Google Penguin Winners and Losers?
-
Hi All,
Just wondering out of the SEOmoz community who has come out on top after Penguin and who has been hit and why.
Personally my site has come out on top. I started workig on the site back in December and NOTHING had been done, no link development, no onpage, nothing, a virginal website.
The site was chock-a-block with issues both technically and in content. After 4 months of hard work, we have climbed from 100+ to top ten on most of our phrases and post Penguin we have climbed even higher as some of our competitors were dragged down into the murky depths. So I think thats a win (for now).
My focus has been on Guest posting, social outreach, reviews and getting my on page right (still a ways to go, but our CMS is clunky to say the least).
A little humour attached (Why has no one yet stuck Matt Cutts head on a Penguin?)
Are you a Penguin Winner or have you experienced the wrath of the penguin.
-
Well I will call myself as one of the neutral person who nether got hurt not got any positive advantage out of it! The reason why there was no real movement is because my industry is very competitive and the terms I am targeting are the most competitive terms in my nicheâŠ
Moreover, our website is standing mostly on 2 to 3 page and almost all competitors are investing right on SEO so the spam links and similar ratio is quite down at my side⊠and everyone is busy building quality links to the website. In these cases usually the one with most quality score wins!
As far as Penguin is concern⊠well may be its new in the bubble further versions of it will might bring a penguin with a Mattâs face on it
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
-
Will I be flagged for duplicate content by Google?
Hi Moz community, Had a question regarding duplicate content that I can't seem to find the answer to on Google. My agency is working on a large number of franchisee websites (over 40) for one client, a print franchise, that wants a refresh of new copy and SEO. Each print shop has their own 'microsite', though all services and products are the same, the only difference being the location. Each microsite has its own unique domain. To avoid writing the same content over and over in 40+ variations, would all the websites be flagged by Google for duplicate content if we were to use the same base copy, with the only changes being to the store locations (i.e. where we mention Toronto print shop on one site may change to Kelowna print shop on another)? Since the print franchise owns all the domains, I'm wondering if that would be a problem since the sites aren't really competing with one another. Any input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks again!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EdenPrez0 -
Prevent Google from crawling Ajax
With Google figuring out how to make Ajax and JS more searchable/indexable, I am curious on thoughts or techniques to prevent this. Here's my Situation, we have a page that we do not ever want to be indexed/crawled or other. Currently we have the nofollow/noindex command, but due to technical changes for our site the method in which this information is being implemented if it is ever displayed it will not have the ability to block the content from search. It is also the decision of the business to not list the file in robots.txt due to the sensitivity of the content. Basically, this content doesn't exist unless something super important happens, and even if something super important happens, we do not want Google to know of its existence. Since the Dev team is planning on using Ajax/JS to pull in this content if the business turns it on, the concern is that it will be on the homepage and Google could index it. So the questions that I was asked; if Google can/does index, how long would that piece of content potentially appear in the SERPs? Can we block Google from caring about and indexing this section of content on the homepage? Sorry for the vagueness of this question, it's very sensitive in nature and I am trying to avoid too many specifics. I am able to discuss this in a more private way if necessary. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Shawn_Huber0 -
Website not coming up properly on Google
Hello, our website (http://www.roguevalleymicro.com/index.php) is not coming up properly on Google search (for example, when you search for Rogue Valley Microdevices on Google). We believe that there is something wrong with the website source code, and Google cannot index it properly. However, your Crawl Test results did not indicate any such problems. Can someone help us with some advice please?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | medved441 -
Google Fetch Issue
I'm having some problems with what google is fetching and what it isn't, and I'd like to know why. For example, google IS fetching a non-existent page but listing it as an error: http://www.gaport.com/carports but the actual url is http://www.gaport.com/carports.htm. Google is NOT able to fetch http://www.gaport.com/aluminum/storage-buildings-10x12.htm. It says the page doesn't exist (even though it does) and when I click on the not found link in Google fetch it adds %E@%80%8E to the url causing the problem. One theory we have is that this may be some sort of server/hosting problem, but that's only really because we can't figure out what we could have done to cause it. Any insights would be greatly appreciated. Thanks and Happy Holidays! Ruben
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | KempRugeLawGroup0 -
DMCA Complaint to Google - HELP
I have several sites copying my content, which I found out via Copyscape.com.  Unfortunately, this is giving me duplicate content. I filed a DMCA complaint through Google and the infringing pages were approved but the pages still remain. Can someone please help me understand this better?  I thought Google was supposed to remove these pages?  Am I supposed to content the site owner to get the content removed or are their pages simply de-indexed?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | tutugirl0 -
Google Webmasters- Message ID CDO8151
Sorry if this question is asked before, but I dont know how to deal with latest issue in one of my website. I got this warning message today in GWT: The URL (URL) is no longer appearing in Google search results because our algorithms have selected (URL) instead. Please see this Help Center article for more information about this message. Message ID: CDO81511. Please include this ID in any messages you post in our Help forum. Sincerely, Google Search Quality Team
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | eddieodriscoll0 -
Penguin Update Issues.. What would you recommend?
Hi, We've been pretty badly hit by this penguin Update. Site traffic is down 40-50%. We suspect it's for a couple of reasons 1)Google is saying we have duplicate content. e.g. for a given category we will have 4-5 pages of content (products). So it's saying pagenum=2 , pagenum=3 etc are duplicate pages. We've implemented rel=canonical so that pagenum=2 point to the original category e.g. http://mydomain/widgets.aspx We've even specified pagenum as a url parameter  that pagniates. Google still hasn't picked up these changes. How long does it take - it's been about a week 2)They've saying we have soft 404 errors. e.g. we remove a category or product we point users to a category or page not found. is it best to block googlebot  from crawling these page by specifying in robots.txt. because we really don't care about these categories or product pages. How best to handle? 3)There are some bad directory and crawlers that have crawled our website but have put incorrect links . So we've got like 1700 product not found. I'm sure that's taking up a lot of crawling time. So how do we tell Google not to bother with these link coming from specific sources e.g. ignore all links coming from xxx.com. Any help will be much appreciated as this is Killing our business. Jay
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ConservationM0 -
Google WMT Change of address.
Hey all. I've got two domain names. -rt112media.com -route112media.com http://rt112media.com is my main address. The preferred domain. My Google WMT account has 4 sites listed that I am a verified owner on. 1.)rt112media.com 2.)www.rt112media.com 3.)route112media.com 4.)www.route112media.com I recent changed the address in WMT for route112media.com to have the preferred domain rt112media.com. I did this on Nov 23. It is currently saying their is a request and I can withdrawl. Now I'm needing to set the preferred for www.rt112media.com to be rt112media.com but it will not let me because of the pending route112media.com. The problem is I'm getting a ton of errors under my www.rt112media.com diagnostics. I'm not getting any under rt112media.com but I am thinking it is still effecting my page rank. I have the 301's for all set up as a 301 wildcard to rt112media.com. They all redirect to the preferred domain I wan (rt112media.com.) Suggestions?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Route112Media0