Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Company name causing Google penalty?
-
Hi all,
Once of my clients has a keyword as part of their company name, and it seems like the website is being given a penalty in the keyword SERP because of the amount of websites linking back using the company name?
Is there anything i can do to prevent/balance this out?
Thanks,
Anthony
-
It can be tough to turn an exact match domain (EMD) into a branded domain sometimes. I would be careful of labeling this as any certain algorithmic filter / penalty. Back when EMDs were being devalued I'm sure there were a lot of false positives. This could be one example. It could also have to do with anchor-text over-optimization that isn't specially "penguin" related.
I guess my first question would be: Why do you think this is related to the use of the client's brand name? Is it just those keyword/s that have lost rankings? Is it limited to certain landing pages, keyword phrases, etc... ?
What is the domain / keyword? And if you can't provide that, how about a close example? For instance, is it something like:
Or more like:
Or like:
or ???
The first example is difficult to turn into a brand. The second one is doable. The third shouldn't be seen as an EMD at all.
-
Thank you all for your replies.
There is no manual penalty in play - checked with request to Google via Webmaster Tools.
The company has claimed its Local+ page.
My thoughts are that it is Penguin. The majority of links back to the website are retailers that sell the products of my client, so these links are out of my control unfortunately.
All the links i have setup to my clients website are setup like Scott suggests.
Bit stuck really : /
Is there anything else you guys would suggest?
Thanks,
-
I know a lot of people get their backs up if you call Panda or Penguin a penalty but to me it's all the same. If or some reason Google is causing you to rank significantly lower then in my mind it's a penalty. But really it's all semantics. If the site is truly ranking lower because of branded links then there's either a manual penalty or penguin at play.
-
Marie, that's true. When talking "penalties", you'd want to first check in Google Webmaster Tools if there truly has been a manual action taken against the site. Otherwise, it would probably be better to refer to it as a "devaluation", correct?
Scott
-
I've seen this happen where a site buys an EMD and then names their company after it and then subsequently gets links that are branded but in reality they are only branded because they were lucky enough to buy an EMD. Does that make sense? For example, if someone wanted to start a house painting company in Anycity and they see that anycityhousepainters.com is available then they name their company "Anycity House Painters". The branded links that come to them are indeed branded...but they're also an attempt to manipulate the serps.
I think that if you have a brand name that is the same as a keyword Google may not look at it as a brand name.
As far as "balancing this out" goes, it depends on whether or not you've really been penalized. If there is an unnatural links penalty then that needs to be dealt with. If there's a drop on a Penguin refresh day, that's a whole 'nother issue.
It's also possible that the drop has nothing to do with the branded links.
But, I think that Scott gave you some good advice on ways to link to your brand.
-
Hi Anthony,
Has the business claimed its Local+ page? Perhaps a verified listing would help. Also some downstream local citations could possibly give it a boost. Scott also has a great point about making your link profile look more natural too, even though it's completely justified to have lots of links on the company name.
-EEE3
-
I would suggest adding keywords before and/or after the company when linking. For example, if the company name is "Milwaukee Roofing LLC", you could make the anchor text "visit the Milwaukee Roofing LLC website"... perhaps this will give enough variety and make the link profile feel more natural.
Scott O.
References:
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/click-here-seo http://www.seomoz.org/blog/beyond-exact-match-anchor-text-to-next-generation-link-signals-whiteboard-friday http://www.seomoz.org/blog/anchor-text-distribution-avoiding-over-optimization
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
-
Brand name not ranking in Google
Hi Moz'ers, Could you help me with something I cannot seem to figure out by myself. In June 2017 my company started a rebranding campaign. We've changed our brand name and launched a new website: https://spotler.com. Everything is going fine, but if you Google our brand name "Spotler" our website doesn't show up. How can it be? Our domain authority is 38. It would be wonderful if you could help me. Let me know if you need more information. Best, Simone
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Spotler0 -
Pages are Indexed but not Cached by Google. Why?
Here's an example: I get a 404 error for this: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.qjamba.com/restaurants-coupons/ferguson/mo/all But a search for qjamba restaurant coupons gives a clear result as does this: site:http://www.qjamba.com/restaurants-coupons/ferguson/mo/all What is going on? How can this page be indexed but not in the Google cache? I should make clear that the page is not showing up with any kind of error in webmaster tools, and Google has been crawling pages just fine. This particular page was fetched by Google yesterday with no problems, and even crawled again twice today by Google Yet, no cache.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | friendoffood2 -
After reading of Google's so called "over-optimization" penalty, is there a penalty for changing title tags too frequently?
In other words, does title tag change frequency hurt SEO ? After changing my title tags, I have noticed a steep decline in impressions, but an increase in CTR and rankings. I'd like to once again change the title tags to try and regain impressions. Is there any penalty for changing title tags too often? From SEO forums online, there seems to be a bit of confusion on this subject...
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Felix_LLC0 -
Multiple Authors Google + Authorship
Hello, I took a look through past questions but can't seem to find a definitive answer on setting up Google + Authorship credit (for multiple authors) using a Wordpress blog. Has anyone had experience setting this up? Or could you recommend solid reading/research? I took a look at a couple of Wordpress plug in's but just found them very confusing (so did our IT contact who will ultimately be setting up code for this.) Any direction or advice is appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SEOSponge0 -
How does Google know if a backlink is good or not?
Hi, What does Google look at when assessing a backlink? How important is it to get a backlink from a website with relevant content? Ex: 1. Domain/Page Auth 80, website is not relevant. Does not use any of the words in your target term in any area of the website. 2. Domain/Page Auth 40, website is relevant. Uses the words in your target term multiple times across website. Which website example would benefit your SERP's more if you gained a backlink? (and if you can say, how much more would it benefit - low, medium, high).
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | activitysuper0 -
URL Error or Penguin Penalty?
I am currently having a major panic as our website www.uksoccershop.com has been largely dropped from Google. We have not made any changes recently and I am not sure why this is happening, but having heard all sorts of horror stories of penguin update, I am fearing the worst. If you google "uksoccershop" you will see that the homepage does not rank. We previously ranked in the top 3 for "football shirts" but now we don't, although on page 2, 3 and 4 you will see one of our category pages ranking (this didn't used to happen). Some rankings are intact, but many have disappeared completely and in some cases been replaced by other pages on our site. I should point out our existing rankings have been consistently there for 5-6 years until today. I logged into webmaster tools and thankfully there is no warning message from Google about spam, etc, but what we do have is 35,000 URL errors for pages which are accessible. An example of this is: | URL: | http://www.uksoccershop.com/categories/5_295_327.html | | Error details In Sitemaps Linked from Last crawled: 6/20/12First detected: 6/15/12Googlebot couldn't access the contents of this URL because the server had an internal error when trying to process the request. These errors tend to be with the server itself, not with the request. Is it possible this is the cause of the issue (we are not currently sure why the URL's are being blocked) and if so, how severe is it and how recoverable?If that is unlikely to cause the issue, what would you recommend our next move is?All help is REALLY REALLY appreciated 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ukss19840 -
Exact match domain names
Hello, Someone approached a client of mine to sell a exact match domain name for a very competitive and high converting keyword. Would this be of any use and what are the best tactics to employ if it is purchased? I was of the opinion that the 'power' of exact match domain names are dying fast but would be interested to hear what people with experience in this think and what they have done with them (i.e. set-up a website on that domain or re-directed it)? Thanks, Rikki
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RikkiD220 -
Check Google ban on domainname
Hello all, If I wanted to know if a domainname has a google ban on it would the following be a good idea to test it. Place an article on the domain page with unique content and then link to the page so its gets indexed and then link to the article from a well indexed page. If it doesn't get indexed there might be a ban on the page, if it does get indexed there is no ban on the page... Or are there other points I should keep in mind while doing this. All help is very welcome. Cheers, Arnout
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | hellemans0