Panda and affiliate networks
-
Last year we were hit with a Panda penalty and have been unable to recover from this. We removed all duplicate content from our site and SEOMoz confirms this.
I have spoken to a new SEO company and they have identified that the cause maybe our content being duplicated off site by affiliates who are using our product feed such as Shopwiki and Thefind.
Is this a possibibilty and if so I presume the easiest thing to do is stop these affiliates using our descriptions.
Neil
-
Hi,
I ended the affiliate programmes with Shopwiki, Digidrop and one or two other similar affiliates. We saw a quick and small bounce back of some product related terms but it has take a while for the affiliates to remove our data so their listings are still dropping our of google. It seems that for some reason the affiliates are being credited with being the owners of the content and therefore listing higher than us.
Do you think this is because the feeds are uploading every night and Shopwiki etc are being spidered quicker than our site. One solution may be a weeks delay in new products being put onto our affiliate feeds.
Here is an example of where the affiliates are all listing above the link for http://www.gear-zone.co.uk
Please let me know what you think and how you are getting on with the issues you are experiencing.
-
Hello
Did you get any further with this? We are in a similar position with shop wiki and would love to know how you got on with this issue.
Thanks
-
All the content is written by us. The reason I chose that item is that it is basically an own brand item. Heres another example
"Two-layer Gore-Tex uppers and Ballistics cloth bottoms make these Black Diamond Front Point Gaiters ideal for glacial travel and ice climbing.
The Front Point Gaiters provide warmth and waterproofing, and are tough as nails in repelling crampon spikes. Secured underfoot with a burly strap, these gaiters are easy to put on or remove using a velcro closure system and shock cord."
As you can see all the sites listed are affiliate shopping sites.
-
As the affiliates are through networks they have affiliate tracking code so there is no link building benefit to us.
Our URL is www.gear-zone.co.uk and you can see if you google this text we do not appear first
"Get a grip when the weather does its worst with these excellent snow and ice grips.
Each sole is equipped with 13 self-tapping, replaceable carbon steel screw spikes, providing superb traction in the ice and snow."
It relates to this page so as you can see there is definatly a problem
-
Do you have canonical tags? Is it possible to add a cross-site canonical to any of the affiliate pages? At the very least they should link directly back to the relevant product page on your own site.
-
Thats an awful lot of work as our catalogue is over 4000 items and to be honest they are not contributing as much as they have in the past.
Is there some clever code to force Google to show we are the primary source?
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
-
Is Panda as aggressive as Penguin in terms of being able to escape its clutches ?
Hi, Is being hit by Panda as hard to get out of as being hit by Penguin ? Or if you clean up all your content should you get out of it relatively quickly ? I have a very old (11 years) and established site (but also very neglected site that i'm looking to relaunch) but its on an ancient shopping cart platform which never allowed for Google analytics & GWT integration etc so i cant see any messages in GWT or look at traffic figures to correlate a drop with any Panda updates. The reason i ask is i want to relaunch the site after bringing up to date with a modern e-commerce platform. I originally launched the site in early 2002 and was perceived well by Google achieving first field of view SERPS for all targeted keywords however competitive, including 'ipod accessories', 'data storage' etc etc. These top positions (& resulting sales) lasted until about 2007 when it was overtaken by bigger brand competitors with more advanced & Google friendlier ecommerce platforms (& big SEO budgets) I originally used the manufacturers descriptions editing slightly but probably not enough to avoid being considered duplicate content although still managed to obtain good rankings for these pages for a very long time even ranking ahead of Amazon in most cases. The site is still ranking well for some of the keywords relating to products for which there is still manufacturer copied descriptions so i actually don't think i have been hit by Panda. So my questions Is, is there any way of finding out for sure if the site has indeed even been hit by Panda at all without looking at analytics & gwt ? And once i find out if it has or not: Is it best if i relaunch on same domain to take advantage of the 11 year old domain history/authority etc ? So long as i make sure all product descriptions etc are unique, if i have been hit by Panda the site should escape its clutches quite quickly ? **OR ** Is Panda as aggressive as Penguin in which case is it best to start again on a new domain ? Many Thanks Dan
Technical SEO | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
Is it panda, pengiun, ad penalty?
I'm trying to figure out why my google traffic is going down... I see that back in Feb and then March 2011 it started to drop, which I assume was pengiun. I saw a gradual comeback in traffic until March 2012, which I assume the second drop was another pengiun update. The decline continued gradually until I saw a big drop in October 2012 which is completely dropping off in the past month today. I recreated my website on wordpress, improving content and removing google ads. Relaunched a few weeks ago and still see a big drop. Any idea what happened? I only got a message from google about a large traffic drop in march 2012 and a 404 error increase recently when I launched the new site which I fixed with 301 and removing media attachment pages that were indexed that gave a 404. Once concern is I have no idea if I have a problem with pengiun. Could I have a problem with too many links coming from my blog or soicial network? What's acceptable number of back links to not be spam? If you add pages in the blogroll is this thought of as spam with pengiun? website: http://www.dashinfashion.com Thanks for your help!
Technical SEO | | dashinfashion0 -
Looking for live website examples of google adsense since panda update
Hi, i am looking for some live websites that use google adsense who have changed their layout since the panda update If anyone can please point me in the right direction so i can see good examples of how sites have now changed their google adsense layout so we can learn from this, then that would be great regards
Technical SEO | | ClaireH-1848860 -
Why Do Transparent Networks Still Work
Hi Mozzers, My client has a major competitor that dominates several industry head terms. A check of their link profile reveals that they have 50 low DA domains that are identical to the main site, the only difference being that they all link to the main domain for these terms. They're not even attempting to disguise the network but it works. Can anyone tell me why? See: www.omega.com/vhpc/
Technical SEO | | waynekolenchuk0 -
Panda and unnatural links caused ranking drop
Hi I have been approached to do some SEO work for a site that has been hit badly by the latest panda update 3.3, they have also had a warning in their Google webmaster tools account saying they had unnatural looking links to their site, they received this in 26 Feb and that prompted them to stop working with their excising seo company and look for a new one. Apparently their rankings for the keywords they were targeting have dropped dramatically, but it looks like just those they were actively building back links for, other phrases do not look affected. Before I take them on I want to be clear that it is possible to help them reclaim their rankings? I have checked the site and the on-page seo is good, the site build is good, just a few errors to fix but the links that have been built by the seo company are low quality with a lot of spun articles and the same anchor text so I see what the Google webmaster tools message is refuring to. I do not think these links can be removed as there is no contact details on the sites I checked I have not checked all of them but a random sample does not show promise, they are from low authority domains. So if I am to take them on as a client and help them to regain their previous rankings what is the best strategy? Obviously they want results yesterday and from our phone call they would rather someone else did the work than them, so my initial response of add some better quality content that others in your industry would link to as a reference did not go down well, to be fair I think it is a time issue there are only 3 people in the company and they are not technical at all. Thanks for your help Sean
Technical SEO | | ske110 -
Best way to use affiliate links
What is the best practice to use amazon affliate links in blog posts? I have read different opinions on this, and want to be sure I'm using best practices. I sometimes link to amazon with an affiliate link on some of my posts, and am working on a top ten Christmas gift ideas for Children born with Down syndrome with lots of affiliate links on it. I'm want to be sure I'm using best practices when adding links like this. Tanks!
Technical SEO | | NoahsDad0 -
Have I been mauled by the Panda?
I mentioned my problem a few nights ago, but since then I think I may have found my problem. I have a site that was never really promoted to any great level, but for the main keywords I could find it in serps with out clicking though too many pages. I came up first for the company name in both Bing or Google. Recently I finally decided to promote it and did a bit of a ranking check. First I still come up first for my company name in Bing, but in Google I come up 900+ out of 1000, virtually last. For my main keyword, the title of my site and optimized well for, I come up last, absolutely last. For long tail terms from my home page where I am the only site in the world to have the exact term, I come first in Bing, and absolutely last in Google. I don’t do black hat, but I thought I must be flagged by Google and I asked for reconsideration, they replied that no manual actions had been taken again the site, and referred me to the usual Google guidelines. It was very frustrating, I then had a thought, I had a long forgotten sub domain that had a load of duplicate content, it was a load of Microsoft documentation and other dev stuff from other sources, rss feeds and the like. Nothing sinister, but duplicate all the same. I am now thinking that this maybe my problem. I have 410’ed the whole sub domain as the site has not been maintained for some time anyhow. Does anybody know of simular, sub domain causing loss of ranking for root domain
Technical SEO | | AlanMosley0 -
From your perspective, what's wrong with this site such that it has a Panda Penalty?
www.duhaime.org For more background, please see: http://www.seomoz.org/q/advice-regarding-panda http://www.seomoz.org/q/when-panda-s-attack (hoping the third time's the charm here)
Technical SEO | | sprynewmedia0