Site has disappeared since Panda 4 despite quality content, help!
-
Our site www.physicalwellbeing.co.uk has lost over 20 first page rankings since the end of May. I assume this is because of Panda 4.0.
All content on the site is high quality and 100% unique, so we did not expect to get penalised. Although I read somewhere that if Google can't read particular js anymore they don't rank you as high.
The site has not been blacklisted as all pages are showing in Google's index and there are no messages on webmaster tools. We have not taken part in any link schemes and have disavowed all low quality links that were pointing there just in case (after the penalty).
Can anybody see anything on www.physicalwellbeing.co.uk that may have cause Panda update to affect it so negatively?
Would really appreciate any help.
-
With a bounce rate that low, do you by chance have multiple GA tracking scripts, or something that's triggering an event even if no one goes to another page? Look at the source code when you're in incognito mode, in case your CMS suppresses one of the GA codes when you're logged in as admin.
[voice of experience and learning the hard way here!]
-
I would say you are bordering on over-optimization. Your alt tags are a bit spammy, you are using the keyword meta tag ( a spam signal), you're using both tags and categories within Wordpress, which can cause duplication.
I agree with the other posters ( and your post on Google), not Panda related - just viewed again by Google.
-
EGOL again thank you for your help it is highly appreciated. Bounce rate is really low at 4% so I am not sure it is that but I take your point. The target audience is more 25-45 really as my client offers Urban Conditioning which would potentially be too much for someone over 45.
Maybe you are right about the pixel info, I think that can be solved by toning down some of the heavy media.
My only issue with both responses here is that it was ranking highly before panda. Where you are pointing out general optimisations and not Panda specific, so what I really need to know is what panda 4.0 has picked up on.
-
Thank you for your comments Lee. I agree that it is a bit media heavy as this was the request when the site was built, we could do with altering it really so that there is just the video or just the slider. The disavow was done well after the rankings drop so I doubt it will be the case.
-
I took a quick look at the site and agree with Lee. The content is good, could be a little thicker but that is probably not the problem.
Just tossing something out... a lot of space is given to huge images, huge whitespace, huge video, huge navigation.... So much that the first word of content is 800 pixels down on the content pages and over 1000 pixels down on the homepage.
So, I am wondering about two things.... 1) are people not going down to look at the content and instead bouncing? 2) are search engines seeing no content in the first thousand pixels and giving you a demotion.
Finally... and I am just saying this, knowing nothing of the business in specific, but being a person who has spent a long life in very intense athletics. Between ages 15 and 45 I would have been one of your best clients. Now, decades later, I am still someone's client, but not a client that matches my first impression of your website. So, if your biz matches the images on the website then you have no need to change. But, if your potential clients are below that intensity then they could be bouncing off of the website, in search for something less rigorous. The images are much higher than my impression of "physical wellbeing".
Maybe you have heard this famous quote that I read in a climbing magazine decades ago.... "The demands of the sport attract a certain type of person.... but at the same time severely limit its appeal."
-
Whilst it is possible that Panda had something to do with your ranking drop I don't think so looking at your site. You have well structured text although it could certainly be thicker on your main pages. Your homepage current has 264 words including headers. Understandably it is challenging creating 100% unique content that is actually high quality whilst being a good length to optimize for Panda.
I would say that where you have disavowed links it is possible that you have disavowed some links which were in fact helping your ranking as opposed to hurting it. This has happened to a number of my clients and the solution is simply to work hard a building natural links.
Alternatively, your homepage is very media heavy (despite being well optimized for page speed). This wouldn't explain such a dramatic drop but it would certainly improve your rank as well as your bounce to bring that load time down. Sliders and videos on the same page even with deferring the JS still add a large data load. Yoast explains this better than I could.
Hope this helps!
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
-
Does an EAT score on my YMYL site impact my rankings?
I've read some conflicting information on YMYL and EAT. If the Google Quality Raters are out there reviewing YMYL pages and scoring them on EAT, does that site's score have an impact on that page's/site's ranking?
Algorithm Updates | | BFMichael0 -
How do I code SEO for a secondary site without impacting the main site?
We have a secondary site for our online magazine, how do I code the SEO so I don't steal links from the main site?
Algorithm Updates | | gacwebteam0 -
What is the difference between to all Panda updates or algorithm?
I want to difference between to all updates of panda algorithm. How to differ each updates of Panda between to each other?What kind of changes each update Panda.Please reply soon.
Algorithm Updates | | renukishor0 -
How important is fresh content?
Lets say the website you are working on has covered most of the important topics on your subject. How important is it that you continue to add content to it when there really may not be much that is so relevant to your users anymore? Can a site continue to rank well if nothing new is added to the site for year but continues to get good quality links?
Algorithm Updates | | DemiGR0 -
Ranking well for main key terms but site traffic has dropped sharply?
Hello All, Just a quick question. Since the penguin update our site www.caravanguard.co.uk has seen some pretty fluctuating movement in Google, many of our key terms dropped over night, but over the last few weeks they have slowly started to move back up the rankings. The bizarre thing is despite the recover in rankings our unique traffic has taken a fairly large whack in numbers. Seasonality? Weather? ( it's been nice in the UK for a change) I can only assume the longer tail terms are taking more time to recover. I have tried to look into our back link profile and have noticed a little too much in terms concise keyword targeting, How do you go about changing these terms and removing the really bad links (struggling to identify the worst cases) on totally irrelevant sites or poor directories. Put in place before I started here 🐵 Any help truly appreciated. Regards Tim
Algorithm Updates | | TimHolmes0 -
Google site links on sub pages
Hi all Had a look for info on this one but couldn't find much. I know these days that if you have a decent domain good will often automatically put site links on for your home if someone searches for your company name, however has anyone seen these links appear for sub pages? For example, lets say I had a .com domain with /en /fr /de sub folders, each seoed for their location. If I were to then have domain.com/en/ as no1 in Google for my company in the UK would I be able to get site links under this or does it only work on the 'proper' homepage domain.com/ A client of mine wants to reorganise their website so they have different location sections ranking in different markets but they also want to keep having sitewide links as they like the look of it Thanks Carl
Algorithm Updates | | Grumpy_Carl0 -
SEOmoz suddenly reporting duplicate content with no changes???
I am told the crawler has been updated and wanted to know if anyone else is seeing the same thing I am. SEOmoz reports show many months of no duplicate content problems. As of last week though, I get a little over a thousand pages reported as dupe content errors. Checking these pages I find there is similar content (hasn't changed) with keywords that are definitely different. Many of these pages rank well in Google, but SEOmoz is calling them out as duplicate content. Is SEOmoz attempting to closely imitate Google's perspective in this matter and therefore telling me that I need to seriously change the similar content? Anyone else seeing something like this?
Algorithm Updates | | Corp0 -
Does google have the worst site usability?
Google tells us to make our sites better for our readers, which we are doing, but do you think google has horrible site usabilty? For example, in webmaster tools, I'm always being confused by their changes and the way they just drop things. In the HTML suggestions area, they don't tell you when the data was last updated, so the only way to tell is to download the files and check. In the URL removals, they used to show you the URLs they had removed. Now that is gone and the only way you can check is to try adding one. We don't have any URL parameters, so any parameters are as a result of some other site tacking on stuff at the end of our URL and there is no way to tell them that we don't have any parameters, so ignore them all. Also, they add new parameters they find on the end of the list, so the only way to check is to click through to the end of the list.
Algorithm Updates | | loopyal0