Any ideas why our category pages got de-indexed?
-
Hi all,
I work for evenues, a directory website that provides listings of meeting rooms and event spaces.
Things seemed to be chugging along nicely with our link building effort (mostly through guest blogging using a variety of anchor text). Woke up on Monday morning to find that our City pages have been de-indexed.
This page: http://www.evenues.com/Meeting-Spaces/Seattle/Washington used to be at the top of page #2 in the SERPs for the keyword "Meeting Rooms in Seattle"
I doubt that we got de-indexed because of our link building efforts, as it was only a few blog posts and links from profile pages on community websites.
My guess is that when we did a recent 2.0 release of the site, there are now several "filters" or subcategory pages with latitude and longitude parameters in the URL + different page titles based on the categories like:
"Meeting Rooms and Event Spaces in Seattle" --Main Page
"Meeting Rooms in Seattle"
"Classroom Venues in Seattle"
"Party Venues in Seattle"
There was a bit of pushback when I suggested that we do a rel="canonical" on these babies because ideally we'd like to rank for all 4 queries (Meeting Rooms, Party Venues, Classrooms, in City).
These are new changes, and I have a sneaking suspicion this is why we got de-indexed. We're presenting generally the same content.
Thoughts?
-
Thanks Ryan. This makes a lot of sense. We'll definitely work on issue #2 and see if we can't limit the number of links on this page.
-
Hi David.
There are a few items I noticed when looking at your issue.
1. Your site's home page presently ranks as #33 in Google.com for "Meeting Rooms in Seattle"
2. On the page you are asking about, there is anchor text at the top of the page for the exact phrase involved "Meeting Rooms in Seattle" which links to the following URL: http://www.evenues.com/Meeting-Spaces/Seattle/Washington?lat=47.6062095&lon=-122.3320708&roomUser=0&sort=0&vType=2&page=1
3. The page is low quality. It is over-stuffed with links and has no actual content. There is not a single complete sentence on the entire page.
The primary issue to address is #2, but it would really help if the page was better presented.
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
-
Do orphan pages take away link juice?
Hi, Just wondering about this whether the orphan pages take away any link juice? We been creating lot of them these days only to link from external sites as landing pages on our site. So, not linking from any part of our website; just linking from other websites. Also, will they get any link juice if they are linked from our own blog-post? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz1 -
Blog-posts pages are dominating in search console "Internal Links". Only home-page at top!
Hi all, Ours is WordPress website and we have a blog...website.com/blog/. All the important pages in the website are well linked from top and footer menu. But in our webmasters...internal links section, only homepage is at the top. Blog-posts are others followed by homepage. I wonder why blog pages are dominating our website pages. Please give your suggestions on this. Do you think Google will give more priority for the blog-posts than website pages as they are more linked technically? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz1 -
Indexed Pages Increase and Major Drop June 25th and July 16th?
I am seeing information regarding a possible Google algorithm that may have taken place on June 25th...and seeing total number of pages indexed in GSC increase (cool!)...BUT, then on July 16, I'm seeing a consistent drop (BIG DROP) of pages indexed - not only on our site, but several. Does anyone have any insight into this or experiencing the same issue?
Algorithm Updates | | kwilgus0 -
Doorway Algorithm Update Affecting Location Based Pages?
Hi all, I read this article concerning the doorway algorithm update - http://searchengineland.com/google-to-launch-new-doorway-page-penalty-algorithm-216974 This quote is what got my attention: "How do you know if your web pages are classified as a “doorway page?” Google said asked yourself these questions: Is the purpose to optimize for search engines and funnel visitors into the actual usable or relevant portion of your site, or are they an integral part of your site’s user experience? Are the pages intended to rank on generic terms yet the content presented on the page is very specific? Do the pages duplicate useful aggregations of items (locations, products, etc.) that already exist on the site for the purpose of capturing more search traffic? Are these pages made solely for drawing affiliate traffic and sending users along without creating unique value in content or functionality? Do these pages exist as an “island?” Are they difficult or impossible to navigate to from other parts of your site? Are links to such pages from other pages within the site or network of sites created just for search engines?" We utilize location based pages for ourselves and a few clients too. **Example Case: ** -We attempt to rank for "keyword city/state" - "keyword city/state" - "keyword city/state" The keywords will often be the same such as "AC Repair" or "Physical Therapy" etc. with city / state combination such as "Tulsa, OK" "Seattle, WA" etc. The goal is to rank locally for those terms (NAP is applicable in some circumstances). Does the above case classify as a Doorway page? According to that definition, it does. However, this is a business that services that area. Some don't have physical address there but they do service that area (whether it be AC Repair or Website Design). Please advise me as to what a doorway page is exactly & if my practice is in-line. Thanks, Cole
Algorithm Updates | | ColeLusby0 -
Does it matter? 404 v.s. 302 > Page Not Found
Hey Mozers, What are your thoughts of this situation i'm stuck in all inputs welcome 🙂 I am in the middle of this massive domain migration to a new server. Also we are going to be having a very clean SEO friendly url structure. While I was doing some parsing and cleaning up some old urls I stumbled upon a strange situation on my website. I have a bunch of "dead pages" and they are 302'd to a "page not found" probably a old mistake of one of the past developers. (To clarify the HTTP Status code is not 404) Should I try to fight to get all these "dead pages" a 404 error code or could I just leave the temp redirect 302 > "page not found" ( even though I know for a fact theses pages are not going to turn on again)
Algorithm Updates | | rpaiva0 -
Is there a we to get Google to index our site quicker?
I have updated some pages on a website, is there a way to get Google to index the page quicker?
Algorithm Updates | | webguru20140 -
Our organic search traffic went flat for 2 weeks Oct 2 - Oct 17\. It has since resumed to more normal numbers. Anyone have any idea why this would happen?
Does anyone have any insight as to why our organic search traffic would go to nearly nothing for roughly a 2 week span Oct 2 - Oct 17th? Our regular traffic remained fairly consistent so we were still being indexed. It has now resumed to more normal numbers but I cannot think of anything we did that would make this happen? We did make a 302 switch to be a 301 permanent redirect on our site in early August but that is all I can think of? Any insight or help would be appreciated!
Algorithm Updates | | mwuest0 -
Have I been Hit by a Penguin? No Warning in Webmaster / Some Pages still Rank
Hi all, I have recently signed up to MOZ as I have seen a large drop in the turnover of a site I work with as well as a slump in visitors. I know part of this slump is the transition from google product search from being free to paid and chewing through our adwords budget quicker. The other part though seems a little more tricky, I have always been under the impression from reading online that an algorithm update would see a site destroyed for most terms and a notification generated in webmaster tools, however the site still seems to still rank for some terms, others however it has fallen off the face of the earth for. As you can see in the attachment webmaster tools is showing much decreased visibility, and MOZ agrees with this. Key terms that have lost rank have done so by around 4-10 positions. The content on the site has all been hand written by myself, however some of the pages are a little "stale" so I am currently running through re-writing every product page on the site (1000 products or so) all my product pages grade a minimum B with 99% A on the Moz page grader. I am keeping my fingers crossed that fresh content should assist in getting google interested again? However my real questions is, Is this Penguin? or is this just stale content? dmDdMr5.jpg pYkzck0.jpg 9f4mgM9.jpg
Algorithm Updates | | speedingorange1