How could Penguin kill my top ten rank and promote this garbage page to a #5 spot
-
Hey,
Before penguin, I had a #9 rank for the term "yoga poses". So as many of us are doing, I started looking at my link profile... and yes, there were around 300 links from an old yoga news website (anchor: yoga poses)... that lead to the page on my site optimized for this term. The problem is they took the site down, but not properly... I.E. they generate a "not available" message for browsers, but underneath, I guess the bots can still index all the pages... so I guess they were interpreting these links as coming from a cloaked site.
So, I was able to get them to remove the links... webmaster tools reports half of them gone now.
What I don't get though... is how Google can give this garbage page a #5 spot for a competitive term like "yoga poses"...
Check out http://www.ebmyoga.com/beginyoga.html and compare it to
my page... http://www.yogaclassplan.com/yoga-poses/
This page leads to highly quality 100% unique yoga pose articles... in my mind we deliver so much more value than the site with a #5 rank.
I don't understand. Any insight?
Thanks,
-
That looks logical to me! Plus, from a usability standpoint, the reader can better understand how to navigate the content.
I do wonder if you should go a little larger on the images and have the category title, image and description all be the same width stacked one on top of the other. This is not for an SEO reason, but based on the preferences of the average yoga demographic. This arrangement would also (albeit slightly) increase readability of the description.
-
Thanks Cole,
I was thinking of editing the template like in the image attached below. Add text for each category and then thumbnails below that lead to the full article. What do you think?
-
I see that you do have fantastic content for each pose. That's great.
I would place an image for every pose on this page. Include a short description of that pose... and a link where visitor can get the full article.
When a visitor lands on this page they will be impressed with all of the poses and that you have additional information for each one.
I NEVER hesitate to show the visitor images of EVERYTHING that I have and then link to a more detailed page. I am not going to say the keywords that I have pages like this ranking for (with zero linkbuilding done by me) but you would probably be surprised at their difficulty. Huge image galleries linking to more detailed content are killler killer killer.
-
Hi Egol,
Thanks for your reply and it makes total sense... the problem for me is that if you look at the length of one of my pose articles, you will see there is no way I can post all this information on one page... so...
... I was thinking the following steps:
Please see wire frame attached:
1. Remove the right margin of this template to make it wider
2. Modify the header so that it speaks specifically to the pose articles... not the software
3. Insert say 150x150 images for each category of poses... I.E. arm balances etc... and then insert some text beside that image to further explain to the reader the type of poses they will find in this category.
4. Underneath this top level image and category text, I will insert thumb nail images and the pose name, which leads to the full article.
What do you think?
Thanks,
-
Connie,
For a living, I work with the health and wellness industries. Within that, about 75% of my clients are in the yoga world. I'm also a 200 hour Yoga Alliance certified yoga teacher. Not that those things help with SEO, but I have a unique understanding of the yoga world and lots of experience with, specifically, yoga-related websites.
I strongly recommend adding in images. Not stock photos, but images you take or produce yourself. They will need to be properly sized and tagged and all of that too, but from what I've seen with my clients, images really have a very positive impact. I know this is not true for all segments/industries, but in the yoga world—yes.
Not sure if you've seen yoga journal's pose finder index: http://www.yogajournal.com/poses/finder/browse_categories
YJ has invested a lot of money into the UX part of their site. Take note of what they are doing and see how you can improve.
Now, another benefit to the other site is that it's smaller, and simpler. Jamie Fernandez has the goods on 'why' for that as does ChangingHorizon.
Since you are using Wordpress (which is what we build all of our sites on) you need to get rid of any extra plugins you can possibly spare. Depending on what theme you are using, you may not need All in One SEO, however, I use this plugin on nearly all of our sites. Delete extra plugins.
Add pictures (even just 10 or 12) and see how that has an effect.
Also, you get points for your Sanskrit transliteration! Looks great. I've never seen your site before and am happy to have found it.
-
It may not look pretty, but your competitor has higher page authority, higher domain authority and an established domain. You also have a lot of scripts running on the page, including an 'All-in-One' SEO pack which means your page load speed is slow.
But I think EGOL really hits the nail on the head (as usual).
-
sometimes less is more and you might want to check your low domain authority links!
and remember Goggle does not care how the site looks it only cares for text and links.
You can learn from your competitors, do you want to!?
-
I whole-heartedly agree with EGOL. A few points to add:
- you may want to watch Rand's G+ Penguin Update video (11 minutes) https://plus.google.com/u/1/111294201325870406922/posts/MjLCYnwMdBB
The very first thing Rand shares is the Penguin update is NOT designed to immediately improve search results. It is designed to penalize sites which violated Google Guidelines.
- your site offers detailed pages on each individual yoga pose. Your competitor's site only offers a single yoga pose page as it is a much smaller site. Your competitor's site therefore provides more focus on this single page then your site offers.
I completely agree your site is higher quality overall. I would recommend adjusting your content to better match the main focus of the page.
-
Here are a few thoughts,
From a visitors point of view as it relates to someone looking for yoga poses..........
When landing on your competitions website, I see information about yoga poses, with descriptions and images. It shows me what I was looking for.
When visiting the url you provided for your site, right out of the gate, I see information about course outline development and no "yoga poses". I see a description saying "Designed Specifically for Yoga Teachers" So, I did not land on a page with the exact content I was looking for, so, I bounced.
I would consider developing some more yoga poses related content for the page.
-
Went to your page. Where are the poses??
I like the other guy's site because the pictures are right there. That's what I expected to find.
If I owned your site that page would have big photos for every pose right there and visible... generous descriptions will accompany each one. I would not expect people to click to them. People who arrive on a page like this want to see something. Give it to them is what I would do.
If you do that I bet your traffic will climb from long tail keywords and better ranking for your main term.
I would also cut back on spending the top 500 pixels of the page on design elements that are repeated across the site.
That's just opinion... but where I would bet my money.
(I have a page on a subject where I have lots of images - about the size of yours - each with a few sentence description. That page has about 60 images and 3000 words. It pulls in more traffic than an five pages on my site combined and is slowly climbing the SERPs for difficult terms. I do no linkbuilding. Pages with lots of images, big images and substantive text pull in links with no work from me.)
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
-
How to implement meta descriptions for accelerated mobile pages with WordPress?
Is there a way in which meta descriptions can be altered on AMP pages? The meta description is not pulling from the original page for each post, and current plugins such as Yoast/Glue for Yoast & AMP by Automattic do not appear to offer customisation of titles/meta descriptions. Any suggestions would be much appreciated!
Algorithm Updates | | SamClicks0 -
Absolutely gigantic drop in Ranking overnight
The site in question has been operating for around 3 months and for the first two months was nowhere to be seen in google results (literally page 10, 11 etc for all but branding searches). Then through a lot of hard work and the help of MozPro I managed to build it to a respectable 6th-10th place for the main keyphrases. Overnight on Wednesday we suddenly dropped half a dozen places or so and were rooted firmly mid table page 2 for both these phrases. Last night however we suddenly dropped from 14th to the very last result on page 10! for the biggest keyphrase where it has slowly dropped through the day to currently be sitting in 8th on page 11. Nothing is showing in Dashboard, theres no reason that I know of to be penalised, however even if we were penalised then surely that would be the site as a whole and not just 1 keyphrase? The weird thing is, when you look at the 1st 2 pages of the search a number of items have changed, a competitor which closed down is suddenly sitting mid table while other newcomers that were doing well have dropped, some of the older faces have gone up suddenly. If I didnt know better I would say that google has suffered a timewarp and is now serving results from a month ago for this keyphrase. Ive now noticed that the MozCast is reporting very stormy weather last night, surely however this couldnt be down to a change in Algorithm etc, not to produce such a massive drop for a site that has followed the rules (I refuse to link with a site that even remotely could be thought of as spam). Someone please tell me that google has been glitching and all will be well when I wake in the morning? Peter
Algorithm Updates | | Pwhitfield0 -
AMP pages - should we be creating AMP versions of all site pages?
Hi all, Just wondering what people's opinions are on AMP pages - having seen the Google demo of how AMP pages will be given visibility on page one of Google for news-based content, do you think it is worth considering creating AMP versions of all pages, ready for when Google expands its inclusion of these super-fast pages?
Algorithm Updates | | A_Q1 -
Website dropping from Page 1 pos 5 to no ranking and then back again?
Hi all, We have a very odd occurrence with a client of ours. It should be noted that they had a penalty recently removed about 2 months ago after much work from our company. Recently they started appearing back on Page 1 Google for a semi competitive keyword term. We were very happy with this and so was the client. The the ranking improved with our work to position 5, which was excellent. Unfortunately what has been happening is they have been dropping out of the rankings completely for this semi competitive keyword for a few days and then reappearing in the same position. The client is checking daily and has noticed. I thought this is just a 'hangover' from the Google penalty and perhaps a one off occurrence, but it has happened about 3 or 4 times now and seems to be happening every couple of weeks. Can anyone shed some light on this behavior? I have checked Webmasters Tools and everything is fine. Thanks Jon
Algorithm Updates | | Jon_bangonline0 -
Ranking gcctld?
I am working on a new site that uses a .io TLD. I have just started working to get the domain to rank for its own name. What are some others experience with ranking and SEO for gcctlds?
Algorithm Updates | | JoshAM0 -
Double Listings On Page One
I've been noticing a trend over the past month and a half. My sites that use to get more than one page listed in certain SERPs are now being adjusted. It almost looks manual but I know it is most likely a change in the algorithm. Let's say I had a SERP where my site was showing two different sub-pages in a single SERP at #4 and #6 are now having one page being pushed up to #3 but the other page is being pushed back past the first page. I'm not worried about penalizations or loss of value. I have been seeing this accross many of my client's sites. I just wanted to confirm that others were seeing it as well (so I'm not going crazy) and/or if Google has made any announcements or leaks regarding this shift. Maybe it's just my sites coming of age or something but I would love to be able to explain it more knowledgeably than with a "Google might be doing this". BTW - This is not effecting any of my Brand SERPs.
Algorithm Updates | | BenRWoodard0 -
How did my Page Authority and Page Rank disappear?
I've hit a problem. A couple days ago my site's page authority was 51 and the PR was 3 and now they're 1 and 0 respectively. The developer did adjust some of the code in the site in the past couple days but that shouldn't have affected this. It was last cached by Google on the 5th. Can anyone offer some good advice? If it helps the page is www.duracard.com
Algorithm Updates | | Andrea.G0 -
Is there a way to pull historical rankings for a keyword?
I have someone who's come to me and said that they have lost all of their organic keyword rankings. They did launch a site redesign a few months back so that could be a reason as to why. But after looking at the site, link profile, etc. It doesn't look like they could have been ranking for the terms they say they were. They have never implemented any SEO on their sites btw. I did not build this site and have not done any SEO, they are coming to me to solve the problem. I did notice in SEM rush that a couple months ago they were ranking organically for more terms (20 in July vs. 5 now), so they did lose some. Is there any way to see what terms they WERE ranking for?
Algorithm Updates | | MichaelWeisbaum0