I think I got hit by the latest Panda update
-
Hi everyone,
I think one of my sites got hit with Panda. On Sept 18th the site dipped to "not in top 50" for almost all keywords. I checked GWT for the manual action email but my inbox is empty!!!!!!!!!! The lesser of 2 evils I guess. They had major server issues that week as well so it is hard to identify what caused the site to dip.
My client has original content on the website but almost all content on the blog is copied. Do you recommend me deleting the non original content?
Can the problem be elsewhere?
Thanks
-
Just copy a couple sentences and paste them in Google surrounded by quotes. i.e. "content"
-
If client was copying content from other websites and the owner of that content submitted a removal request to google then client's pages with the complained-about content will fall out of Google. If lots of people are complaining the entire site could fall out of Google.
To see if this might have occurred, do a google search for a query where the client originally ranked on the first page of the SERPs, click into the SERPs, scroll to the bottom and you might see wording like this....
In response to a complaint we received under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we have removed 1 result(s) from this page. If you wish, you may read the DMCA complaint that caused the removal(s) at ChillingEffects.org.
I submit lots of removal requests and Google yanks those pages out of the SERPs pretty quick.
-
Hi Oleg
I was planning on doing this. The weird thing is that Copyscape does not say I have "copied" content yet my client has admitted to copying content for years for his blog. Can you recommend another tool besides Copyscape?
Thanks
-
Yes, you should fix the duplicate/copied content on the blog. Some options:
- Remove the pages
- noindex the pages
- Rewrite the content
- Add canonical link to original articles
There could be other things affecting the penalty but fixing this seems like a good place to start.
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
-
Panda Cleanup - Removing Old Blog Posts, Let Them 404 or 301 to Main Blog Page?
tl;dr... Removing old blog posts that may be affected by Panda, should we let them 404 or 301 to the Blog? We have been managing a corporate blog since 2011. The content is OK but we've recently hired a new blogger who is doing an outstanding job, creating content that is very useful to site visitors and is just on a higher level than what we've had previously. The old posts mostly have no comments and don't get much user engagement. I know Google recommends creating great new content rather than removing old content due to Panda concerns but I'm confident we're doing the former and I still want to purge the old stuff that's not doing anyone any good. So let's just pretend we're being dinged by Panda for having a large amount of content that doesn't get much user engagement (not sure if that's actually the case, rankings remain good though we have been passed on a couple key rankings recently). I've gone through Analytics and noted any blog posts that have generated at least 1 lead or had at least 20 unique visits all time. I think that's a pretty low barrier and everything else really can be safely removed. So for the remaining posts (I'm guessing there are hundreds of them but haven't compiled the specific list yet), should we just let them 404 or do we 301 redirect them to the main blog page? The underlying question is, if our primary purpose is cleaning things up for Panda specifically, does placing a 301 make sense or would Google see those "low quality" pages being redirected to a new place and pass on some of that "low quality" signal to the new page? Is it better for that content just to go away completely (404)?
Technical SEO | | eBoost-Consulting0 -
Updating product pages with new images - should I redirect old images ?
Hello,
Technical SEO | | ninjahippo
We have approx 900 products on our website. Over the coming months we will be replacing the product images. At the moment they have file names like 'green_widget_54eb3a78620be.jpg'
the random jumble at the end of the filename was apparently to keep file names unique. We have removed the jumble part and will have file names like:
'black_widget_with_stripe_001.jpg' The CMS removes the old main image when a new main image is uploaded. But we could change this to leave the old image, but not use it. My question is should we: redirect the old file name to the new file name? upload the new image, and leave the old image in place Or do we just ignore.0 -
Is it good practice to update your disavow file after a penalty is removed.
I was wondering if you could use the disavow file by adding to it - even after your site has recovered from a partial site penalty. As a recurring SEO procedure, we are always looking at links pointing to our Website. We then ascertain those links that are clearly of no value. In order to clean these up, would it be good practice to update your disavow file with more of theses domains. Is the disavow file just used for penalty issues to alert google of the work you have done? (we have had penalty in the past but fine now) Would this method help in keeping high quality links to the fore and therefore removing low quality links from Googles eyes? I would welcome your comments.
Technical SEO | | podweb0 -
Do I have panda issues?
Hi , I m looking for suggestions for my website i believe is suffering from the panda updates. Can someone point out what possible issues within the site that might be causing with recent panda updates? here is the link http://goo.gl/St3aP thanks nick.
Technical SEO | | orion680 -
Rankings drop after Panda
Hi All, My site dropped completely out of the SERPS on September 27th. I've tried everything I know to do (re-wrote all content, disavow links tool, filed DCMA complaints, de-optimized on-page content, made anchor text less aggressive, etc). Can you all please take a look at www.doctorloanusa.com and let me know what you think the problem is and how much you'd charge to help? Keywords used to be: doctor loans, physician loans. I ranked 2 or 3 for those keywords consistently for over 4 years. I know I need more content, but I feel like it's a waste of time creating it. If a thin site was the issue, wouldn't I at least rank SOMEWHERE in the 1000 results? Thanks for your consideration. At my wits end.
Technical SEO | | Cary_Forest0 -
How could i create sitemap with 1000 page and should i update sitemap frequently?
My website have over 1000 pages but the sitemap creator tools i knew only create maximum 500 pages, how could i create sitemap with full of my webpage?
Technical SEO | | magician0 -
Target term hits a glass ceiling despite A grade
Greetings from 13 degrees C wetherby UK 🙂 Ive hit a roadbloack in my attempts to get a target term onto page one, below is a url pointing to a graph illustrting the situation. The target term is on the graph (I'm reluctant to stick it in here incase this page comes up) http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc53/zymurgy_bucket/glass-ceiling-office-to-let.jpg This is what Ive done to date for page -
Technical SEO | | Nightwing
http://www.sandersonweatherall.co.uk/office-to-let-leeds/ 1. Ensured the Markup follows SEO best parctice
2. Internally linked to the page via a scrolling footer
3. Shortened the URL
4. Requested the Social media efforts points links to the page
5. Requested additional content But i wonder... Is the reason for hitting a glass ceiling now down to lack of content ie just one page or is there a deeper issue of an indexing road block? Any insights welcome 🙂0 -
Best practise for updating software guide
Heya! I write a guide for a specific piece of Internet-based software which is about to undergo a major patch release. No-one's going to be using the old version, so my old-version articles are essentially going to be useless, as are keywords related to the old version number. Given that, I'm intending to update all my guides to be current with the new version. However, obviously I want to keep the Google juice for the old guides, as they rank pretty well. The three options I'm considering: Simply retitle the old guides to the latest version number - "How to use Blue Widget 2.0" becomes "How to use Blue Widget 3.0". Disadvantage - my URLs still include the old version number, 2.0. Write updated guides as seperate articles and 301 redirect the old articles to them. I've done this before with some success. So, I'd 301 the URL for "How to use Blue Widget 2.0" to the url for "How to use Blue Widget 3.0", my new article. Disadvantages - possible loss of link juice? Also, I believe redirects can be kinda tricksy. Just leave both the old and new versions up there, with a link from the old version saying "outdated, check the new version". My belief is that this would be the worst idea. Should I do one of them, or something else? And why?
Technical SEO | | Cairmen0