Early Feb Update?
-
After the Google "Mystery Update" in early Feb (Algoroo marks the flux as Feb 5th) one of my B2C e-commerce sites has gotten absolutely hammered. We had some trouble last May but cleaned a whole host of on-site/site quality issues over the summer and as of early Sept we began to regain rankings/traffic quite nicely...until Feb when we've almost given it all back.
I was doing a little hunting around on SearchMetrics.com and saw lots of big ecommerce sites took a hit as well (eBay, Kohls, Target, etc…). I had read someplace (I think it was the SearchMetrics blog) that the Feb 5<sup>th</sup> update had to do with sites ranking due to misspellings. We do have several domains variations of company name redirecting to our site, I was wondering if that could have hurt. I dropped the redirects as a test since they do not drive traffic.
I was wondering if anyone else has seen similar issues and/or could shed some light on the situation. It is very disheartening to see all that hard work simply "go away" so quickly.
-
Hi, sorry I don't seem to have this email. Can you either PM me here at Moz or send to matt@payonperformance.com.au?
Thanks!
-
Yeah, the update did seem "Panda-like" but I've been such a "content-nut" here lately I can't believe I missed something so big as to crush us like it has. Obviously I must have missed something. I appreciate the offer, I sent you a quick email with my URL. Any insight you can give would be greatly appreciated.
-
The biggest changes we saw for the Feb 5 update was to ecomm sites with duplicate content across their own site (parameter issues) and other sites (dupe content.) It "felt" like a Panda+Ecomm update from the data we saw and the experiences for our own clients.
We didn't dig too deeply as many clients were not affected but if you'd like us to take a look post up a domain (or PM it) and we'll be happy to see if it fits our patterns.
-
I don't think the typo redirects are an issue. Even Google uses those: http://gooogle.com. What percentage of your visits is referrer traffic or direct? If you're at 90% from search any of these swings are going to hurt a lot more. Getting higher rates of referrer and direct would help buffer search, and they also indicate a much higher likelihood of not dropping from search due to brand strength. I work with some more niche ecommerce sites that saw no adverse effects, but also have balanced brand strengths so wherever possible work on strengthening those as well.
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
-
Our Sites Organic Traffic Went Down Significantly After The June Core Algorithm Update, What Can I Do?
After the June Core Algorithim Update, the site suffered a loss of about 30-35% of traffic. My suggestions to try to get traffic back up have been to add metadata (since the majority of our content is lacking it), as well ask linking if possible, adding keywords to alt images, expanding and adding content as it's thin content wise. I know that from a technical standpoint there are a lot of fixes we can implement, but I do not want to suggest anything as we are onboarding an SEO agency soon. Last week, I saw that traffic for the site went back to "normal" for one day and then saw a dip of 30% the next day. Despite my efforts, traffic has been up and down, but the majority of organic traffic has dipped overall this month. I have been told by my company that I am not doing a good job of getting numbers back up, and have been given a warning stating that I need to increase traffic by 25% by the end of the month and keep it steady, or else. Does anyone have any suggestions? Is it realistic and/or possible to reach that goal?
Algorithm Updates | | NBJ_SM2 -
Does my website need the SSL Cert / HTTPS Update?
So, I own a car shipping company called Car Shipping Carriers ( www.carshippingcarriers.com ) and I am trying to find out if I need the SSL Cert / HTTPS for the site. I attached a picture that shows I dropped a HUGE amount of rank back in the beginning of August 2014 and that the SSL/HTTPS update happened at nearly the exact same time. I do have a quote box on my website asking for: Name, Phone, Email, Origin, Destination, Move Date, Year/Make/Model of Vehicle, and Carrier Type. I was unsure if I needed the HTTPS because I am not asking for sensitive data, but it seems that I might need to bite the bullet and update the site to HTTPS. What do you all think? Any expert opinion and/or advice? JWV4N1o
Algorithm Updates | | Dutko23850 -
Yandex Update
The traffic from my website significantly decreased from Yandex last month. Was their a major update?
Algorithm Updates | | theLotter0 -
Next Google PR update
When is next google Pagerank update is expected to arrive.
Algorithm Updates | | csfarnsworth
I know it takes one month to one year for Google to update it but I know many people sitting here at Moz know some secrets for sure.0 -
Algorithm update last weekend?
Hi guys, Just a simple one really. Our in house company has seen a significant improvement in rankings and traffic over the weekend period for 4-5 classified niche sites. However, so far there seems to be little out there in the blogosphere. I did find this article by Barry Schwartz, and it seems some on WMW agree: http://www.seroundtable.com/google-update-possible-17065.html. Has anyone else seen signs of an algorithm update around the 14th July? Cheers. (UK)
Algorithm Updates | | Sayers0 -
Why is site dropping in rank after we update it?
One of our sites - supereyes.com - appears to drop in rank after we update it. The client notified us of this today and I've verified that it did indeed drop in Google -- four spots since last week. He says this happens every time we make changes to the site, but then a week later it will go back up and is usually higher than where it was before. I have not verified this, but I'm very worried it may not rise again In the past week, we've posted a new blog entry to their site and we've changed some of the content -- specifically, added their locations to the header, added a contact page and put two testimonials in their sidebar. We've also had someone submitting their site to directories and local business sites like Angie's List and so forth. There are about 16 new backlinks established in the past 2-3 weeks. Also, I should note, traffic is higher than it's ever been, but the client doesn't look at traffic. They only look at their Google results. Can anyone offer any insight into what's going on here and if I need to be worried the site won't rise again in the rankings?
Algorithm Updates | | aloley0 -
PageRank Updates Again
Toolbar PageRank updates seem quite frequent this year. When they did the re-update in July after Twitter stuff-up I thought they were going to settle down for a while. Now in August there is a new one. From what I can see the data is refreshed and the snapshot seems to originate from at least 29th July with the calculated values as recent as 25th July. I wonder why they're doing this and what they are up to...
Algorithm Updates | | Dan-Petrovic0 -
How did NexTag.com Survive the Algorithm Update?
After going through numerous post-algo update articles I find one price comparison site to have gone though unscratched - NexTag.com Question: What contributed to their success? Was it sheer domain authority, content quality, unique toolset... or something else?
Algorithm Updates | | Dan-Petrovic0