Lost 75% of my traffic on Oct 25, help appreciated
-
So I've been running coolquotescollection.com since 1997 (!) as a hobby project. I lost about 75% of my organic search traffic on the 25th of October, literally overnight. I've been doing a lot of research but I still don't know why I was penalized. Image attached.
I naturally thought this was because of Penguin (Oct 17, my drop was Oct 25). However, after checking backlinks I only discovered 11 domains with about 100-400 links each, the major ones were forum signatures and blog sidebars, 6 domains were spam sites / directories. They almost exclusively used the same anchor text (domain name or similar), so this doesn't seem like a black hat attack. Some of the directories used keywords in their urls however (like "funny quotes").
1. Is this really enough for such a heavy penalty?
I added these domains to be disavowed today, I'm aware this might take weeks or months to change.I've automated so that pictures gets uploaded to my Facebook page with a link to my page. This started in early 2014.
2. Can Facebook links be considered link spam?
They don't even show up in webmaster tools.
Example: https://www.facebook.com/CoolQuotesCollection/photos/a.510328825689624.1073741825.326096120779563/615403025182203/?type=1&theaterI analyzed keywords and the major ones dropped between 2 and 6 positions. Notable exception: I seem to still rank nr 1 for "cool movie quotes" even though page is not optimized for that keyword.
Moz warned about over 5000 pages with duplicate content. It was a single page that used a querystring url parameter I have excluded in webmaster tools. I have now entered a canonical link on these pages. Example:
http://coolquotescollection.com/Home/TShirts?url=http-url-example...
http://coolquotescollection.com/Home/TShirts?url=http-another-url.......
3. Could the Google algo penalize this even though I have excluded the "url" parameter?I have a lot of internal links in the page navigation. Can this cause problems? See the absolute bottom of this page where I have 94 links for example: http://coolquotescollection.com/laughs
4. Could a lot of internal links (navigation to page numbers) be the problem?Some more facts:
- Site is http://coolquotescollection.com/
- Domain is 14 years old.
- The web site launched in Sep 1997, a year before Google! (Not relevant but you might understand why this is important to me).
- I haven't done any SEO work for at least 12 months, probably closer to two years.
- The only SEO work I've done is to optimize the pages, no link building at all, no black hat stuff.
- I'm automatically building a sitemap that contains all pages, see here: http://coolquotescollection.com/robots.txt
- I've used webmaster tools for years, haven't gotten any warnings. I checked backlinks there, also here from moz and ahrefs.
I'm annoyed that a quality content site can be penalized so hard (75% drop) when there are no, or just smaller issues. I'm just lucky this is not my business site, if so I would have gone out of business.
Any help in this matter would be greatly appreciated!
-
Traffic decreased about the same on all pages. I was however surprised that the thin pages was 40% of all landing pages. This might actually be one explanation. It still doesn't explain the extremely sudden drop however, since I've read content-related algo hits are usually more gradual (over one or several weeks). I might be wrong however.
Stats:
75% decrease in traffic on thin quote pages (40% of all landing pages)
80% decrease in traffic on all other content rich pages (60% of all landing pages)My plan now is to hide (NOINDEX) the thin pages.(http://moz.com/community/q/noindexing-thin-content-pages-good-or-bad)
-
That's right. You might want to check your analytics. See if your traffic on those thin pages dropped. You might also want to check your indexed pages on webmaster tools to see if it dropped.
If you see signs in any of those, then you found your main problem.
That's the only thing I would work on right now actually. Edit them or redirect to meatier, relevant pages.
One thing I'm sure of is that this isn't Penguin as you never really did create any links to it
-
Yeah I've heard this as well. Some still seem to think Penguin only happened on the 17th of Oct, but I find that hard to believe.
I manually looked into all domains with more than 20 links to my site and disavowed all spam and low quality sites. Did you mean something else?
-
I assume you mean the detail pages with just a single quote on? Like http://coolquotescollection.com/1/
Do you think I would see improvements if I removed these pages completely? Or is there another solution I can try? -
I'd still look at the link profile as well. Penguin 3.0 is still rolling out http://searchengineland.com/google-penguin-3-0-rollout-still-ongoing-209886. Look into the profiles/content of the linking domains to rule you out being collateral damage as well.
-
There was an update during that final week of October but it wasnt widely reported on. I think it's even bigger than the panda/penguin that came before it. I still dont have a conclusion on what it was but looking at your site, I would think it could be about the content. The indexed pages are really thin, hence possibly being the cause for the big drop.
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
-
How much content is duplicate content? Differentiate between website pages, help-guides and blog-posts.
Hi all, I wonder that duplicate content is the strong reason beside our ranking drop. We have multiple pages of same "topic" (not exactly same content; not even 30% similar) spread across different pages like website pages (product info), blog-posts and helpguides. This happens with many websites and I wonder is there any specific way we need to differentiate the content? Does Google find the difference across website pages and blog-pots of same topic? Any good reference about this? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
WT.Srch - parameter recorded as organic traffic?
Hi I have a lot of revenue for yesterdays organic traffic attributed to ?WT.srch=1&WT.mc_id=slGO&kw=8695 When looking in Google at what this means I have found this: To ensure you can accurately differentiate traffic from paid placements from organic traffic, use the WT.srch=1 parameter in the URL from the referring search engine for all paid searches. This parameter always has a value of 1. Organic searches do not include this parameter in the URL. Note that Search Engine Campaign results are displayed in the Marketing > Search Engine >section of the Webtrends Analytics 9 Complete template, not in the Campaigns section. We no longer use webtrends, what I need to know is, did this traffic/revenue come from organic or paid?
Algorithm Updates | | BeckyKey0 -
Does using parent pages in WordPress help with SEO and/or indexing for SERPs?
I have a law office and we handle four different practice areas. I used to have multiple websites (one for each practice area) with keywords in the actual domain name, but based on the recommendation of SEO "experts" a few years ago, I consolidated all the webpages into one single webpage (based on the rumors at the time that Google was going to be focusing on authorship and branding in the future, rather than keywords in URLs or titles). Needless to say, Google authorship was dropped a year or two later and "branding" never took off. Overall, having one webpage is convenient and generally makes SEO easier, but there's been a huge drawback: When my page comes up in SERPs after searching for "attorney" or "lawyer" combined with a specific practice area, the practice area landing pages don't typically come up in the SERPs, only the front page comes up. It's as if Google recognizes that I have some decent content, and Google knows that I specialize in multiple practice areas, but it directs everyone to the front page only. Prospective clients don't like this and it causes my bounce rate to be high. They like to land on a page focusing on the practice area they searched for. Two questions: (1) Would using parent pages (e.g. http://lawfirm.com/divorce/anytown-usa-attorney-lawyer/ vs. http://lawfirm.com/anytown-usa-divorce-attorney-lawyer/) be better for SEO? The research I've done up to this point appears to indicate "no." It doesn't make much difference as long as the keywords are in the domain name and/or URL. But I'd be interested to hear contrary opinions. (2) Would using parent pages (e.g. http://lawfirm.com/divorce/anytown-usa-attorney-lawyer/ vs. http://lawfirm.com/anytown-usa-divorce-attorney-lawyer/) be better for indexing in Google SERPs? For example, would it make it more likely that someone searching for "anytown usa divorce attorney" would actually end up in the divorce section of the website rather than the front page?
Algorithm Updates | | micromano0 -
Help for a webstore with Google Warnings for Watermark Images and Panda
I have not had too much experience with helping websites that have been hit by Panda - any tried and tested formulas I can pass to website owner would be great. He does not want to reveal domain name - its in the area of children/baby products 'Web site featured on page 1 of Google search results for many years (website 5 years old- Australian domain) . In April/May 2014, Google suspended our Google Shopping account because we used watermarks on all our images. We were advised that the suspension would remain in place indefinitely or until such time the watermarks were removed. We wrote back to Google to explain that these watermarks were put in place by our store back 2005 with the sole purpose of protecting our intellectual property. Needless to say, their attitude was unwavering. And as a result, revenue plummeted. However, the perfect storm was about to hit our store without warning. In the same month, Panda 4.0 was unleashed and our store was hit once again. This update alone reduced visitor numbers by around 50% overnight. The Panda 4.0 algorithm update was designed to target poor quality, duplicate content and unfortunately we had some of it. We have now begun creating original content with many of the new products we're uploading onto our web site. It's slow and tedious. We have modified our web site to now include a tag on a the home page (this was missing). We have removed many duplicate links from our footer (it was too big and contained hundreds of links that were also repeated from the header). We introduced a blog and we have engaged the services of a local seo company to disavow any bad backlinks and add missing or improve existing content to category and brand pages. No improvement in our situation is yet visible and with Christmas just 3 months away, poor sales during our 'bread and butter' period will mean even tougher times for our store in 2015. ANY PANDA EXPERTS who can help please email me felicity@gardenbeet.com - looking for independent freelancers rather than agencies
Algorithm Updates | | GardenBeet0 -
Drop in Organic Traffic
Hi all, last Thursday (1/31) our organic traffic and conversions fell off the map, going from 15% of our traffic to just over 5%. We've started creeping back up, we were nearly 7% yesterday, but I'm wondering if anyone else experienced an extreme drop in traffic or any advice on what we should be doing next. We are currently building links from University and government organizations and are always creating fresh content on our blog and website pages. One thing that we thought of is this timeline corresponds with when we created a Google + local listing for our company. Is there any possibility we stopped appearing in as many national search results since we have a local listing? Our domain is www.dishcostsless.com. Any advice would be very helpful. Thank!
Algorithm Updates | | PlanetDISH0 -
Our organic search traffic went flat for 2 weeks Oct 2 - Oct 17\. It has since resumed to more normal numbers. Anyone have any idea why this would happen?
Does anyone have any insight as to why our organic search traffic would go to nearly nothing for roughly a 2 week span Oct 2 - Oct 17th? Our regular traffic remained fairly consistent so we were still being indexed. It has now resumed to more normal numbers but I cannot think of anything we did that would make this happen? We did make a 302 switch to be a 301 permanent redirect on our site in early August but that is all I can think of? Any insight or help would be appreciated!
Algorithm Updates | | mwuest0 -
Two months - No Articles or Post Published in our blog. Moz shows less organic traffic.
Two months - No Articles or Post Published in our blog. Moz shows less organic traffic. i know i could not write - i was sick. organic search and keyword also. total pageviews dropped. DA increased by +3 and then -1 in last update. What should i do.
Algorithm Updates | | Esaky0 -
Drop in Traffic from Google, However no change in the rankings
I have seen a 20% drop in traffic from google last week (After April 29th). However when I try to analyze the rank of the keywords in the google results that send me traffic they seem to be the same. Today (6th March) Traffic has fallen further again with not much/any visible change in the rankings. Any ideas on what the reason for this could be? I have not made any changes to the website recently.
Algorithm Updates | | raghavkapur0