Have I been mauled by the Panda?

[AlanMosley]

I mentioned my problem a few nights ago, but since then I think I may have found my problem. I have a site that was never really promoted to any great level, but for the main keywords I could find it in serps with out clicking though too many pages. I came up first for the company name in both Bing or Google.

Recently I finally decided to promote it and did a bit of a ranking check. First I still come up first for my company name in Bing, but in Google I come up 900+ out of 1000, virtually last. For my main keyword, the title of my site and optimized well for, I come up last, absolutely last. For long tail terms from my home page where I am the only site in the world to have the exact term, I come first in Bing, and absolutely last in Google. I don’t do black hat, but I thought I must be flagged by Google and I asked for reconsideration, they replied that no manual actions had been taken again the site, and referred me to the usual Google guidelines.

It was very frustrating, I then had a thought, I had a long forgotten sub domain that had a load of duplicate content, it was a load of Microsoft documentation and other dev stuff from other sources, rss feeds and the like. Nothing sinister, but duplicate all the same. I am now thinking that this maybe my problem. I have 410’ed the whole sub domain as the site has not been maintained for some time anyhow.

Does anybody know of simular, sub domain causing loss of ranking for root domain

[AlanMosley]

I simply put a 301 for the domain name, and kept the site the same in place on the same server.

I did not use change of address.

[ArlenRitchie]

Alan, thanks for posting an update for everyone on this topic.

I have a few follow-up questions for you about your rankings recovery:

1. When you moved domains, did you do all the typically suggested best practices (e.g. 301 redirect each page to its equivalent on the new domain)?

2. Did you use the "Change of address" form in Google Webmaster Tools to tell them you moved your domain?

3. Did you do anything else that you think may have contributed to your rankings recovery or that you think helped in transitioning from your old domain to your new domain?

[AlanMosley]

This is  a very old htead, i changed the domain from .net.au to .com.au and all rankings came back, i never did find out what was wrong, but something was wrong alright

[loopyal]

Hello Alan.

No, I don't think so.

It is the wrong pattern for panda, from what I have seen.

At least you are showing up in the results.

I believe if it was panda, that you would have to go to the end of the displayed results and click on the link that displays all of the results, including the results that were previously hidden.

Then you would show up, in a relatively high position.

The change you describe doesn't fit that pattern.

What I described is the only pattern I think is panda.

[AlanMosley]

Edited this post as itwas a false alarm, i thought my rankings had returend, they had not.
Althought they are not quite as bad as they were yesterday.

[AlanMosley]

My expirences are that when you rank low in the hundreds, even one or two links from my own c-block will give a big boost, or cause when you enter the top 50 thinks get much harder. I have added a lot of links, a lot of them are just profile links from microsoft news groups, and it has not budged.
i have pointed my profile links at many pages before and made them move.

I have seen sites drop out before , but only temp, its been the best part of a month now.

The sub domain I metioned has been removed from google, I checked and it is constantly showing no pages in the index.

I did see a temp small jump in rankings, so i am still hopeing although i have read much the same as you suggested, that moving duplicate content to a subdomain is a fix and suggest its not the problem.

As for the links, I have anouther 2 site, that have much teh same links, one has the same subject matter, and they rank much better. i would think that they would suffer the same fate.

[gfiorelli1]

To not rank for your own business name is a sign a automatic penalization. The fact links have not changed (as you say) suggests that the penalization is because of the links (as far as I have not seen any apparent misuse onpage). Panda in not working in this case.

[AlanMosley]

At the time of first posting I had 500+ links I now have 700+, for the last few years up
until the problem I had 100+, see image

But your whole argument that all of a sudden I would drop from first for my business
name to almost last when my links have not changed is not realistic.

What facts? You haven’t presented any, you came in with a flawed argument, now trying to alter the facts to fit it.

I have heard you theory, and your thinly disguised abuse and dismissed them both

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[Nick_Ker]

Your new site is irrelevant to the problems you are having. If your main site has dropped due to poor quality signals (garbage links, etc) then of course just about any other site with a similar domain will do better. This is especially true if Google's algorithm has flagged your site as crap. Note that I am talking about the machine algorithm NOT any manual penalty.

Here's what you are missing: You don't have 700 or even 500 GOOD links. You have about 82 inbound links according to the most reliable sources and the links are mostly crap.  Why do you keep insisting that Yahoo, OSE and Majestic are all wrong?  If you want to check one more, try backlinkwatch.com. Even it says only 46 links to your site.

Getting more bad links will not make you rank any better than fewer bad links, whether it is 700, 500, or 3. You do understand the quality issue, right?

You even acknowledge that "not having good links can explain bad ranking". You don't have good links! It is as simple as that. Maybe you did have them at one time and they are gone, or maybe Google didn't notice how lame your links were until recently. Either way, you will need some legitimate, good quality links if you want to improve your rankings. You offer SEO services on your site so this should not be news to  you. If it is news to you, then it is probably a good thing nobody can find your site.

I am beginning to think you are joking or something. You refuse to accept facts, advice and reality. Good luck with that.

[AlanMosley]

look at image on last thread, i have 500+, i have 700+ now as i have been redirecting some. when i ranked better, i had less links.

but i thing your missing the point,

My site did rank much better, not having  good links can explain bad rankings, but not a drop in rankings.

if you look at this search, you will see thatsitsolutions.net.au on first page or top of second, i made that site about a week ago, it has no links, and almost no content, yet my real site is almost last in the whole index.

http://tinyurl.com/3rgpofp

I used to come up first. you cant explain that with bad links, i mean they are better now then they were then.

Content is all orginal on root domain

[Nick_Ker]

Here's a thought - you thought you had 500+ links, everyone else sees a much lower number when checking reliable sources. Maybe you lost some of those links are no longer there. MajesticSEO says 82 http://bit.ly/phYeGp which is almost the same as Yahoo Site Explorer, and OSE said even fewer. You can insist that you have 500 all you want, but if YSE and Majestic aren't seeing your links, you can safely bet that Google isn't seeing them either. If Bing thinks you have more, that would explain why you are doing well in Bing searches. Once Bing gets an accurate count, that may change.

Also, you pointed out that many of your links are from the same IP. Those probably don't count for much. The links that ARE showing are not very good  quality or relevant - school uniforms?

Google told you no MANUAL action was taken. That doesn't mean your site has escaped the normal automatic quality and authority checks. Since your links are mostly worthless, that would explain why you dont rank for anything. No manual penalty - but the algorithm has no reason to believe your site is better than the hundreds of other sites you are competing with. Again, compare your link profile to your competition.

I know you want to believe that there is some external issue or a magic bullet, but your answers are all right in front of you, some are even in your own posts here (your links are from same IP, forum spam, etc).

The short answer is still the same: you need links. Good ones.

Another thing you might try is to make 100% certain that your content is unique.

[AlanMosley]

Gianluca

I have done a bit more reading and have found that moving to a subdomain has been promoted as a fix rather then a problem, but as many have claimed subdomains can be treated as seperate domains or true subdomains depending on linking and the such. so i am still wondering.

anyhow the old subdomain was outdated and removing it was not a problem.

The only other thing i can think of  is many of my links are same ip, as they are from sites i built or done seo work for and also host. If panda has tighted up on same ip this could be a factor, but then, they have always know this and i dont think the numbers are that great.

I am watching the page count of subdomain in index, as page count decreases I hope to see a rise in rankings, I am also going to try and lift the ratio of same ip to true external links

[AlanMosley]

how does not having many links send you from top to bottom for my bussiness name?

Nick if you find my last post I show that i created a second site, with no content just a link to the first site, with no links, and it ranks on the first page for the business name.

Sure the linking sucks, it has over 500, but a lot are signitures from microsoft forums.

I apoligize if my answeres sound a bit abrupt, but the last post sunk into the same debate.

but remeber it ranked number one for my business name for the past few years, now almost last.

Long tail terms where i am the only one to have exact match, i am the very last result. I dont care if othes have better linking profile than i do,  having the same words spread thoughtout your page, but about a different subject should not rank you above the exact match.

I never did rank well for the compeditive keywords, but i was still in the top 10% of results, now i come absolute last, not near the bottom, the very last result.

Even if i was always last, you would wonder why the test site i made ranks on first page, with no links.

i asked google and they say there is no MANUAL action taken agaiinst my site.

Lets asume you rank #1 for your business name, tomorrow you are last, and I suggested that you need more links, would you accept that as an answer?

[Nick_Ker]

Thanks, Gianluca - I looked for the original question but did not find it.

Alan, I have to agree with what you were already told. You don't really have much going for you as far as inbound links. I looked at yahoo site explorer which says about 86 links. I looked at a few of them and they appear to be footer credit links, which supposedly don't count for much. I didn't get a recent count of the total number of linking domains as OSE is due for an update, but I seriously doubt that there are 500 of them.

I took a quick look at the site too, and it doesn't have any painfully obvious problems.

So the short answer is:
You need links. Good ones.

Take a look at the link profiles of the sites who are ranking on page one for your keywords. Have they got more, and better links?

[AlanMosley]

Nick i have been though all the check your links and your on off page stuff, i dont want to get stuck in that debate again. I am no novice, its not a case of my wanting to rank higher and being disapointed, its case of a dramatic change of rankings. when you come almost last for your business name from first a few moths ago when i last checked. to come last for a term you are the only one in the world to have the exact macth, its more then a few broken links or so.

Yes the no-index stuff is a good point, but i checked all that, I have no no-index or no-follow tags at all, i have the basic robots.

I must also add, that I have destroyed the evidence and made a new site in my panic, i have also 410ed the whole sub domain

Gianluca, i had doubts myself as i have anouther sub domain that does not seem to be affected (hard to tell). but i just read on the google forum about someone who did have a simular problem or should i say thinks he has.

[gfiorelli1]

Alan previously presented this case in this Q&A http://www.seomoz.org/q/rankings-last-google-says-no-flags

[gfiorelli1]

Hi Alan,

honestly I have no knowledge of anything similar.

Anyway it seems quite strange to me that a sub-domain may affect the root domain or another sub-domain if Pandasized.

I say this because to move from the main site to sub-domains the duplicates or thin contents that caused the Panda ban is the solution used by many big sites, which were hitten by Panda and claimed they have recovered.

I don't say that is "bible", but it seems suggesting that the sub-domain maybe it is not the real cause of your site poor rankings.

[Nick_Ker]

I don't think having a bunch of junk on a subdomain would cause that kind of problem. Double check that there aren't any major technical issues on the site, and the usual on page stuff - each page should have a unique title, not blocked in robots.txt or noindexed, good quality original content, not keyword-stuffed, etc.

How have you been promoting the site? It could be that what you think is not black hat may still be something Google will not tolerate.

What is the site's address? I am sure that someone here will be able to spot anything serious almost right away.