Panda 4.0 indirectly affecting my rankings (maybe)
-
Hi,
So my site supplies Q&A type of content - user queries a question and generally they get the answer from my site (landing page). I always make sure my content is (1) unique (2) answers the question (3) extensive in answering the question - reason being I rely on social shares quite a bit and that system works very well, sharing happens with my content.
But one of my main pages has dropped from position 5 to position 10 in the last few days - I assume its panda 4.0 because my rankings have been rock for around 2 years.
But I don't think its dropped my site, I think it has boosted others above me. The thing I don't understand is the sites its boosted above me have very little content and in some cases lots of Adsense surrounding it.
I'm not moaning just a bit confused: I have 750 words of good content, another sites comes out of nowhere with 50 words -> how can Google decide the 50 word site is better using the panda algo?
This is me assuming the panda algo is purely content/copy based. Does it take other things into account such as freshness, layout, bounce rate?
Thanks.
-
What's your bounce rate like? Is it high? If so, maybe you do need to make some changes. How about time on page/site?
I'm believing more and more that google uses user engagement metrics to help rank sites. I don't know if this is part of Panda or not though.
As others have said, I wouldn't change anything until the dust has settled.
Implementing a few tables here and there is not a difficult task (I wouldn't have thought) and maybe is just what you need to make the content you have more readable. I would have thought a table is just the tool to display bank holidays! Though, of course, now that the second May bank holiday has passed us, there aren't many left (BOOOOO).
Good luck, and make sure you wait for the dust to settle before you do anything.
Amelia
-
Thank you very much (see my reply below).
-
Thank you very much (see my reply below).
-
Nice, extremely helpful - thanking you both Dennis + David. Its not often I get responses on forums where im actually going to action the advice but I will here.
Going to share a few things in the hope I can gain some more actionable advice/insight.
So im purely after rankings in UK search - a query which is highly valuable to me is 'bank holidays 2014'. I was ranking in the top 5 for the last 2 years (sometimes I would be 3rd for a few months), David is completely correct my content may well be 'stagnant' as I don't refresh my content at all really - little worried it might flick a switch Google's end so I tend to do as little as possible changes wise.
Like I said, I have now dropped to bottom of page (FollowUK) and have even seen flux onto page 2. You will notice a lot of Auth sites which is absolutely fine with me, I understand the reason and the work involved to out rank. Its just the others which confuse me because far as im considered (taken David's advice on competitor analysis) all they have over me is tables. So the ones im looking at are -> year-planner-calendar.wanadoo / ownersdirect / publicholidays - All of which were below me before a week ago.
But I have to admit being open their content looks more interesting than mine, which falls back to Dennis's reply regarding content formatting.
Even still, when you take 900 unique relevant words against 50/150 words you would assume mine would be more valuable to Googe's users - unless you think adding something as simple as a table would do the trick (I doubt it).
Thoughts?
-
Definitely.
I've seen better results for both readership and google if proper formatting is used.
I think Google would prefer it like that as well if you think about it.
I'm betting that you'd hate reading big chunks of text without any breaks, subs, media or bullets.
-
LOL, "Ok, we're going to destroy your rankings shortly. Please, invest more in Adwords afterwards."
Seriously though, I think the algo resets certain factors at the beginning, so these spammed or crappy stuffed sites will get the advantage initially and as a little time passes, the algorithm will be able to catch up and move those sites down - well, in simple terms that is. It'll take 1000 words to fully explain what I really want to say haha.
-
Please dont immediately freak out.These updates when they are just beginning can mess with all kinds of rankings. The last thing you want to do during an update is to go and change all of your content that has "been rock for around 2 years". That would probably be the worst thing you could do, unless you already know of areas on your site that need improvement.
I understand that it sucks to see a competitor soar above you, when their site is "worse" than yours. Sometimes, we see a competitors site as worse, because we want ours to win so badly, rather than looking at the facts. In some cases our competition may beat us in a few areas. It would be more beneficial to you to look closely at the high ranking sites, see if they stay in a high position, and if so, see what you can learn from them. We did this about 6 months ago, when we noticed rankings slipping a bit. We closely analyzed what the other sites strengths were, (they had a few ideas that were awesome) and implemented our own custom strategy, and have been doing great since. You stated that your rankings have been consistantly well during the past few years, does this mean that your site was and content was left stagnant, perhaps while the competition was updating and working hard to out rank you?
Rankings change, it will happen all the time. Sometimes it will be one spot, sometimes it could be many. This is the fun part of advertising and marketing on something you dont own aka Google. A few things to remember are: optimize logically, dont make rash sudden decisions when you see ranking changes, focus on your users, and partner with trusted sources.
@dennis "Each time an algo update (a major one) happens, crap sites will always show up and in many cases, rank better than good sites. " I have seen this also. Maybe this is Google's way of giving the crap sites a break on their PPC budget for a while
-
Thanks for your reply.
Makes sense, hopefully some of these sites get pulled back a little.
Do you think the way a website arranges content on the page matters also? So instead of having a chunk of content in a block, have it broken apart more with sub-headings, tables, bullet points etc?
-
Historically, Panda does consider a lot of other stuff. I would personally wait a few weeks. Each time an algo update (a major one) happens, crap sites will always show up and in many cases, rank better than good sites.
For now, you should look at the site, see if there is anything that you can improve. Internal linking, UI/UX, speed, etc. Monitor your webmaster tools for changes in your visibility and other usual panda stuff.
If you continue to produce great stuff then you should be fine.
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 Blog Tags affect SEO at all anymore?
We're trying to standardize the use of tags on our site amongst writers/editors, and I'm trying to come up a list of tags they can choose from to tag posts with - and telling them to use no more than 10 (absolute maximum) per post. We are also in the process of migrating to a new CMS, and have 8 defined categories that will all have their own landing page within our "News" section. TLDR: Do blog tags have any impact on SEO anymore? Are they solely meant to help users find articles related on popular topics, or does creating a tag for a popular topic help to improve organic visibility? Full Question: With the tag standardization, I want to make sure we're creating the most useful and effective tags; and the UX/SEO sides of my brain are conflicted. To my understanding, creating a tag about a high volume topic in an industry helps establish the website's relevance to Google/other search engines about that topic and improves overall relevance; but the tag feed page (ex: http://freshome.com/tag/home-protection/) isn't really meant for organic search visibility. So my other question is, is it worth it to noindex the tag pages in the robots.txt? Will that affect any benefit to increased relevance for Google (if there is any)? I'm interested to hear others' thoughts and suggestions. Thanks in advance!
On-Page Optimization | | davidkaralisjr0 -
Is a particular page not ranking for any reason?
I posted about the Google WEbmaster tools Structured Data set up in this thread here: http://moz.com/community/q/using-google-structured-data-for-seo-benefit Just a follow up question (or separate)... would having a lot of products with marked up data (via webmaster tools and not on page) hurt SEO rankings? I have not got any warning/notice etc in Google Webmaster tools about it. Search term 'buy isagenix' on Google Australia Product listing page not in top 50
On-Page Optimization | | IsaCleanse
http://www.isacleanse.com.au/buy-isagenix 15th Result on Google Australia for 'buy isagenix' is a different page on my website:
http://www.isacleanse.com.au/isagenix-perth/ Any suggestions welcome0 -
Homepage ranking above category page, but no keywords in there! Why?
So...we have a 5 year diary product page at TOAD diaries. It's had a lot of on page treatment: keyword in title, alt text, decent copy, pictures of the product etc. Find it here - http://www.toaddiaries.co.uk/shop/5-year-diary So we rank 22nd for 5 year diary, but google sends the customer to the home page! There no mention of 5 year diaries on there. Seems ridiculous! I can't help but think we should rank better for this as it's a low difficulty term (according to keyword difficulty tool on MOZ). Any thoughts on why this might be? Oh, Google HAS indexed the 5 year diary page. Used a search operator to check that first (thanks to you guys on here:) ) Thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | isaac6630 -
How does a collapsed section affect on page SEO?
A client recently asked me whether a tabbed collapsed section of text that is expanded (i.e. revealed) when clicked, is an OK thing to do without negatively effecting SEO. I told him that for starters, he may want to rethink why he would want to hide the text in the first place (this is not an FAQ type scenario). The reason has to do with the aesthetic of the page. Anyway, aesthetic aside, any thoughts on whether a collapsed (hidden from view) negatively affects on-page SEO? Thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | stephanwb
Stephan0 -
Organic Rankings - Y=5, B=2, G=Not Found!
My on-page SEO efforts are focused on generating higher visibility in Google's SERPs for my site: http://www.thegrossmanlawoffice.com. My primary keyword phrase is "winter garden divorce lawyer" I have noticed that my home page ranks higher in Yahoo (5) and Bing (2) for my primary keyword, and Google does display my site in the 7-pack local results but does not rank my home page organically. It actually ranks my business's Facebook page on page 3 of the SERPs. Yahoo includes me in the local listings in position #2...at least today it does! I am happy that Google includes me in the local results, and I am curious why it does not rank my home page organically at all. Yahoo's rankings seem to be accurately tracking my keyword phrases and the appropriate pages, and it has me ranking really well for many of my keyword phrases. I am not quite sure why Yahoo and Bing see my relevant pages and seem to be ranking me appropriately, but Google is not. I recently (within last week) cleaned up my backlink profile per a great suggestion I received here. Is that the likely culprit? Any thoughts? Thank you in advance.
On-Page Optimization | | ajgrossman0 -
Get the startpage rank high for one word
Hi, This has maybe been asked many times. I wonder for example how our website www.hardtours.se can receive higher ranking for the word "hardstyle". Our competitor has "hardstyle" in the webadress and it feels useless to compete with them since it feels that having the name in the www adress is to hard to compete with. Or am i wrong?
On-Page Optimization | | Zacay0 -
How to improve On-Page Grades for Top Ranking Pages
please help me - i dont know or understand how to improve on-Page Grades for Top Ranking Pages
On-Page Optimization | | pwwukpw0 -
Help With Disappearing Rankings
Hi Guys, I am stumped!!. I have been asked to look at this site http://www.quarrymotors.co.uk. Which has lost rankings for "BMW Parts" since a redesign of the site. Through a bit of detective work I have managed to get hold ot the wayback machine version of the old site here http://web.archive.org/web/20080520104847/http://www.quarrymotors.co.uk/ And according to the onpage factors I have compared with SEOquake, the keyword density, title tag, description is almost identical. I have checked webmaster tools and analytics (I only have data from June 22nd) So I am unable to confirm what traffic was available before the redesign. All other keywords:- BMW Breakers BMW Spares Are on the first page but this keyword "BMW Parts" is on page 22??!?. I have checked open site explorer and it's not a case over optimisation of anchor text as a majority of the keywords are pointing back to the url and it's one of the cleanest profiles I have ever seen. The only issue, which it can't be is right at the top left corner of the site is a piece of text "Used BMW Parts & Spares" Any help would be gracefully appreciated Kind Regards Neil
On-Page Optimization | | nezona0