So What On My Site Is Breaking The Google Guidelines?
-
I have a site that I'm trying to rank for the Keyword "Jigsaw Puzzles"
I was originally ranked around #60 or something around there and then all of a sudden my site stopped ranking for that keyword. (My other keyword rankings stayed)
Contacted Google via the site reconsideration and got the general response...
So I went through and deleted as many links as I could find that I thought Google may not have liked... heck, I even removed links that I don't think I should have JUST so I could have this fixed.
I responded with a list of all links I removed and also any links that I've tried to remove, but couldn't for whatever reasons.
They are STILL saying my website is breaking the Google guidelines... mainly around links.
Can anyone take a peek at my site and see if there's anything on the site that may be breaking the guidelines? (because I can't)
Website in question: http://www.yourjigsawpuzzles.co.uk
UPDATE:
Just to let everyone know that after multiple reconsideration requests, this penalty has been removed.
They stated it was a manual penalty.
I tried removing numerous different types of links but they kept saying no, it's still breaking rules.
It wasn't until I removed some website directory links that they removed this manual penalty.
Thought it would be interesting for some of you guys.
-
Great new Rhys!
-
Just to let everyone know that after multiple reconsideration requests, this penalty has been removed.
They stated it was a manual penalty.
I tried removing numerous different types of links but they kept saying no, it's still breaking rules.
It wasn't until I removed some website directory links that they removed this manual penalty.
Thought it would be interesting for some of you guys.
-
Potentially quicker to rank well if you built back up on a fresh domain with no poor history, but that being said, whose not to know if Google have methods in place to identify if domain owners do this - potentially via comparing content, code and copy. You might end up redoing everything on your website just to be safe.
Sticking with the same domain just means that you have to build a relatively significant amount of natural links to bring down the same anchor text ratio vs total external backlinks in the profile - do-able though if you subscribe to a few blogs and regularly comment to articles and maybe write some content for publication at toy (or other related) blogs - ensuring that you avoid blog rings/link networks/farms though.
-
In a situation like list, on a fairly new domain would it be quicker to start from scratch on a new domain?
-
View your link profile here.
Links are mostly coming from unauthoritative sources and mostly contain the same anchor text. This will be what you have to work on, start building natural links with varying anchor text to counterweight the poor link profile and history on your domain.
-
Sounds like you are an excellent candidate for some fun Memes attempting to gain socical traction!
-
Hi Rhys,
I agree with everything that Alan stated regarding existing links.
Moving forward, I'd suggest the following:
- Add the ability for customers to share your products socially. I don't see any social media icons on any of the pages, especially the product pages. Add FB, Twitter, Pinterest, Google Plus.
- Do you have social media accounts for your site? If not, create the 4 above and start posting! You'll get more of a sense of community and people will be able to share what puzzles they've completed, which ones they want to purchase next etc. I'm not personally in to puzzles but I know people that are, and they can't wait to get their next one as soon as they finish one.
- Highlight your competitive advantage more (on the item template, page titles etc). What makes you stand out? Free shipping? (BTW really really confusing having two free shipping points in dollars and pounds), best customer service, fast shipping, the latest puzzles etc.) Give people a reason to shop with you.
- You've got reviews but none of the products I viewed had any reviews. I'd suggest emailing customers 3-4 weeks after purchase asking for reviews if you don't already. This would also tie in nicely with a social media pages. Reviews are great for original content.
- Your blog has no entries and is dated from 2010? This doesn't look great...
- If you're struggling to get good/unique content on the site try adding more pictures/videos/staff testimonials/staff favourites etc.
Hope some of that helps
-
"When you factor in hundreds of links on every page" - I don't really see how I could reduce the amount of links on a page? As it's an eCommerce based website there nothing on there that I can see that would be helpful to remove?
"almost no depth of content" - Yeah, this is a problem we've run into. The problem is that a jigsaw puzzle of a cat, is exactly that. There's not much more you can add "content" wise. Even if you try and force extra content out, the most we can get is "this cat looks like he's relaxing in the garden shed."
"the ability to find products through several paths" - I don't think we can really change this, as the products really do fall under multiple categories. We've done Canacolization.
-
A quick review in Open Site Explorer shows that since you apparently don't have a huge volume of links, there's way too many coming from blatantly spam based domains: wywlinks.com, onelinkseo.com, contentrichdirectory.com, organisedlinks.com, yourlinkmarket.com, regularseo.com, elaboratedirectory.com, greatindexdirectory.com, linksmaximum.com, directorysuper.com, gatewayoflinks.com....
Even if you've cleared some of these out, the overall picture is that no great effort was put into obtaining high quality off-site signals- that it was an attempt to game the Google system. Since you say you've done what you could to remove links, it's possible that I'm looking at a "before" snapshot from within OSE, so I can't definitively say this is the issue, but it sure smells like it.
From there, when you factor in hundreds of links on every page, and almost no depth of content, the ability to find products through several paths (leading in duplication issues), the site gives the appearance of being "link polluted" both inbound and on-site.
So I'd say clear out all the links you can from directories. Dramatically reduce the on-site link structure, and if you want multiple paths to products, block some of those from indexing.
Then work to get more depth of descriptive text content on your category pages, and work to get high quality off-site recognition.
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
-
Is my site penalized by Google?
Let's say my website is aaaaa.com and company name is aaaaa Systems. When I search Google aaaaa my site do not come up at all. When I search for "aaaaa Systems" it comes up. But in WMT I see quite a few clicks from aaaaa as keyword. Most of the traffic is brand keywords only. I never received any manual penalty in WMT ever. Is the site penalized or regular algorithm issues?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ajiabs0 -
April Google Update?
Since April 16 (when Jews ate Matzah) Google hurt one of our clients badly. They are well-known and beloved brand with hundreds of employees and locations across USA.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Elchanan
I can’t see any signal of organic update, or penalty (neither Google Places). No message on GWT Nothing has been changed on and off site. All keywords' ranking are looking like this All tools showing good analysis: MOZ, Barracuda, MajesticSeo Content is good and not duplicated, etc. Do one of you is aware of significant Google update?
What do you think/suggest?0 -
How is my 301 redirected site stealing rankings from the main site?
Hello, I have a site, drhobelt.com, that 301 redirects to the main site, drhonow.com. Not only is drhobelt.com still indexed, but it recently stole rankings from drhonow.com for "decompression belt" related terms. What could be causing this? How do I reclaim the rankings for drhonow.com? Thanks for reading!!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DA20130 -
Why are these sites outranking me?
I am trying to rank for the phrase "a link between worlds walkthrough" I am on page 1 but there are several results that just outranks me and I cannot see any reason that they would be doing so. My site is hiddentriforce.com/a-link-between-worlds/walkthrough/ For that page I have 5 linking domains, varied anchor text that spans from things like "here" to a variety of related phrases. All of the links come from really good sites My page has 1400 likes, 90 shares, and about 20 each in tweets and +'s DA of 44 PA of 37 The 4 and 5 ranked sites both have WAY less social interactions, lower PA and DA, less links, etc Yet they outrank me why?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Atomicx0 -
Will Google bots crawl tablet optimized pages of our site?
We are in the process of creating a tablet experience for a portion of our site. We haven’t yet decided if we will use a one URL structure for pages that will have a tablet experience or if we will create separate URLs that can only be access by tablet users. Either way, will the tablet versions of these pages/URLs be crawled by Google bots?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kbbseo0 -
It appears that Googlebot Mobile will look for mobile redirects from the desktop site, but still use the SEO from the desktop site.
Is the above statement correct? I've read that its better to have different SEO titles & descriptions for mobile sites as users search differently on mobile devices. I've also read it's good to link build, keep text content on mobile sites etc to get the mobile site to rank. If I choose to not have titles & descriptions on my mobile site will Google just rank our desktop version & then redirect a user on a mobile device to our mobile site or should I be adding in titles & descriptions into the mobile site? Thanks so much for any help!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DCochrane0 -
Any SEO suggestions for my site?
Site in question: http://bit.ly/Lcspfp Does anyone have any suggestions for any on-site SEO that would benefit my website? Any recommendations, big or small are appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RichardTaylor1 -
Google+ Verification - Site Speed Optimization
So the Google+ Badge verifies our site for Google direct connect. However, the javascript code for the badge itself causes the page to load 3 to 4 seconds longer, which is a big deal. Any ideas for a work around?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | inc.com0