Keyword rich domains sliding fast
-
I decided not to worry too much about the statements from google indicating that they were going to consider key word rich domains as a negative for ranking since any of the sites I work on that have them are totally relevant to the content on the sites.
However, since recent Google algorithm updates I see these domains have suddenly slid from top 3 positions to page 4 or beyond in Google SERP's. Nothing has changed on these sites in the intervening time and no change is evident in Bing or Yahoo SERP's.
Is it just my imagination, or are others seeing the same thing for keyword rich domains? and has anyone yet determined the best way to deal with this problem?
-
Thanks for your responses Alan.
Since these are client sites, it is our policy to seek permission before sharing information about site status. I will do this and provide some examples once permission has been obtained.
-
I'm totally with Alan, that drop in the "weight" of the domains containing keywords is not already affecting at all I think, at least outside G.com. After all Mr Cutts has only said that they were probably going to adjust it, but I believe we have to wait until that changes.
-
Sha,
I know of several small sites that had no drop due to the Panda update. Something else must be going on, but without seeing the sites, no way to offer any additional insight.
-
Just to Echo Alans findings. I have found that exact match domains are ranking better than ever at this point in time. For competetive industries they are still at number one. An example can be found if you google "seo belfast". Most of the results are due to domains.
-
Well none of those things would appear to be an issue. However, all of them are small sites created for very small businesses.and so have only 5 or 7 pages (with a good amount of information on the pages). Perhaps the overall size of the site is a factor.
Have you noticed any bias against smaller sites in your research?
-
Having done comprehensive audits on a number of domains that were hammered by the Panda/Google update, I would say that the domain match factor is either not a factor yet at all (most likely) or had very little to do with the problem you're seeing. Without seeing the domain I can't offer specific insight, however I'm consistently seeing a number of factors.
- Very poor on site information architecture
- Very confused topical focus
- Very thin unique content.
- Too many ads compared to unique content
- Very weak / poor inbound link profiles (usually skewed to over-use of limited focus keyword anchor text).
If your site has any one of the above issues, that alone could be the primary cause.
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
-
Do back-links to non indexed sub-domains / sub-directories considered by Google as website backlinks and pass Pagerank to website?
Hi, If some noindexed links on our website or sub-domain got some backlinks, will that backlinks pass Pagerank / linkjuice to website? Will they be considered as backlinks to website by Google? Here is a statement from Matt cutts for the question. My question is same as below with answer? Eric Enge: Can a NoIndex page accumulate PageRank? Matt Cutts: A NoIndex page can accumulate PageRank, because the links are still followed outwards from a NoIndex page. Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
One keyword gone in Google SERPs - Fred?
I have an ecommerce site. One keyword, which I use to rank #1 for on Google years ago, I'm now completely gone from the SERP's as of a couple weeks ago. I'm scratching my head here, my other keywords don't seem to have changed much recently. Around mid-March of this year, which seems to line up with the Fred update, I noticed I went from page 3 to middle of page 1 for a few days with this keyword. It was a very happy few days. Then it slipped down and down and hovered around page 6. But as of a couple weeks ago, it's now gone. Before the Fred update, I changed a bunch of product pages within the keyword category that had duplicate content because they were kits of items arranged different ways. So instead of repeating the individual item descriptions over and over in the different kits, I changed the descriptions on the kits to links to the individual items within the kits. After the Fred update, at the end of March, I set all these kit item pages that I reduced to very thin content with just links to noindex. My theory is that the Fred update reset algorithmic penalties for a couple days as it was being introduced. So the penalty of duplicate content that I may have had was lifted since I took out the duplicate content, and I made it back to page one. Then as Fred saw I now had a new penalty of thin content, I got hit and slid back down the rankings. Now that I updated the pages that had very thin content to be noindex, do you think I'll see a return of the keyword to a higher position? Or any other theories or suggestions? I remember seeing keywords disappear and come back stronger years ago, but haven't seen anything like this in a long time.
Algorithm Updates | | head_dunce0 -
Ecommerce or E-commerce as a Keyword?
I have done a good bit of research but am not sure which word to focus on. I feel that the trend is moving towards no hyphen but I do not have any data to justify that other than google trends. Here is the research I found: Google Trends says ecommerce is more popular
Algorithm Updates | | Manseo
http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=e-commerce%2C%20ecommerce&cmpt=q Ngram says e-commerce
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=ecommerce%2Ce-commerce&year_start=1990&year_end=2013&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cecommerce%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Ce%20-%20commerce%3B%2Cc0 Google Adwords Keyword tool says e-commerce:
e-commerce has 33,100 monthly search volume
ecommerce has 14,800 monthly search volume What do you think, will ecommerce overtake e-commerce in the future monthly search volumes? Ecommerce or E-commerce?0 -
Rich Snippets: rel=”Author” CTR?
Hi everybody, I want to put on my websites the rel="author" to appear in google search with the image of g+ of my profile. Does anyone have statistics or case history on the effects (positive or negative) that this can have on the CTR? Logically I think it should increase CTR, but I'm not sure that is the case for all sectors. Tnks in advance for your answers
Algorithm Updates | | BizonwebItaly0 -
With Google's Location Based Searches, Should I Include a City Name with My Keywords?
What I mean is when you search on Google it seems to pull information by your location so would it be helpful including the city name + keyword still for SEO or would it be just as helpful using just the keyword? For example, a client is in Alexandria, VA and has a computer repair shop so would "Alexandria computer repair" be as good or better than "computer repair"? Just a little curious. Thanks!
Algorithm Updates | | CodyOelker-AMICreativeStudio2 -
Penguin Update and Long Tail Keywords
Since the Penguin update, organic traffic for our site; oxygenconcentratorstore.com
Algorithm Updates | | chuck-layton
has dropped almost 25%. The thing I cannot figure out is that when I compare April 1<sup>st</sup> to May 15<sup>th</sup> (before the update) and June 1<sup>st</sup> to July 15<sup>th</sup> (after); 8 of our top keywords are up. Our 2 main keywords are up 15% and 11%. Where we lost most of our traffic is from our longtail keywords. We have almost 1000 longtail keyword phrases that we got visits from in the April/May period that we did not get in the June/July period. Is there a reason why our top keywords would continue to improve while we most of the longtail keywords?? If Google penalized us, won’t all of our keywords be dropping and just not the longtail. Any help/info would be awesome. Thanks.0 -
Re-directing old domains to New Domains
I previously had a domain with good ranking, but had to redirect this to a new domain for branding purposing and has only been around for 1 year instead 10 years like the previous. Does the weight of the entire pagerank from the old domain get transferred to the new domain? How does Google handle this? The old domain had a good keyword in the name, which help rank that keyword...does that keyword also get transferred to the new domain with Google?
Algorithm Updates | | SEOCM0 -
Understanding the concept of "Keywords"?
To run my campaigns on SEOmoz or google or other search engines, i need to have some clarity on what exactly a keyword means. firstly, how do the comibnation of different words work? Example : Buy apple laptop in india, 2) Buy apple laptop india 3) apple laptop india Are 1, 2, 3 considered as keywords OR Apple, laptop, India, Buy, considered as keywords? to run campaigns in SEOmoz how do i use the tool more effectively, should i chose how my users would search in the search engine or use certain keywords. in the above example the only difference between 1 & 2 is the word "in", and i see a significant difference in the search results. How do use/target my keywords?
Algorithm Updates | | NikhilM0