Slapped by the Penguin
-
We had a client's website hit hard by the Penguin update, particularly on the 24th. Sitewide each keyword lost 10-20 positions. It was in #1 or #2 for the past couple years.
We optimize all of our websites onpage features well and within the whitehat realm. Since this was the only website affected out of 50+ other sites, I am guessing the penalty came directly from the backlink profile which was quite bad. The client had bought two other directory link package deals about 4 years ago which all of the incoming directory links have the exact same anchor text. I warned him this was completely unnatural and we only went after "natural-looking" links since then. Keep in mind these links were from 4+ years ago and did very little for rankings as we came into the picture.
Out of 143 root domain links, around 45 use the same anchor text in link.
We started with about 50 links total 2 years ago and have since built a very good quality profile, or so I thought. I was almost certain is was enough various anchor text to dilute it down.
I'm wondering if any of your websites that have been hit have a high amount of exact match anchor text. I can't believe Google would penalize just for linkbuilding because it seems to be an easy way to attack competitors but all my data is looking that way. Let me know your thoughts if any of your sites have been hit. Thanks
-
local niche, so yes the anchor text was probably very similar. What's really weird is that I just noticed on one of my sites that I had accidentally left some REALLY old pages up for a couple of cities. These are actually ranking now front page. The others are back on page 2 or 3 and this one is now top 5.
I think I'm just going to see what next week holds. Google seems to have lost a screw this week. I've had enough! Signing off for the week...
-
Not that high of a percentage, but yes they are niche sites so "close to exact match anchor text" is extremely hard to avoid.
For someone to link to our site about "tonneau covers" and not mention that term...it really makes little to no sense.
-
Did you guys have a high amount of exact anchor text? We were at roughly 33% for a single phrase when it hit us.
Ironically, the anchor text used for all the spam directory links wasn't even a good search term and we never optimized a page to utilize it.
-
We're in the same boat on 2 sites. Went from #1 to page 2 on many major searches.
-
Yes, I've had several hit hard. A few are from the same situation that you have. I'm hoping that the update has not completed yet and that things will raise back up over the next few weeks. I can't see how this could be the "final product" ... at least I'm hoping.
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 you think this site has been hit by penguin?
Hi Guys, I need some opinion on a website i am working on www.colourbnners.co.uk They updated their website in August but the company they used did not take into account the URL structure and hence there's a massive loss in links in August time. They also dropped off Google for all their key terms except their brand name 'colour banners'
Technical SEO | | gezzagregz
Since then, they have implemented a 301 redirect. Some key points They have not received any manual warnings in WMT I have disavowed some poor quality links that they have built over the years I am building high quality links quite selectively/slowly There were a lot of duplicate content issues - these have been resolved now.
So my question to you SEO pros is do you think its penguin? or something that i am missing?
If it is penguin, what is the best form of attack to get it removed? regards gezzagrez0 -
Ranking for brand name but no other terms (no manual penalty) is this penguin?
Hi guys, I would like your opinions on this site www.colourbanners.co.uk Seems to be ranking for 'colour banners' but has dropped for keywords such as 'banners' and 'pvc banners' which were ranking well. There has been no manual actions against the site so im assuming this is an algo penalty? Any ideas/suggestions what could be causing this? regards Gerry
Technical SEO | | gezzagregz0 -
Possible penguin hit but then back, now what's next?
hiz, i did a little check on my site by answering the quiz at mytrafficdropped.com and there was a question about on what dates there was drop in organic. and i did checked my analytics on a top sending keyword. here is what i found. see attached image . Traffic dropped totally on April 20 to onwards. Then got back better in june, but again dropped in October, still down.. anythoughts guys ? 1Jk47.png
Technical SEO | | wickedsunny10 -
Penguin update: Penalty caused from onsite issues or link profile?
Back in April before the Penguin update, our website home page ranked in the #1 position for several of our keywords and on page 1 for dozens of other keywords. But immediately after the Penguin update in April our rankings dropped immediately to below #100 for nearly all keywords. The sharp drop was obviously a penalty of some kind. We worked on removing some bad back links that were questionable. Over the past 7 months many of the bad links have dropped off and our link profile is improving. Our rankings, however, have not improved at all. In Yahoo and Bing we remain strong and rank on page 1 for many of our keywords. I joined SEOmoz because I’ve heard about their great tools and resources for SEO. The first thing I learned is that I had a lot of errors and warnings that need to be addressed and I’m optimistic that these items once addressed will get me out of that dreadful penalty box we’ve been in for 7 months now. So with that quick summary of our SEO problems I have a few questions that I hope to get some direction on. 1. Crawl Diagnostics for my site in SEOmoz reports 7 errors and 19 warnings including missing meta description tags, temporary redirects, duplicate page content, duplicate page title, 4xx client error, and title element too long. Could these errors and warnings be what has landed my website in some kind of penalty or filter? 2. A couple of the errors were duplicate page title and duplicate page content. So there appears to be a duplicate home page. Here are the two pages: howtomaketutus.com/ howtomaketutus.com/?p=home They are the same page but it looks like Google is seeing it as duplicate content. Do I need to do a 301 redirect in the .htaccess file? I’m not sure how that would work since they are the same page. If that is possible how would I go about doing that? 3. Finally based on what I’ve described above is it more likely that the penalty we are experiencing is because of onsite issues or because of our link profile? We would really appreciate any help or direction anyone can offer on these issues. Thanks
Technical SEO | | 123craft0 -
Google Penguin - Target Landing Page
Hello, One of our sites have been hit by the first penguin update back in April and ever since then we have been removing links and submitting reconsideration requests... It only seems to have affected our home page as some of our internal landing pages are still ranking OK in the SERPS #1 / #2. I'm just wondering if we created a landing page for this keyword and drove high quality / relevant links to this landing page could we get it to rank higher than our homepage even though our Homepage is on the 5th page.Hope the above make sense. Has anybody had any joy with this?
Technical SEO | | ScottBaxterWW0 -
Are gallery sites ok post Penguin?
We're getting ready to re-launch a redesigned site and I was hoping to use the opportunity to get some quality links. Are some of the higher-quality web design gallery sites still ok to submit to? Did Penguin have any effect on these? Just looking for opportunities for a little boost from our re-launch.
Technical SEO | | _JP_0 -
Penguin update pecks at specific terms
Bonjour from 25 degrees C, mediterranean climate change has hit wetherby UK 🙂 Ive got two questions please: 1. I suspect ive been punished for acquiring links with specific commercial terms (but not all) and the site has disappeared off the SERPS 😞 What can i do about this if anything? 2. Where is the best place to find out asap about Google Algorithm tweeks Thanks in advance, David
Technical SEO | | Nightwing0 -
Looking for sites hit by Penguin for research
I'm doing some link profile analysis and need examples of sites hit by Penguin (not Panda). If you have a site that was hit and are willing to share, please PM me: Your site homepage URL Main keyword(s) you lost rankings for (preferably keywords your homepage was ranked for but no longer is) I will keep your information strictly confidential and will not share it. (I will publish the results of my findings, but will not mention any of the sites used for research.) Thanks.
Technical SEO | | AdamThompson0