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All I can say is 'wow'

I'm quite embarrassed. Thanks for your help nonetheless

The obvious is missed huh? lol.

Cole

Hi all,

We launched a new website for a customer on April 29th. That same day we resubmitted the new sitemap & asked Google to fetch the new website.

Screenshot is attached of this (GWT Indexed).

However, when I look at Google Index (see attachment - Google Index), Automated Production's old website URL's still appear. It's been two weeks.

Is it normal for Google's index to take this long to update?

Thanks for your help.

Cole

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Hi all,

Thanks for the responses & feedback.
Alan, in this example, the fresh content would be relevant. Of course there are search queries that don't need freshness or updates, but I would argue most do need updates / freshness (even the ones we think we know the answer to over time).

Once again, the conversation is not about RANKING for that page but about HELPING the domain achieve "freshness & relevance" around a topic with that duplicate content.

Would love to see others chime in.

Thanks,

Cole

Thanks for your feedback Mike - definitely helpful!

In this hypothetical, we're looking at research or comprehensive articles for specific niches that could serve multiple businesses well as an authority.

Thanks,

Cole

Hi Mike,

Thanks for the feedback. That was one potential point I was making.

Am still curious if duplicate content would be considered "fresh" within a website. Good point of the duplicate content overriding the benefit of fresh content.

Thanks,

Cole

Hi all,

I've been asking quite a bit of questions lately and sincerely appreciate your feedback. My co-workers & I have been discussing content as an avenue outside of SEO. There is a lot of syndicated content programs/plugins out there (in a lot of cases duplicate) - would this be considered fresh content on an individual domain?

An example may clearly show what I'm after:

domain1.com is a lawyer in Seattle.
domain2.com is a lawyer in New York.

Both need content on their website relating to being a lawyer for Google to understand what the domain is about. Fresh content is also a factor within Google's algorithm (source: http://moz.com/blog/google-fresh-factor). Therefore, fresh content is needed on their domain. But what if that content is duplicate, does it still hold the same value?

Question: Is fresh content (adding new / updating existing content) still considered "fresh" even if it's duplicate (across multiple domains).

Purpose: domain1.com may benefit from a resource for his/her local clientale as the same would domain2.com. And both customers would be reading the "duplicate content" for the first time. Therefore, both lawyers will be seen as an authority & improve their website to rank well.

We weren't interested in ranking the individual article and are aware of canonical URLs. We aren't implementing this as a strategy - just as a means to really understand content marketing outside of SEO.

Conclusion: IF duplicate content is still considered fresh content on an individual domain, then couldn't duplicate content (that obviously won't rank) still help SEO across a domain? This may sound controversial & I desire an open-ended discussion with linked sources / case studies. This conversation may tie into another Q&A I posted: http://moz.com/community/q/does-duplicate-content-actually-penalize-a-domain.

TLDR version: Is duplicate content (same article across multiple domains) considered fresh content on an individual domain?

Thanks so much,

Cole

Hi Dirk,

Thanks for your feedback.

In this "scenario," we were focusing on "small business owners" that were dentists. They don't want to rank for that piece of content; they only want the engagement benefit or the consistency benefit. Instead of a small business owner struggling to post content or write original content (and no budget to hire someone), they would use "duplicate content" on their domain.

From your feedback, it appears there would be no penalty. I didn't even think about just copying & pasting duplicate content from competitors.

Good points.

Cole

Hi all,

Some co-workers and myself were in a conversation this afternoon regarding if duplicate content actually causes a penalty on your domain.

Reference:

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66359?hl=en

http://searchengineland.com/googles-matt-cutts-duplicate-content-wont-hurt-you-unless-it-is-spammy-167459

Both sources from Google do not say "duplicate content causes a penalty." However, they do allude to spammy content negatively affecting a website.

Why it came up:

We originally were talking about syndicated content (same content across multiple domains; ex: "5 explanations of bad breath") for the purpose of social media sharing. Imagine if dentists across the nation had access to this piece of content (5 explanations of bad breath) simply for engagement with their audience. They would use this to post on social media & to talk about in the office. But they would not want to rank for that piece of duplicated content. This type of duplicated content would be valuable to dentists in different cities that need engagement with their audience or simply need the content.

This is all hypothetical but serious at the same time. I would love some feedback & sourced information / case studies.

Is duplicated content actually penalized or will that piece of content just not rank? (feel free to reference that example article as a real world example).

**When I say penalized, I mean "the domain is given a negative penalty for showing up in SERPS" - therefore, the website would not rank for "dentists in san francisco, ca". That is my definition of penalty (feel free to correct if you disagree).

Thanks all & look forward to a fun, resourceful conversation on duplicate content for the other purposes outside of SEO.

Cole

Hi Patrick,

We also drive traffic to these pages via Adwords / Bing Ads.

What if we change the content on these pages slightly differently.

Would that be good?

For ex: having local information such as who you've served or how you serve them (via Skype) rather than in person.

Reason why is because we get some traffic from some of these locations.

Thanks,

ETA: you can't do a local listing (Google Business) without a physical address.

I also believe one way we can improve is to have a paragraph in the middle talking about who / how we service that particular location.

We aren't hiding our navigation or other site features as some "doorway pages" do.

Thanks,

Honestly, I don't think anyone can respond to that because it depends on your experience, talent, and what you think is fair.

Thanks,

It appears to have no value to me. I don't know if I would necessarily disavow it, although I would't expect much negative impact because of its DA (if removed). It just depends on your link profile.

But yes, it appears to have no value for the user and spammy.

ETA: If you drop out of rankings because of this disavowing this link (I doubt you will), you can go back and remove the disavow file. I've seen sites jump right back to where they were in the rankings.

Hello, this sounds pretty urgent.

You can see the updates here - http://moz.com/google-algorithm-change

Google Penguin update hit sites that have poor backlinking or spam links.

Google Panda update hit thin sites (with thin content) or any duplicate content.

Moving forward: Find the problem (could be more than one). Disavow the links. Produce relevant, high quality (not high quantity) content.

Moving a site is always a valid concern, double check your redirects (both pages and media - such as images and pdfs) and double check your on-site optimization.

Hope this helps.

Hello,

I wouldn't ever pay for links quite frankly. Search engines will continue to get more advanced and understand the world wide web better as time goes on.

I would dive deep into creativity and pursue possibly some of the following backlink options:

• reach out to universities to publish links on their websites for graduates (both undergrad and grad websites - that's possibly two links for .edu)
• I would possibly have a similar job posting on Craigslist (another valuable link) - beware of duplicate content
• Create content focused on local people getting local jobs and reach out to your local chamber of commerce or local government to see if you can garner some "attention" to these jobs. Possibly some .gov / valuable links here.
• Your content should be focused on helping people find jobs
• Your outreach should probably take most of your SEO time spent.
• Track those links! Therefore, validating your efforts.

I hope this helps.

Cole

Did you 301 redirect all the old pages to the new pages (assuming URL structure was changed)?

What were they ranking for previously? And what page was ranking?

I may would advise having a more specific keyword for the home page considering it probably has a higher Domain Authority.

Thanks,

Cole

I'm open to correction from other Mozzers but I don't think you've been hit with a penalty because of your keyword optimization.

I would consider one thing - what is best for the user?

It may look like this (targeting Website Design):

Title Tag Keyword Phrase | Brand Name - For example: Website Designer - Seattle, Washington

H1 Keyword Phrase in a question form - Website Design Made Easy (followed by content)

H2 Keyword Phrase asking where it originated, etc. - Website Design Services and Pricing (followed by content)

Basically, provide relevant content. I wouldn't worry too much here; just slightly alter it so it's not exact match all the way down the page.

As far as a penalty, you may have been recently hit with the new panda update or the penguin update.

I hope this helps. Thanks, Cole.

Another thing to do is to double check Google Analytics code on the new website, double check robots.txt on the new website, make sure the new website is being indexed (I'm assuming there are new pages), double check anything and everything.

It is common for new launches to lose traffic for a little bit then come back to a better place. It happened to me on a large media site. The traffic dropped a 30% then recovered for a gain of 15%. Not sure why. But that's what happened.

I hope you find something or hold tight!

Thanks,

Cole

I've looked at the following:

• your DA and PA of home page is at the same level if not better than your competitors.
• your website speed is fine.
• you don't have any backlinks that are spammy.
• Your on-site optimization is good
• you have good content
• your site is visually appealing so it can't be CTR and bouncing.
• you appear to have good indexation
• your robots.txt file isn't the issue

Man, I'm very curious as to what others say. How long have you owned that domain? Could it be that someone previously had it and received a penalty?

ETA:

*the site that appear to rank higher than you have part of the keyword search query in their domain name but this isn't a "be all" scenario. So that can't FULLY be it either. It doesn't explain why you don't show up on second or third page.

*I didn't see you on the second or third page of "coffee vending machines south africa." I really wonder if this site has had a penalty before.

Have you ever disavowed any backlinks in GWT before? If so, what sites?

robots.txt:

Disallow:

/wp-admin/

/wp-content/plugins/

Then, deindex them as mentioned in the first response.