http://digitalcatwalk.co.uk/store/product/leopard-print-bra-straps/
You are copying this. If you have this too much thoughout your site, why should you rank? I just looked at one page, I'm sure Google can find many more with their crawlers.
-
Hi
Thanks for the reply. Yes, I originally started to rebuild using Magento but swapped to Wordpress as it as quicker and easier. I see your thinking behind removing spam links but I'm convinced that the penalty is more for thin/duplicate content than a dodgy link profile. All the product feeds are identical to merchants as it's an affiliate store and previously these were the only content on the site. There is now lots of unique content on there with these feeds but I think I am still being treated as if it were duplicate
-
If the Google Police are saying there is no penalty on the site, then it's not a manual penalty. To me it sounds like an algorithmic penalty. Go through your links in GWT and try to remove the spam links. I love SEOmoz's OSE to see links, but look at GWT instead because their index is bigger and that's what Google sees.
You need to remove the links that are penalizing your site. Read Ryan Kent's post on link penalty removals: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/identifying-link-penalties-in-2012
Weird, you have Magento as your index, but WordPress too?
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
-
Google Penalty and Adwords
Hi guys, I am wondering if the google manual penalty or penalty in general (because of bad backlink profile) also means that your website is blocked for Adwords? Thanks
Technical SEO | | barobijav0 -
Making a site mobile friendly
Hey Mozzers, Im having a go at making our site mobile friendly without enlisting the help of developers and incorporating additional costs. I am ok with most of it as its just CSS work bar the odd occasion when i need to reposition some elements within the code. However, i have found myself wanting to use display:none {} on many elements that are just not practical on a mobile site. Some pages may have to hide substantial content. Would this be considered an issue or will google just see it as me hiding impractical elements for a different sized screen. I have googled this question for the past hour and there is a whole bunch of conflicting advice. As always, Many thanks
Technical SEO | | ATP0 -
Site not indexed after 1 month
Hi people, I have been working on this new website for a month now and it has still not been indexed, here is a link: http://bit.ly/HNgzKG Can any of you spot anything wrong with it? I have tried submitting and also submitted an xml sitemap but still no joy.
Technical SEO | | Eavesy0 -
Should I show archives on site?
Should I show my archives on my site? I have WordPress and have dragged the archive widget to the bottom. Would this be considered duplicate content?This is what it looks like. October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 February 2012
Technical SEO | | MyAllenMedia0 -
Mobile site rank on Google S.E. instead of desktop site.
Hello, all SEOers~ Today, I would like to hear your opinion regarding on Mobile site and duplicate contents issue. I have a mobile version of our website that is hosted on a subdomain (m instead www). Site is targeting UK and Its essentially the same content, formatted differently. So every URL on www exists also at the "m" subdomain and is identical content. (there are some different contents, yet I could say about 90% or more contents are same) Recently I've noticed that search results are showing links to our mobile site instead of the desktop site. (Google UK) I have a sitemap.xml for both sites, the mobile sitemap defined as follows: I didn't block googlebot from mobile site and also didn't block googlebot-mobile from desktop site. I read and watched Google webmaster tool forum and related video from Matt Cutts. I found many opinion that there is possibility which cause duplicate contents issue and I should do one of followings. 1. Block googlebot from mobile site. 2. Use canonical Tag on mobile site which points to desktop site. 3. Create and develop different contents (needless to say...) Do you think duplicate contents issue caused my mobile site rank on S.E. instead of my desktop site? also Do you think those method will help to show my desktop site on S.E.? I was wondering that I have multi-country sites which is same site format as I mentioned above. However, my other country sites are totally doing fine on Google. Only difference that I found is my other country sites have different Title & Meta Tag comparing to desktop site, but my UK mobile site has same Title & Meta Tag comparing to desktop. Do you think this also has something to do with current problem? Please people~! Feel free to make some comments and share your opinion. Thanks for reading my long long explanation.
Technical SEO | | Artience0 -
Site Disappeared off of Search
A friend of mine has a site (http://bit.ly/q4iWkM ) that was ranking number one for their key word (Drimnagh() and has now completely disappeared off of the ranking. I did some checking and can't see a problem. She does have duplicate meta and titles throughout but this shouldn't be a punishable offence that I know of and is something that I am going to correct with a quick plugin install. I couldn't see any redirects or code stopping search either. When you do site:URL it shows up OK as well. She is client of mine (for website not for SEO) and she is really upset about it so any help from the forum would be appreciated. This isn't even a site I did but you couldn't get a better person to work with so I am eager to help where and if possible. Guinness all round if someone solves it next time you are in Ireland
Technical SEO | | kdaly1000 -
Partial Site Move -- Tell Google Entire Site Moved?
OK this one's a little confusing, please try to follow along. We recently went through a rebranding where we brought a new domain online for one of our brands (we'll call this domain 'B' -- it's also not the site linked to in my profile, not to confuse things). This brand accounted for 90% of the pages and 90% of the e-comm on the existing domain (we'll call the existing domain 'A') . 'A' was also redesigned and it's URL structure has changed. We have 301s in place on A that redirect to B for those 90% of pages and we also have internal 301s on A for the remaining 10% of pages whose URL has changed as a result of the A redesign What I'm wondering is if I should tell Google through webmaster tools that 'A' is now 'B' through the 'Change of Address' form. If I do this, will the existing products that remain on A suffer? I suppose I could just 301 the 10% of URLs on B back to A but I'm wondering if Google would see that as a loop since I just got done telling it that A is now B. I realize there probably isn't a perfect answer here but I'm looking for the "least worst" solution. I also realize that it's not optimal that we moved 90% of the pages from A to B, but it's the situation we're in.
Technical SEO | | badgerdigital0 -
.CA site same as .com site - are both necessary?
Dear Friend, We representa a major national brand in the auto care industry, and they have locations in both US and Canada. There is a primary content site at .com that we have duplicated at .ca. We are hosting the .ca site on a separate IP on a server in Canada - but by in large it is the same site. (there are some minor changes we made to change US English to Canadian English - though minor. When we search Google.ca we generally see strong search results for the .com site, but rarely, if ever any evidence of rankings for the .ca site. The .com site was launched several years ago about 18 months before the .ca site. Why doesn't Google.ca show the .ca site? Is this an issue of duplicate content, and Google.ca simply shows the .com version which it knew about first? Are we wasting our time, money and efforts having both? Thanks, Tim ps. this isn't about location. We use a separate site to locate local shops, and have coordinated that well with Google Places, and when looking for local auto care - we do well in both US and Canada. The sites described above are largetl content sites.
Technical SEO | | lunavista-comm0