How could Penguin kill my top ten rank and promote this garbage page to a #5 spot

[biomat]

Hey,

Before penguin, I had a #9 rank for the term "yoga poses".  So as many of us are doing, I started looking at my link profile... and yes, there were around 300 links from an old yoga news website (anchor: yoga poses)... that lead to the page on my site optimized for this term.  The problem is they took the site down, but not properly... I.E. they generate a "not available" message for browsers, but underneath, I guess the bots can still index all the pages... so I guess they were interpreting these links as coming from a cloaked site.

So, I was able to get them to remove the links... webmaster tools reports half of them gone now.

What I don't get though... is how Google can give this garbage page a #5 spot for a competitive term like "yoga poses"...

Check out http://www.ebmyoga.com/beginyoga.html and compare it to

my page...  http://www.yogaclassplan.com/yoga-poses/

This page leads to highly quality 100% unique yoga pose articles... in my mind we deliver so much more value than the site with a #5 rank.

I don't understand.  Any insight?

Thanks,

[Imperi]

That looks logical to me! Plus, from a usability standpoint, the reader can better understand how to navigate the content.

I do wonder if you should go a little larger on the images and have the category title, image and description all be the same width stacked one on top of the other. This is not for an SEO reason, but based on the preferences of the average yoga demographic. This arrangement would also (albeit slightly) increase readability of the description.

[biomat]

Thanks Cole,

I was thinking of editing the template like in the image attached below.  Add text for each category and then thumbnails below that lead to the full article.  What do you think?

cKSir.png

[EGOL]

I see that you do have fantastic content for each pose.  That's great.

I would place an image for every pose on this page.  Include a short description of that pose... and a link where visitor can get the full article.

When a visitor lands on this page they will be impressed with all of the poses and that you have additional information for each one.

I NEVER hesitate to show the visitor images of EVERYTHING that I have and then link to a more detailed page.  I am not going to say the keywords that I have pages like this ranking for (with zero linkbuilding done by me) but you would probably be surprised at their difficulty.  Huge image galleries linking to more detailed content are killler killer killer.

[biomat]

Hi Egol,

Thanks for your reply and it makes total sense... the problem for me is that if you look at the length of one of my pose articles, you will see there is no way I can post all this information on one page... so...

... I was thinking the following steps:

Please see wire frame attached:

1.  Remove the right margin of this template to make it wider

2.  Modify the header so that it speaks specifically to the pose articles... not the software

3.  Insert say 150x150 images for each category of poses... I.E. arm balances etc... and then insert some text beside that image to further explain to the reader the type of poses they will find in this category.

4.  Underneath this top level image and category text, I will insert thumb nail images and the pose name, which leads to the full article.

What do you think?

Thanks,

cKSir.png

[Imperi]

Connie,

For a living, I work with the health and wellness industries. Within that, about 75% of my clients are in the yoga world. I'm also a 200 hour Yoga Alliance certified yoga teacher. Not that those things help with SEO, but I have a unique understanding of the yoga world and lots of experience with, specifically, yoga-related websites.

I strongly recommend adding in images. Not stock photos, but images you take or produce yourself. They will need to be properly sized and tagged and all of that too, but from what I've seen with my clients, images really have a very positive impact. I know this is not true for all segments/industries, but in the yoga world—yes.

Not sure if you've seen yoga journal's pose finder index: http://www.yogajournal.com/poses/finder/browse_categories

YJ has invested a lot of money into the UX part of their site. Take note of what they are doing and see how you can improve.

Now, another benefit to the other site is that it's smaller, and simpler. Jamie Fernandez has the goods on 'why' for that as does ChangingHorizon.

Since you are using Wordpress (which is what we build all of our sites on) you need to get rid of any extra plugins you can possibly spare. Depending on what theme you are using, you may not need All in One SEO, however, I use this plugin on nearly all of our sites. Delete extra plugins.

Add pictures (even just 10 or 12) and see how that has an effect.

Also, you get points for your Sanskrit transliteration! Looks great. I've never seen your site before and am happy to have found it.

[PPAtherton]

It may not look pretty, but your competitor has higher page authority, higher domain authority and an established domain. You also have a lot of scripts running on the page, including an 'All-in-One' SEO pack which means your page load speed is slow.

But I think EGOL really hits the nail on the head (as usual).

[jim_cetin]

sometimes less is more and you might want to check your low domain authority links!

and remember Goggle does not care how the site looks it only cares for  text and links.

You can learn from your competitors, do you want to!?

[jenmcardle]

I whole-heartedly agree with EGOL. A few points to add:

• you may want to watch Rand's G+ Penguin Update video (11 minutes) https://plus.google.com/u/1/111294201325870406922/posts/MjLCYnwMdBB

The very first thing Rand shares is the Penguin update is NOT designed to immediately improve search results. It is designed to penalize sites which violated Google Guidelines.

• your site offers detailed pages on each individual yoga pose. Your competitor's site only offers a single yoga pose page as it is a much smaller site. Your competitor's site therefore provides more focus on this single page then your site offers.

I completely agree your site is higher quality overall. I would recommend adjusting your content to better match the main focus of the page.

[APICDA]

Here are a few thoughts,

From a visitors point of view as it relates to someone looking for yoga poses..........

When landing on your competitions website, I see information about yoga poses, with descriptions and images.  It shows me what I was looking for.

When visiting the url you provided for your site, right out of the gate, I see information about course outline development and no "yoga poses".  I see a description saying "Designed  Specifically for Yoga Teachers" So, I did not land on a page with the exact content I was looking for, so, I bounced.

I would consider developing some more yoga poses related content for the page.

[EGOL]

Went to your page.  Where are the poses??

I like the other guy's site because the pictures are right there.  That's what I expected to find.

If I owned your site that page would have big photos for every pose right there and visible... generous descriptions will accompany each one.  I would not expect people to click to them.  People who arrive on a page like this want to see something.  Give it to them is what I would do.

If you do that I bet your traffic will climb from long tail keywords and better ranking for your main term.

I would also cut back on spending the top 500 pixels of the page on design elements that are repeated across the site.

That's just opinion... but where I would bet my money.

(I have a page on a subject where I have lots of images - about the size of yours - each with a few sentence description.  That page has about 60 images and 3000 words.  It pulls in more traffic than an five pages on my site combined and is slowly climbing the SERPs for difficult terms.  I do no linkbuilding.   Pages with lots of images, big images and substantive text pull in links with no work from me.)