Was I hit by panda or penguin?
-
My site, graciousbridal.com was hit pretty hard by google at the end of April. I actually noticed our traffic decreasing around February, then towards the end of April, it got really bad. Our sales this may were half of what they were in may 2011. We have never done any black or gray hat seo, wouldn't even know how to. I know in the past we did blog commenting, but changed up our keywords so it wasn't all the same, maybe we didn't change it enough?? We have another very similar site that I'm now wondering if we were penalized because they are too similar. We always have changed up the copy, but they have most of the same products. This second site barely gets traffic or sales and has about half of the items graciousbridal does. But, I'm wondering now if it's to similar and that is why we were penalized. I can't figure out what we did wrong to have this big of a drop. I really need help with this as this is supposed to be our busiest season of the year. Any advice or direction is greatly appreciated..
-
Hi James, Thanks for responding. We hired an SEO person to help us at the beginning of last year, that ended up not working out. I know she was working on link building, and it seems like she must have left comments on irrelevant blogs.. What do you recommend in this situation, focus time on getting high quality links or trying to get the bad ones removed? And is blog commenting still okay to do on blogs that are relevant to our industry, or does google see that as spammy? Thanks! Audrey
-
I had a quick look over your link profile, I feel you have been hit by Penguin.
I notice you have been doing some ok link building in terms of using varied anchor text in your link profile,
But I also notice you have been targeting some lower quality directories for your dedicated page "<a class="clickable title link-pivot expanded" title="See top linking pages that use this anchor text">personalized wedding favors"</a>
For example I notive you have a link on this directorie: coloradosph.org
http://coloradosph.org/index.php?s=A&c=363&p=17
Google has totally de indexed the URL for this low quality directory, If you take a similar sample accross more of these directories I see more like this.
Also in regards to your "Blog Comments" I notice some poor quality links from this area example:
this looks like it is a blog comment on a link network [comment made 28th Feb 2011), I mean their are 100s of other spammy comments this isn't really going to do any thing apart from have a negative impact on your SEO.
http://mommies.genuineinteractive.com/blog/post/Connecting-with-Alpha-Moms.aspx
To future proof your strategy you need to target higher quality link building strategies and do not let the lower quality stuff work.
Google has been very harsh after the last update, work done by agency's 5 years ago can get hit I have seen it over and over, from my experience "Quality" will be the winner in the end
-
Penguin was released on April 24th 2012. If you GA show a decrease on that date, then it's Penguin.
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
-
I think this website has been hit by Panda, but I would appreciate your opinion
I've been asked to check a possible SEO problem with a website, that has been loosing organic traffic during more than 2 years. I have attached a screen capture from analytics, showing how the organic traffic impact. This website publishes over 15 articles per week, and 12 of them are news with less than 150 words. I think that maybe Panda is hitting the website because of these practice. You can check the website: crazyminds.es I would like to know your opinion about the cause of this lost of organic traffic. On January, 21st 2013 they changed the website design, but the lost of traffic seems to have started before that date. If panda is hitting the website, what should be the best way to correct this situation? They have began now to write news with more than 200 words, but what happens with the old news? Maybe a no-index tag? blocked by robots? how should they manage those? Thank you! organictraffic.jpg
Algorithm Updates | | teconsite0 -
Do panda/penguin algorithm updates hit websites or just webpages ?
If I have a website that been affected by the panda/penguin update, do bad links affect the entire site or just the page the bad link(s) are linked to? If it is the latter and penguin/panda actually affect webpages, not websites (as is the common reference/conception), then wouldn't simply creating a new URL, targeting this new URL, shifting meta-tags and restarting link-building efforts again (this time using the right quality strategies) be a really common-sense approach instead of the tediousness of the disavow approach that so many go down?
Algorithm Updates | | Gavo0 -
After penguin 2.0, 20-25% drop sitewide, no google unatural links message, What could be causing it?
Hi,Since Penguin 2.0 we've taken a 20-25% knock but not recieved an unatural link message from Google. After sending a bunch of removal requests, I decided to submit a disavow file anyway two weeks ago and tried to make sure I rooted out some links that were built way back when our site started and link building best practice was a bit shadier. Analysis of our backlink profile points to about 40-50% links coming from general directories, wondering if perhaps their weight has been adjusted and this is why the drop occured? Having said that we have some high quality links from government sources and highly trusted sites so not too spammy. Can anyone shed some light or offer suggestions? Thanx
Algorithm Updates | | Mulith0 -
Penguin type over-optimisation now part of main algorithm?
Hey guys We think we have been seeing some over-optimisation penalties outside of Penguin updates. One possible penalty seems for over-optimisation on page and one penalty for a page with an over-optimised exact match link profile. Does anyone else suspect, or have seen word elsewhere, that Google's main ongoing algorithm now has Penguin like capabilities and is able to bring over-optimisation penalties without a separate refresh being run?
Algorithm Updates | | QubaSEO0 -
Can AJAX implementation affect the rankings in Google Panda?
Hi there, I have the following situation with one of our job sites. We migrate the site to a new application, which is better from design point of view and also usability. For this we use a lot AJAX especially in searches. So every time a user is filtering down their search new results will be shown on the page, at the same url and with no page load. But, having this implementation. affected Bounce rate - which increased from 38% to nearly 60%, PI/visits - which are now half, at 3 and also Avg Time on Site is half that is used to be coming to 2,5 min from nearly 6 min. From Rand post, it is clearly that the content is very important in Google Panda, and all of these parameters we should consider, as it is telling the quality of the content. So, my question will be, can this site be hit by Panda updates (maybe later on) because Bounce Rate, PI/Visits and Avg Time on site, decreased in such way? At the moment we don't measure the Ajax impresion, but as I understood that we can do that though virtual pages in GA, does anyone of you have the experience how to handle this? Won't be this an artificial increase? Thanks, Irina
Algorithm Updates | | InformMedia0 -
Panda 2.3 features
So, its official that Panda 2.3 is out.. Has anyone found the fine print on what this "version" focused on?
Algorithm Updates | | malachiii0 -
Can You Recommend An SEO Consultant To Support Our Panda Recovery Efforts?
Hi, I'm looking to find an SEO consultant to help me review my organic search strategy following the recent Panda update. Can you recommend somebody? Thanks, Adam
Algorithm Updates | | adampick0 -
Another Panda update?
Our high quality (IMHO!) editorial technology site got hit by around ~20% of Google search referrals when Panda went live in the UK on the 12th. But the last couple of days it's returned to "normal". Is that the effects of our frantic scrabbling around trying things, or have Google tweaked the algorithm again, to remove the editorial sites which got caught accidentally?
Algorithm Updates | | StuartAnderton0