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
-
Optimising meta tags: How to write them perfectly without duplicating? Impact of using different keywords?
Hi friends, Generally most of the articles about tags are either title rag or header tags, but not about both. I would like to know how to write perfect title and header tags. How much they must be relevant and different? Can we use the same tags for title and H1? If we are planning to rank for different keywords, can that different keywords can be used? I'm really curious to see some interesting answers for this. Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Can 'Jump link'/'Anchor tag' urls rank in Google for keywords?
E.g. www.website.com/page/#keyword-anchor-text Where the part after the # is a section of the page you can jump to, and the title of that section is a secondary keyword you want the page to rank for?
Algorithm Updates | | rwat0 -
How to formulate keyword in language that has cases and foreign characters
Hello everybody, this is my first but foremost headache causing question that i can't seem to find answear to for a month already. I live in Lithuania - small eastern European country and my native language has all "fancy" things that one could probably immagine (tenses, cases, compound forms, foreign letters: ąčęėį..., genders, declensions etc.) The problem is: how to formulate keywords correctly for my SEO to get the best results? I'll try to explain my problem in detail by using few different cases on the same aspect: 1. If i'm using keyword in nominative case which is "atvirkštinis stogas" (reverse roof eng.) - i usually can't follow all of the recommendations for SEO: add keyword in topic, follow the keyword rate in text, because the same keyword will be repeated for numerous times but in many different forms because of the nature of language itself i.e. genitive case - "atvirkštiniam stogui", locative - "atvirkštiniame stoge". Even MOZ page analysis doesn't recognize these cases as the same keyword. How about Google? Searching for keywords in different cases also gives slightly different results - some websites drop by 5 - 7 places on google searchpage No.1. Possible solutions: a) Formulate all keywords in text by using only nominative case which would totaly limit writer to a first-former kid writting capabilities and result in nobody reading the text at all. b) Formulate keywords according to mostly used keyword in text, which would affect organic search because everybody is searching for keywords in nominative case. Note that everybody here in Lithuania usually use the nominative case in search window on google. 2. The use of foreign letters (ąčęėįšųž). If we use the same keyword "atvirkštinis stogas", we have only one letter "š" that is causing a problem.
Algorithm Updates | | StatybosMarketingas
In normal texts we use all of these letters, HOWEVER, nobody is ever writting these letters while searching for keyword in google, so normally they would search for "atvirkstinis stogas" with "s" instead of "š". If you search for these two keywords "atvirkštinis stogas" and "atvirkstinis stogas" you also get slightly different results. Possible solutions: 1. Use keyword with foreign letters and have perversed search results, because everybody will still search for keywords without them. 2. Use keyword without foreign letters which will affect SEO and tell me that I don't have any of my keywords in text, topic, url, etc. Any ideas on how to solve these puzzles? 🙂0 -
Domain Authority Distribution Across the Web
**Does anyone have stats for domain authority distribution across the entire web? E.G., what percentage of websites fall in the DA range of 0-25, 26-50, 51-75, 76-100. **
Algorithm Updates | | Investis_Digital2 -
New Website Old Domain - Still Poor Rankings after 1 Year - Tagging & Content the culprit?
I've run a live wedding band in Boston for almost 30 years, that used to rank very well in organic search. I was hit by the Panda Updates August of 2014, and rankings literally vanished. I hired an SEO company to rectify the situation and create a new WordPress website -which launched January 15, 2015. Kept my old domain: www.shineband.com Rankings remained pretty much non-existent. I was then told that 10% of my links were bad. After lots of grunt work, I sent in a disavow request in early June via Google Wemaster Tools. It's now mid October, rankings have remained pretty much non-existent. Without much experience, I got Moz Pro to help take control of my own SEO and help identify some problems (over 60 pages of medium priority issues: title tag character length and meta description). Also some helpful reports by www.siteliner.com and www.feinternational.com both mentioned a Duplicate Content issue. I had old blog posts from a different domain (now 301 redirecting to the main site) migrated to my new website's internal blog, http://www.shineband.com/best-boston-wedding-band-blog/ as suggested by the SEO company I hired. It appears that by doing that -the the older blog posts show as pages in the back end of WordPress with the poor meta and tile issues AS WELL AS probably creating a primary reason for duplicate content issues (with links back to the site). Could this most likely be viewed as spamming or (unofficial) SEO penalty? As SEO companies far and wide daily try to persuade me to hire them to fix my ranking -can't say I trust much. My plan: put most of the old blog posts into the Trash, via WordPress -rather than try and optimize each page (over 60) adjusting tagging, titles and duplicate content. Nobody really reads a quick post from 2009... I believe this could be beneficial and that those pages are more hurtful than helpful. Is that a bad idea, not knowing if those pages carry much juice? Realize my domain authority not great. No grand expectations, but is this a good move? What would be my next step afterwards, some kind of resubmitting of the site, then? This has been painful, business has fallen, can't through more dough at this. THANK YOU!
Algorithm Updates | | Shineband1 -
Added the Review rich snippet and rankings have dropped?
Hi Mozzers, I am really surprised what happened here. I conducted a small campaign by adding reviews rich snippet to 10 different microsites(covering different locations). Today I was checking if the snippets were showing up correctly in the SERPs and noticed that most of these locations with review snippet dropped in the rankings? How weird is that? Can anyone explain what happened here? Has anyone experienced this? Thank you!
Algorithm Updates | | Ideas-Money-Art0 -
Is this a new type of rich snippet?
I recently came across a type of rich snippet in a Google search result that I can't find information about. I attached a screen shot and circled in red.. http://i.imgur.com/mWgj9.png Has anyone seen these rich snippets before? If so, what are they called and how do you get them for your site? Thanks! mWgj9.png
Algorithm Updates | | WebstaurantStore.com0 -
Google SERPS problem - "block all results from this domain - click here".
Anyone know what can be done about this when it happens to one of your own domains? On the Google SERPS page, underneath the Title, next to the Description, Google has added "Block all results from this domain?". I understand that this is a new "feature", aimed at allowing users to filter out results from low quality, pornograhphic or offensive sites. But the site in question is none of the above - any ideas how to tackle? Couldn't find anything yet by searching.
Algorithm Updates | | Understudy0