Been Penalized, Starting from Scratch, Need Advice
-
Good Morning,
We've been penalized for unnatural links on the site : http://goo.gl/JgK1e
After attempting to contact many of the sites with links pointing at our site, and getting no response, we decided to start from scratch on a new domain : http://goo.gl/XUH3f
The first thing I did once the new domain was up was remove all of the unique content (text) from the original site and place it on the new site...
I am still having a difficult time getting the new site to rank in the SERPS.
Can you guys please provide pointers as to what steps should be taken to get the new domain, http://goo.gl/XUH3f a high ranking in the SERPS?
Thanks!!
-
But my site is not SEO related, and it is very hard to find sites that I can get links from in my industry.
-
If your site is seo related, yup (in fact I just left a comment). Also note that these backlinks are nofollow. Why would you think this is a bad place to leave a comment on?
If there were 6817684 comments with shitty, spammy links - I would say no.
-
Oleg,
One of the highest Domain Authorities in my OSE profile is for this site: http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/ahmed/ultimate-seo-checklist/
Are you saying that going ahead and commenting on this blog with my new domain as the URL is a good strategy? Isn't that part of what got me here in the first place?
-
Before you start building links again I recommend you invest in a 10 year old + domain, domain authority is a huge factor..
-
Thank you both! I will look into this right now.
Also, i'm open for anymore suggestions anyone has
thanks again!
-
Easiest way is to sort by domain authority or page authority and just go down the list. View each page > If the page's content has 1) real content, 2) low outbound links and 3) is relevant to your site, its probably a good link.
You can also write more unique content - although I'd build more links first since you say that your current site is all unique content already.
-
I recommend a link building strategy. You have a good site however it needs to have some authority (relevant quality links). There are many ways to build links to your site: Guest Blogging / Press Releases / Contacting a webmaster and giving some value in exchange for a link. Also take a look at your competitor links for whatever keywords you are trying to rank for. Type the keyword in google and take the top site paste it into OSE and evaluate these links. Are these links relevant? Do these sites have fresh content? Will your site / Can your site add value to the users of these site? If all three answers are yes, do whatever it takes to get those links or similar links.
Build a blog on your site and get others to blog on it using a good blog service (http://myblogguest.com), make sure that you only link to other relevant quality sites (sites that have good linking profiles).
Be sure to keep you link ratio natural (majority of your inbound links anchored with your URL/Brand name)
Create content on your blog that others will be interested in: Cute video of 20 kittens in a plastic bin... 5 reasons why our bins are indestructible... Yogi gets stuck in bin...
Create unique (entertaining, educational, funny) content that others will naturally link to and then share it with niche related people via social networks.
SEOmoz has hundreds of great link building strategy that you can utilize. Simply go to the search in the top right and type: link building or guest blogging or Press Release.
-
Thanks Oleg, but just out of curiosity, how do i know which links are considered good and which ones are bad?
Also, any advice other than building links?
Thanks,
-
Build more links? http://bit.ly/OAhzDI
The previous domain was also more keyword rich so it ranked easier.
Quick tip - go through the old site's backlinks, pick out the good ones, and ask the webmaster to change the URL to the new site.
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
-
International Homepage Advice
Hello, colleagues! We have a conundrum. A client website has a good subdirectory strategy for localized/translated content for its various international markets, but nothing currently "lives" at the root. In my mind, this presents a challenge to search engines (note that we have had some trouble getting proper visibility overall, which is why I'm asking this question). I'm looking for any links or just plain old good advice on why it's important to have a global homepage. Should that global homepage be in English? Most enterprise sites I've worked with do have a homepage that's in English, with the ability to select a country from a drop down in a nav across the site. Any advice, best practices, etc. about why a global homepage is important and what language it could/should be in would be really helpful. Hreflang tags would make sense, I guess, but each country has slightly different offerings so I'm not sure that it makes complete sense. In other words, one country's homepage may have completely different content than another's. Thank you!
Algorithm Updates | | SimpleSearch0 -
Will Google penalize 2 sites for targeting "like" keyword phrases?
I own (2) different websites, one an HTML site that has been live for 20 years and a ecommerce site that has been live for 7 years. We sell custom printed (branded) tents for use at trade shows and other indoor and outdoor events. While our ecomm site targets "trade show" tents our HTML site targets "event" tents. I believe that the keyword phrases are dissimilar enough that targeting "trade show tents" on one site and "event tents" on the other should not cause Google to penalize one or the other or both sites for having similar content. The content is different on both sites. I'm wondering if anyone has experience with, or opinions on, my thoughts... either way. Thanks,
Algorithm Updates | | terry_tradeshowstuff
Terry Hepola0 -
An Educated Eye Needed
As a small video production company, we rely on word of mouth and good Internet placement to generate business. From first glance, what would cause potential customers/search engines to rank our site low? https://episode11productions.com We believe that we have done all that we "know" to do, and are now at a loss.
Algorithm Updates | | e11productions1 -
The evolution of Google's 'Quality' filters - Do thin product pages still need noindex?
I'm hoping that Mozzers can weigh in with any recent experiences with eCommerce SEO..... I like to assume (perhaps incorrectly) that Google's 'Quality' filters (formerly known as Panda) have evolved with some intelligence since Panda first launched and started penalising eCommerce sites for having thin product pages. On this basis i'd expect that the filters are now less heavy handed and know that product pages with no or little product description on them are still a quality user experience for people who want to buy that product. Therefore my question is this...
Algorithm Updates | | QubaSEO
Do thin product pages still need noindex given that more often that not they are a quality search result for those using a product specific search query? Has anyone experienced penalty recently (last 12 months) on an ecommerce site because of a high number of thin product pages?0 -
Where do we know that citations are needed?
Hi, there, I 've read much about citations and that there are very good for local SEO. I also watched the webinar about them in SEOMOZ. My question is where does the information that citation are needed and help in Google ranking? Is there a proof from Google or just it is found by seo specialists? I've never heard about it just 1-2 years ago so I am interested where this information comes from?
Algorithm Updates | | vladokan0 -
Duplicate content advice
Im looking for a little advice. My website has always done rather well on the search engines, although it have never ranked well for my top keywords on my main site as they are very competitive, although it does rank for lots of obscure keywords that contain my top keywords or my top keywords + City/Ares. We have over 1,600 pages on the main site most with unique content on, which is what i attribute to why we rank well for the obscure keywords. Content also changes daily on several main pages. Recently we have made some updates to the usability of the site which our users are liking (page views are up by 100%, time on site us up, bounce rate is down by 50%!).
Algorithm Updates | | jonny512379
However it looks like Google did not like the updates....... and has started to send us less visitors (down by around 25%, across several sites. the sites i did not update (kind of like my control) have been unaffected!). We went through the Panda and Penguin updates unaffected (visitors actually went up!). So i have joined SEOmoz (and loving it, just like McDonald's). I am now going trough all my sites and making changes to hopefully improve things above and beyond what we used to do. However out of the 1,600 pages, 386 are being flagged as duplicate content (within my own site), most/half of this is down to; We are a directory type site split into all major cities in the UK.
Cities that don't have listings on, or cities that have the same/similar listing on (as our users provide services to several cities) are been flagged as duplicate content.
Some of the duplicate content is due to dynamic pages that i can correct (i.e out.php?***** i will noindex these pages if thats the best way?) What i would like to know is; Is this duplicate content flags going to be causing me problems, keeping in mind that the Penguin update did not seem to affect us. If so what advise would people here offer?
I can not redirect the pages, as they are for individual cities (and are also dynamic = only one physical page but using URL rewriting). I can however remove links to cities with no listings, although Google already have these pages listed, so i doubt removing the links from my pages and site map will affect this. I am not sure if i can post my URL's here as the sites do have adult content on, although is not porn (we are an Escort Guide/Directory, with some partial nudity). I would love to hear opinions0 -
Do practitioner listings for the same business need to have different categories?
I'm trying to figure out an issue with practitioner listings, and I wanted to ask more about this because in this Q&A thread ( http://www.seomoz.org/q/multiple-businesses-at-the-same-address-avoiding-google-places-trouble ) it was stated that each listing needs to have a different category. Sorry if this question is redundant, I just wanted to make sure I have a clear understanding before proceeding.... I'm managing local listings for a senior healthcare center that has 4 locations, and multiple practitioners at each location. I'm trying to figure out how to best handle the multiple practitioner listings, most of which appear to be scraped. I was going to claim, verify and begin managing them. However, they all fall under the same category, "practitioner." What I've gathered from the response in the above Q&A thread is that I need to have a different category for each practitioner to please Google Places, despite the fact that "practitioner" is the best/most accurate category available in Google's pre-set categories. Is my interpretation correct? I'm confused because Google's guidelines say you can create a separate listing for each practitioner, which to me implies that it would be ok to use the practitioner category for each one. But then again, I want to make sure before proceeding. Thanks, Kim
Algorithm Updates | | TECHSEO35
#TECHSEO Account Manager0 -
Panda Update: Need your expertise...
Hi all, After Panda update our website lost about 45% of it's traffic from Google. It wasn't an instant drop mostly it happened gradually over the last 5 months. Our keywords (all of them except the domain name) started to lose positions from top #10 to now 40+ and all recovery attempts we have done so far didn't really help. At this moment it would be great to get some advice from the top experts like you here. What we have done so far is that We have gone through the all pages and removed the duplicate / redundant ones. We have refresh the content on the main pages and also all pages now have an canonical tags. Our website is www.PrintCountry.com. Thank you very much in advance for your time.
Algorithm Updates | | gbssinc0
