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If you're thinking in terms of sprinkling good content in with crap content, you're already off to a bad start.
The solution here is simple: _Don't publish crap. _
Seriously, that's it. That's how you avoid a Panda slap. Shares have nothing to do with it.
Just because they're a bank with a large digital team doesn't mean they put so much thought into it, and I'm willing to bet that's the case. Maybe someone noticed an empty field in their CMS and took it upon themselves to fill it in. Maybe the digital team fought a losing battle with an exec and shrugged it off because it was an easy way to make a C-level happy without actually hurting anything. It doesn't matter because it's neither good nor bad.
Also, don't put any stock into the hype around the thinking that someone might use it to "steal" your keywords. Have you ever actually heard of a case where this happened? Where it hurt someone? No. It's a ghost story that SEOs have been parroting for years, probably based on some long ago throwaway speculation. Besides, you're a bank. No one needs to snoop around in your code to know what your target keywords are when it's that straightforward.
Data is the cinnamon of content marketing. It enhances your dish with a nice cinnamon flavor, but you probably don't want a big heaping spoonful of uncut cinnamon or the next thing you know you've launched a viral video meme. Or something like that.
A story without data maybe is a nice story, but it's also toothless. The internet is littered with baseless opinions and we don't really need more of that. You can make an opinion insightful, however, when you back it up with facts, sources, numbers. Prove a product works laying out a success by the numbers. I want to see stories that know when to lean into the data, the kind of story that chews your face off and then drops the mic.
Make an assertion, express an opinion, back it up with facts, but never forget that the numbers are there to support the story, and not the other way around.
Cinnamon... face chewing... it must getting close to lunch time.
I'd point out that "home insurance" is actually a distinct keyphrase existing intact within "specialist home insurance"... so if it was me, all else being equal and contextually appropriate, I'd probably lean just a little heavier on the latter knowing that I'm actually capturing both at once.
A few questions:
So, if I'm understanding this correctly, you're posting spun content? Are you spinning someone else's content or are you spinning your own content?
Separately from that, social media has no real direct impact on SEO, and duplication through shares across social is kind of the whole point of social, so I wouldn't worry about that hurting anything. Nor would I seriously pursue it as an SEO tactic. The value of social to SEO is that it amplifies your content's reach, and more eyeballs on your content translates to more potential for attracting natural links. But the shares themselves do nothing to help SEO right now. In the future, maybe.
I think the key with this approach is to be genuinely helpful and to avoid actually trying to sell a product. That's incredibly counterintuitive, but the product probably isn't the endgame for your consumer. What are they using it for? Be an expert resource on THAT.
The Home Depot blog is a really excellent example of this principle in action. Instead of selling their products, they're showing very creative and aspirational ways that people can use them. They did an entire DIY series on concrete. Concrete!
So they do all of these posts about concrete, but they're never pitching you a hard sell on it. The path to purchase is there if you want it, but really they're just focused on being experts on all of the wonderful, aspirational things you can do with concrete. It's very shareable and pinnable and I want every one of those projects in my home. They've planted the idea of buying concrete without selling it to me. It's very obvious they are an authority on concrete, and it doesn't matter that they're a seller. In fact, I'm more likely to buy it from them now because their expertise on it is clear.
So I started with that instead of outreach because when the content is that good, you can push it out on social and get a good response. You can share what you're doing with influencers and they won't mind because it's obvious you know what you're talking about. Next thing you know, they're coming to you for comment as an expert. The quality has to be there or you're right, you just look like you're pushing product and that does get tend to get ignored.
I recommend taking a look at the redirect path and server codes with something like the Redirect Path Chrome plugin. It shows you every step of any redirect chain. If it's a passing through 301 (or a series of 301's) then it passes link juice.
My advice would be to write for topics rather than for keywords. For example, if you're building one page for "red widgets", one for "crimson widgets", and one for "scarlet widgets", ask yourself if those aren't all actually the same thing. If they are, write one page instead of three, and talk about red widgets using supporting widget-related vocabulary, because the search engines will not be fooled, and even if they are you don't want to have three light, near-duplicate pages competing against one another. Write the best page about red widgets the internet has ever seen. Google is increasingly good at understanding context.
First, if bad links are the culprit, then the issue wasn't Panda so much as it was likely Penguin.
If you have the links in an Excel file, then you're off to a really good start. Run them through a utility like Link Detox to see which are truly bad (there may be some gems in there worth saving). Reach out to every webmaster and request the links be removed. Then build and submit a Disavow file through your Google Webmaster Console.
Also, read up on how to use the Disavow Tool. And anything else Marie Haynes writes about Penguin is bound to be gold, too.
Super affiliate here. While Everett and Thomas are right to point you in the direction of the FTC texts, keep in mind that the FTC guidelines are just that: guidelines. They're not law, not widely enforced, and Google largely ignores affiliate links so long as they're nofollowed. They don't seem to be quite up to the level of the sponsored links and content that bloggers must disclose to avoid a Google penalty (but again, that's Google's enforcement of their own guidelines, not law.)
Some merchants with affiliate programs will insist on clear and conspicuous disclosure if you want to remain in their program, but really their panic over the guidelines died down pretty fast after they were released in 2012. The one major exception that comes to mind are credit cards providers, which are exceptionally picky about compliance on this issue since they're subject to tighter regulation on the banking side of things.
All that is not to say that disclosure isn't the right thing to do - only that it's not likely to land you in hot water with anyone anytime soon.
When I search for "personal injury attorney" there are plenty of results that pop up that are clearly optimized for "lawyer." I'd say yes, Google clearly has connected the dots on that one.
By "doorway pages" you just mean a thin, off-site landing page which quickly funnels a visitor onto your main site, correct?
If it hasn't been hit with a manual penalty, it ranks well, AND it's got links worth keeping (note the qualifier there), I'd go for the 301. But only if it can meet all three of those criteria. If it didn't, then I'd let it 404.
Agree 100%. I've interviewed several candidates lately who have completed an SEO program at a local, well respected, not-for-profit school and it became pretty clear as I spoke to them that I've got a lot of work to do to fix the misinformation.
On the other hand, I was really excited about a candidate who had a degree in Political Science, though he ultimately took a different job. I've been very pleased with the work I've seen from a co-worker with a degree in journalism. I find that a liberal arts education in general, but especially when the degree requires a combination of writing skill and critical thinking, sets people up pretty well for SEO work. I'm always surprised by how much SEO these candidates already know without realizing it - it's just that no one has ever organized everything for them or given it a name. Once they have that light bulb moment, they pick it up very quickly.
Personally, I've got a BA in Rhetoric and an MBA in International Business, and I find these to be invaluable for what I do. I know how to write, I understand how people use language, and b-school gave me a whole new perspective on what KPIs really matter and how my role fits into our business model.
It's nothing you should worry about, honestly. Create great content, and if it makes sense to link out to someone, then do it. With or without a rel="nofollow" is up to you.
Backing myself up here, in which John Mueller basically says there's no SEO advantage or disadvantage to outbound linking:
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-external-links-20951.html
So, you're redirecting B-town to A-ville. If A-ville services the area formerly served by B-town, then I think a 301 would be fine, especially if A-ville's page mentions that they service B-town. I'd even see that as helpful from a UX perspective.
Otherwise, I'd probably 301 B-town to your main locations page. I agree with whoever said your proposed "second step" sounds spammy. You'll lose traction in those neighborhoods, sure, but I have to ask, if the locations were closed, how valuable were they, really? Is it enough to make risking a penalty worthwhile?
I don't believe it's the length or the number of words so much as how much more information those extra words bring to the table. More words isn't better, but more information is.
As someone who works in this space I'm not going to give away all of my secrets (sorry), but I can advise you to ask the following questions and consider the answers carefully when deciding what to do:
What are you offering on any given page that is unique or better than what the next coupon site offers? Are you saying something insightful or helpful about Macy's on the Macy's page?
What does the link/text ratio look like on that page?
Is the coupon content 100% unique to you, or are you pulling that content in from a feed that also services other coupon sites? (Basically, do you have a large scale duplicate content issue across websites you don't control?)
Are coupons listed on a merchant's page with each also existing as an individual page for each coupon, potentially creating a thin and duplicate content situation on site?
If you want individual coupons to be indexed, should they remain indexed once they've expired?
Are you using a redirecting URL to mask/beautify/track the affiliate link? Do you want that link to be indexed even though it's not actually a page with content? (Sounds a bit crazy but we've run into issues with that in the past, just like how bit.ly links can get indexed sometimes, defying all logic.)
(eg. yoursite.com/couponclick/1234 --> super ugly affiliate link --> merchant page)
I'm going to be bluntly honest here, and not because I don't want the competition but just as a 5 year veteran in this niche and because you should know what you're getting into:
The coupon space is extremely difficult to break into. It is literally impossible emphasize this enough. The big players are very well established. Most of them aren't just offering coupons, but what I think of as "coupons+" (coupons + deals, coupons + cash back, coupons + charitable donation, etc.) and users respond to that and share it. RetailMeNot is deluged with high authority inbound links every time their stock moves a penny. Thin and duplicate content is endemic thanks to the ease of installing feeds, and making that content not just unique but also authoritative is easy to recommend but crazy difficult to implement at scale. Linkbuilding is next to impossible since no one really links to a Macy's coupon page, let alone a page for 2nd and 3rd tier stores without some kind of financial incentive, and Google gives no link credit for affiliate links (which should be nofollowed anyway). Users mostly aren't loyal to one site or another, they just want the coupon so they can get $5 off of some UGG boots. And when newcomers aren't able to cope or compete given all these difficulties, they often resort to blackhat tactics, making it even harder for those of us who keep things white hat to stay competitive (though Google has been much, much better about booting that crap since the Payday Loan update). Really, titles and metas, while it's important to get them right, are going to be the least of your challenges. Be thoughtful about the content, be user-friendly, find a way to stand out and you might have a shot.
I'd move the older articles into a /archive/ subfolder (keeping a site search function available) and then exclude the archive from indexing. The pages stay up and can be found on site by interested parties while newer material gets all the glory.
Google is absolutely smart enough to understand the difference between uppercase and lowercase and ferret out user intent. I'd wager that a lot of people don't bother with capitalization when typing a query, so it would be incredibly important to get that right. I've never seen a difference.
Hypothetically speaking, it could be a factor if/when capitalization changes the meaning. Off the top of my head:
But I would imagine that in cases like these, the way you're using it in the query is also providing important contextual clues.
Are you wanting these videos to drive traffic to your site? If so, then YouTube is not going to be the answer as it's pretty terrible as a traffic driver. I would host on site if at all possible. Maybe throw them up on YouTube because why not, but more for brand awareness than for SEO.
John Mueller said awhile back that if you're hiding content behind a "Read More" then Google may downgrade the importance of that content. Because if it really was essential text, then you wouldn't be hiding it in a collapsible div, right? Basically, don't abuse it and you should be okay, but it's not a 100% safe thing and the content in those divs may not be indexed.
It sounds like you need to dial back the type of result that triggers an alert. Maybe limit the parameters to just news instead of everything?
Why was it penalized? Is the site still penalized?
Unless you're already not ranking well, changing URLs is a big risk, honestly. I don't think you're likely to see much gain, if any, by dropping one fairly sensible word/subfolder from your URL structure, the risk and work involved to set it up with 301s and the like far outweighs the benefit, which is questionable at best to start. I wouldn't do it unless I was burning it down and starting over.
My response is a big fat NOPE.
If the client isn't happy with the speed of back linking, then it's time for an education session in which you stand up as the expert they hired you to be and explain exactly why it's a bad, bad idea.
And that's just if you don't get caught. Getting away with black hat tactics is an intense, highly skilled, full-time endeavor. It's not a quick and easy way to anything. So even if you are willing to go there, given your inexperience with shady link building tactics, it's still a wretchedly bad idea since you've got no idea how to not get caught.
Best thing to do is to build a content and outreach campaign that builds links in an above-board manner that no one can take issue with. Believe it or not, that's actually probably easier than anything that link buying would steer you into.
My guess is that most of your blog posts aren't getting any traffic or engagement, but there are probably a few that do. I would start with a content audit, looking at the organic traffic, social engagement and backlinks to each page. You may not have built any links, but that doesn't mean your work hasn't earned them. Keep anything that draws consistent traffic, has been shared more than a few times, and has good quality back links. Let the rest 404. You'll need to make the determination on a case by case basis.
I would recreate the portofolio URLs on the new theme with the new URL structure, then 301 the old URLs to the new ones. You can do the 301s pretty easily on Wordpress with the Redirection plugin.
If you don't want to recreate the portfolios, just 301 the old URLs to the most relevant page on the redesigned site.
Hope that helps!
Honestly, if you're using a CMS like Wordpress, all you should need to do is unpublish the post and let the search engines sort out the rest. If a post is returning a 404, it will get dropped from the index naturally. I can't think of any reason why you'd need to do any more work than that.
Also, a tip, I prefer setting the posts I'm removing to "Privately Published" rather than deleting them entirely. I like to keep removed content as a sort of historical archive, and it returns the same 404 message on the front.
I think the general idea is a good one. Having one very thorough and authoritative page about the common cold should be more powerful than three weaker pages that all compete for the same keywords. In fact, we did something similar last year when we pulled coupons, deals and reviews into a single page, but our review pages hadn't quite taken off and we knew that people don't really search for deals the way they search for coupons, so consolidating made sense to beef up the content in a single authoritative place.
However, in the medical niche I'd be very wary of losing traffic that would have gone to symptom and treatment pages, just knowing (ok, I didn't look anything up, but I can guess) how often those are specifically searched and the indexing issues we've had with content inside collapsible divs. John Mueller has said before that if that content was really so important, you wouldn't be hiding it behind a click. It's a really big risk. If there's a way to test it on a handful of pages before rolling out any sitewide changes, I would absolutely do that.
Took a peek at your backlink profile, and a few things struck me:
I don't speak Latvian, but it doesn't look like a content issue to me.
I honestly believe that Google probably knows what users are doing on your website with or without GA, and that GA is just a way for them to show it to you.
Do the products you're shuttering have decent backlinks behind them? If not, then you probably won't see a noticeable lift. Even if you do have some good backlinks there, my guess is that any lift would be small at best. I don't say that to discourage you, mind you. Good SEO is a collection of a bunch of little things that all add up to a lot, so don't skip it just because it's small.
Also, Jordan's comments about setting up 301s to the most relevant alternative and doing what's best for the user are spot on.
FWIW, Google indexes title tags way beyond what it displays, possibly up to 164 characters. I've always considered that a valuable bit of intel to consider. (The post I linked to is ancient by SEO standards but I'd imagine it's still relevant, some nice work from Hugo Guzman.)
I would nofollow them. It's a pretty spammy linkbuilding technique that Google has allegedly targeted in the past. That article talking specifically about footer links in Wordpress themes, but I can all but guarantee that Wordpress isn't the important word here.
"which of course makes it harder to rank for key terms since they don't exist now in the meta title"
This is incorrect. The keywords are still in your meta title. Google isn't going to ignore them for crawling/indexing purposes based on what it chooses to display. They're still in your code, still getting crawled, still totally counting.
That said, if Google thinks your title is irrelevant, doesn't match the search query well enough, etc., it will display something it deems more appropriate given the page content and searcher's query. Take it as Google's hint that your titles may need some improvement.
I agree with seowoody that you should include your branding in your title line. I'm less crazy about John's suggested title tag. I used to work for an agency that specialized in lawyers of various stripes, and I know how the competitiveness really pushes hard into the gray there, the niche is so badly overoptimized, but it just looks spammy when the second kw just repeats 2 of 3 words from the first kw... and as you've discovered, Google may replace it anyway. I would use keywords but write it for the client, like "Estate Planning Attorney in Mt. View - Duree Law".
Are you sure the keyword stuffing is why they rank, or are they ranking in spite of it?
There may not be an easy way to know without taking a deep breath and jumping in, just make sure you have the ability to roll everything back in the event it goes sideways.
For me, this all depends on whether or not that content has any backlinks and/or gets good search traffic. If neither, then I'd remove it. But if people are still really actually finding the page through long-tail search, then maybe it doesn't matter too much if the trend is from 2008 since people still like it enough to search it out.
If it's linked or has social shares but currently gets no engagement, 301 it to the most relevant content that does. Logan mentions that can dilute the link juice, but you'd be directing it to a place that people actually want to go, so I think you'll be fine there. If it has no links, no social shares, and gets no traffic, it's just dead weight that dilutes your content quality. I'd rather have Google seeing high engagement with all corners of my site rather than just a small number of pages.
The point is that I think you'd do well to pay attention to what your readers are actually engaging with and let that be your guide on whether a particular piece of content stays or goes.
Two things immediately come to mind for me.
Wow, 50 mentions at 2% kw density is sounds like a LOT of content for one page, and
When you read it out loud, does it sound like natural speech or does it sound like you're just banging away at one keyword over and over? Because I believe that's what Google and the tool are probably getting at - making sure you're getting the keywords in there while still keeping the language as natural as possible.
Probably not much impact at all if it's just one instance, might vaguely improve internal linking if it's more extensively used, but really I question the logic from the UX side... as a user, my expectation is that two links labeled the same will go to the same place.
I think all of that research should be taken with a grain of salt since it's talking in averages while what works is going to vary from one industry or niche to the next. That said, though, if your content is well-researched, well-written and thorough, length will often come naturally. Your readers are going to get pulled in (instant gratification culture be damned) and Google's quality algos are going to understand that you really know what you're talking about, and that's a powerful combo.
Okay, so that depends on why Joe was ranking well for widgets in the first place. If it was links, then a 301 will pass the link equity on to Janet. If it was the content, then you can move the content from Joe's page to Janet's and it should hold up since Joe's page won't exist anymore to be duplicate. If it was the business address, then that may pose a problem since location can be tricky as I understand it. I'm not a local SEO expert, so someone else should weigh in on that piece of it.
Honestly, I like your example competitor's tag, and here's why:
Just look at all those beautiful keywords that look just like something someone would actually type into a search engine to find your product. It's descriptive and gets the job done pretty well. You could probably lose one of the printer names and add your brand, but I don't think it's so spammy as you think.
Is that site really so phenomenal if no one sees it because SEO best practices weren't baked into the design?
My first thought is that this topic is already well-covered in a competitive vertical, and it's going to take a lot more than on-page factors to get it ranking well. Has the content earned any links? I see it's got 14 social shares, but the top articles for "moving tips" have more than 500, and a few have thousands. What are you bringing to the table with this advice that others aren't already offering? Can you organize the info in a way that's more shareable? Develop a functional checklist that someone who's moving can actually print and use? Can you pitch a news story around it to local media? Interest for "moving tips" seems to really spike in June and July, so you're well-positioned to coordinate with peak seasonal interest right now.
I have so many questions about this arrangement.
First of all, the third party ownership of the Search Console (and GA too, maybe?) is a massive red flag. Account ownership should always ALWAYS be handled in house. You need to insist on that, and insist loudly and furiously. It's extremely shady for a third-party SEO to own the accounts since it lets them hold the site and its data hostage if the relationship sours. How easy would it be for people who aren't even part of your company to use Search Console to start removing important URLs from the index? What happens to your data if you end the contract? Do they also own your analytics? Could they cut off your access to your own data on a whim? Replace your site with a page telling the world what awful clients you are? Depending on the size and type of company you are, letting an outsider own that access could be a very real threat to your business with the potential to do significant damage.
Also, what exactly is the local SEO company's role here? Why aren't THEY worrying about referral spam and questionable backlinks? If they're not, then what are they being paid to do?
If you don't have FTP access, who does? Does your company actually own the site? Is there a contract that spells it out?
For the staging site, all you should need is to make sure it's excluded from indexing via robots.txt. We have had multiple staging sites that, if indexed, would put some crazy dupe content into the world, but that's what the robots.txt is for. Set and forget. Well, check on it periodically, since you don't seem to have any actual control over what these guys are doing and the account ownership thing makes me very wary of trusting them to get it right and keep it that way.
As for the ghost spam, there's been a ton of discussion about it in the community over the last year. On Moz alone, there's this piece from March, and this one from August, plus a bunch of forum discussions. Bottom line is that there isn't much you can do to stop it, but that doesn't mean you're stuck with seeing it muck up your data.
I agree with Andy, your description of the setup sounds pretty excessive. Plus, just because content is unique and professionally written doesn't mean that it's high quality. If the sites all say the same thing but in different ways, then none of them are contributing anything meaningful. And your branding is diffused across a zillion different sites to boot.
The few that I tested including your brand name turned up page 1 results in an incognito search. They're definitely indexed, and performing well enough on branded searches that I saw.
Are you running any kind of rank checker? Looking at query reports in Webmaster Console or GA?
So, digging deeper into this issue, it turns out that we can't rely on status code as a reliable indicator of page validity for affiliate network URLs. Most of them turn up with a 200. Looking at possible custom solutions from affiliate compliance monitoring services now. No one seems to be doing this thing that I need to do, but it sounds like a great business idea for someone with coding experience and more entrepreneurial spirit than I've got. Just gonna throw that out there.
(b - a) / a
So in your case:
a = 90,914
b = 127,931
(127,931 - 90,914) / 90,914 = 0.40716501
Rendered as a percent, it's a 40.72% increase.
If you're doing % change on a number of pages, export the GA data to Excel, apply the formula there. I do this all the time with our merchant pages, and it's great for spotting trends if your business is even remotely seasonal.
However, if you're just doing single calculations on the fly and don't want to memorize the formula, there are tons of percent change calculators online. Most of them are boneheaded SEO, which is why I'm linking to the SERP and not to any particular calculator, but the numbers they spit out are sound.