Does anybody know about a Penguin recovery for a small business website?
-
Does anybody know about a Penguin recovery for a small business website and the methodology they used? I have a PR 5 website that lost more than 50% of the traffic in Google. I removed some of the wide site links at the best of my ability but I see little or no results so far.
-
hmmm...I went looking on your profile to see if you had listed a URL and having run your domain through Open Site Explorer, I can see that it is very likely that the bulk of your problems are coming from your site's external link profile.
Here are a few more blog posts that might help you to get a clear picture of things:
Penguins, Pandas and Panic at the Zoo by Dr Pete Meyers.
Anchor Text Distribution: Avoiding Over Optimization by Geoff Kenyon.
Bad Backlink Checking by Richard Baxter
and for something a little less intense, but that can help immensely if you are trying to get a picture of your own situation, Link Removal Flowchart by Bob Meinke.
Hope that helps,
Sha
P.S. The Google Algorithm Change History can also be very useful in checking whether changes in site traffic, rankings etc coincide with changes at Google.
-
Hi Sorin,
If your site tanked on 25th-26th April, then it is safe to presume that your site was indeed hit by the Penguin update. There was a smaller Panda update that happened on 18th April as well. If you have access to Google Analytics or rank trackers, you should be able to tell by looking at the dates whether it was Panda or Penguin.
Coming to the issue of your small website, I would agree with Sha. It would be most appropriate if you can disclose the affected URL on the forum for real helpful suggestions.
Penguin penalized everything that was on the 'over' side. It punished sites with over-optimization at each level. Be it links (internal and external both) or the covert keyword stuffing across web pages. Penguin's impact could be felt more extensively because it affected almost everything that an SEO would have done to boost site's rankings.
I guess, if you are really looking for non-generalized approach towards helping your cause, then website's url is much needed.
Best Regards,
Rajesh Dhawan
-
Hi Sorin,
There are a couple of very comprehensive blog posts that will give you some very good information on identifying and removing problem links. Both talk about issues and successes.
The first of these is Identifying Link Penalties in 2012 by Ryan Kent.
Ryan also provided some very detailed information in this Q&A thread.
The second post that provides real detail on a recovery is How W.P.M.U. Recovered from the Penguin Update by Ross Hudgens. As you will see from reading all of these, recovery will be heavily influenced by the actual elements that have contributed to the problem.
The most critical part of a recovery is in accurately identifying the issues that are contributing to the problem...one big thing to remember is that Penguin came accompanied by another Panda. I have seen instances of people making the assumption that they were hit by Penguin, when in fact Panda finally caught up with them. This is not to say that your problem is not from Penguin, but to emphasize that you need to make an informed analysis and be sure of the real issues before going down a path.
If you are unsure where to start, then you could post the site URL and those here can take a look and give you their thoughts.
Hope that helps,
Sha
-
If it was panda its algorithmic, wait till Google re-crawls your site. Also keep in mind if you are removing links that you will need to not only remove them but replace them to regain rankings.
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
-
Should I have multiple websites for my different brands or one main website with different tabs/areas?
My client creates apps. As well as the apps they create themselves, they have made some of their own that cover various different topics. Currently they have individual websites for each of these apps, and a website for their app making business. They are asking whether they should just have one website - their app building site, which also includes information about the two apps they've built themselves. My feeling is it's better to keep them separate. The app building site is trying to appeal to a B2B audience and gain business to build new apps. AppA is trying to help carehomes and carers to streamline their business, and AppB is trying to help workplace and employee welfare. Combining them all will mean lots of mixed messaging/keywords even if we have dedicated areas on the site. I also think it will limit how much content we can create on each without being completely overwhelming for the user. If we keep them all separate then we can have a very clear user journey. I would of course recommend having blog posts or some sort of landing page to link to AppA and AppB's websites. Thoughts? Thank you!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WhitewallGlasgow0 -
Old Website Build Effecting SEO
So this is a bit of a strange one. My latest website was built on a different domain, then transferred over (as opposed to being built on a subdomain). I was told that the domain which my site was built on wasn't indexed by Google, but looking at the Google Search Console I can see that the old domain name is showing up as the most linked to domain name of my current site - meaning it was indexed. The domain (and all of its pages) does have a 301 redirect to the new website home page (as opposed to their individual pages), but could this be causing me a problem with SEO? Additionally, my website has a sister (UK and US websites), both link to each other on the footer (which appears on every page). Could this be pulling my SEO efforts down if it is a do-follow link?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | moon-boots0 -
What is internal like structure best for website
I want to construct website internal like structure better, can you advise me what's model architecture to build menu, navigation, build link, hub content will good for audience and search engine. Thank your advise
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | dunghv360 -
Website Does not index in any page?
I created a website www.astrologersktantrik.com 4 days ago and fetch it with google but still my website does not index on google as the keywords I use is with low competition but still my website does not appear on any keywords?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ramansaab0 -
SEO transfer to new website
My website currently has some strong SEO and i will be re-developing the website on a wordpress platform...which will change many of the existing URL. Will this affect the current pages that are well indexed in Google? Does using Wordpress or changing the URL extension (.html to .php) make a difference? If i want to make a clean transition without effecting our existing SEO...what are some essential steps i need to take? Example. Current page is www.mydomain.com/name.html .... and the new URL would be www.mydomain.com/product/name.php Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Souk0 -
My website is not ranking for primary keywords in Google
I need help regarding some SEO strategy that need to be implemented to my website http://goo.gl/AiOgu1 . My website is a leading live chat product, daily it receives around 2000 unique visitors. Initially the website was impacted by manual link penalty, I cleaned up lot of backlinks, the website revoked from the penalty some where around June'14. Most of the secondary and longtail Keywords started ranking in Google, but unfortunately, it do not rank well for the primary keywords like (live chat, live chat software, helpdesk etc). Since I have done lot of onsite changes and even revamped the content but till now I dont find any improvement. I am unable to understand where I have got structed.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | sandeep.clickdesk
can anyone help me out?0 -
Merging 3 websites into 1
Hi I was wondering if someone can give me a bit of advice - outside of my full time job I run three websites - all in the same area, but all do three different things 1. Directory (DA19) 2. Blog (DA 23) 3. Products (DA35) I want to merger all three website into one and all be on one website (rather do it now than keep working on three websites). I have included the DAs of each site ( I know they are not amazing, but i've only recently started working on two of them), but I want to place all three websites under the Blog url. Regarding 301's of the pages, would I be better doing at the top level and 301 all the pages to the home page, or spending the time and 301 the old product page for instance to the new product page - this is a much bigger project, but what are the potential gains. Is there anything else I should consider when switching the sites - all three are wordpress sites (I know it has its limitations but they are easy to create). Thanks in Advance Andy
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Andy-Halliday0 -
Is my domain scorched earth from Penguin?
http://pisoftware.com was never a huge leader of traffic, but it ranked top 5 for my money keyphrases, and was bringing consistent quality visitors. As traction went up, that traffic just became more valuable. I was happy. Then Penguin came along, and made me sad. 60% loss in traffic, I stayed calm. I disavowed. I sent emails asking for links to come down. I atoned for my sins (of the distant, distant past - I know better now) - and waited. Never a hard penalty, never an email from Google - just rankings that got hammered. From #3 for my best keyphrase for #25 today. I write content, and I try and write it better all the time. I try to make it valuable. I leverage social media to the extent that I can. I do outreach. I'm trying to be patient, but it's hard when the software is awesome, and so few people see it. I'm considering starting over - or maybe even just creating another domain to use if this one never comes back. I wonder on the thoughts of experts. At MozCon I talked to a lot of people in the same boat, and it seems we are all taking similar steps. So the questions: 1. Should I start over? Or stay the course? 2. What has worked for others - what seems to have been the most valuable in getting back on the rise? 3. Thoughts on the site as it is now? I've worked lately on speed, mobile rendering, etc - and it seems responsive and solid to me. Thanks in advance, you crazy bunch of Mozzers you. Kelly
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kellster0