Trying to understand the sporadic and not relevant search results from Google?

[rdominey]

Trying to understand the sporadic search results from Google

I have been searching for answers to my situation for two
months now with little results. I have had numerous answers and various
solutions to the issue, and I have followed through with them trying to solve
this problem but the results are the same.

Beginning in late April our SERP went down drastically. I
have checked and cleaned the website of any errors and issues that I can find with
no change in the results. I have submitted a request to Google to be
reconsidered and have been told now three times that we are not being manually
penalized.  The last request I asked for
any specific reason that we were seeing these very unusual SERP results and got
no answer.

The best way that I can explain the issues is with a specific example. These results are similar with other pages throughout the website: www.getyourphotosoncanvas.com/

If you search for a specific page Title you get some really strange results:

Search for: Gallery Wrap vs Museum Wrap Photos on Canvas

The results vary from day to day but for the most part remain very similar:

·**  Black and White Photos on Canvas make Amazing
Wall Art**

www.getyourphotosoncanvas.com/.../black-and-white-photos-on-can...

Mar 20, 2012 – ... shots to Black and White. What a great way to display your photos on canvas. ... Gallery Wrap vs. Museum Wrap · Before & Afters
That WOW!

#53 | PR:

·**  Sitemap - Get Your Photos on Canvas**

www.getyourphotosoncanvas.com/sitemap/

Use our Sitemap to help locate exactly what you are looking for and navigate directly to that ... FREE Enhancements · MORE Enhancements · Gallery Wrap vs.

#54 | PR:

·**  Like Get Your Photos on Canvas on Facebook**

www.getyourphotosoncanvas.com/like-us-on-facebook/

Like Us on Facebook and keep in touch with Special Offers and information about Get Your **...**FREE Enhancements · MORE Enhancements · Gallery Wrap vs.

#56 | PR:

·**  [Help

• Get Your Photos on Canvas](http://www.getyourphotosoncanvas.com/help/)**

www.getyourphotosoncanvas.com/help/

Our Help Pages have information about Get Your Photos on Canvas, our Gift Cards, What our ... FREE Enhancements · MORE Enhancements · Gallery Wrap vs.

#62 | PR:

·**  Free Convert to Black and White for Your Photo on
Canvas Prints.**

www.getyourphotosoncanvas.com/free-black-and-white-adjustments/

... OF CHARGE. We produce the very best quality Black and White Photos on Canvas in the business. ... Wrap vs. Museum Wrap · Before & Afters That WOW!

#67 | PR

·**  Large Format Photographic Canvas Wall Displays - Get Your Photos ...**

www.getyourphotosoncanvas.com/wall-displays/

Photo on Canvas Wall Displays or Wall Groupings can be produced in a wide variety of Layouts including ... Wrap vs. Museum Wrap · Before & Afters That WOW!

#73 | PR

The target page does not show up in the top 350 search results yet all of the above pages are listed in the top 100.

It is important to note that most of these pages do not even contain the keywords allery Wrap vs Museum Wrap or any variation of those keywords. Yet, they appear in the displayed results?

If you search just Gallery Wrap vs Museum Wrap our title page appears as #2 on Google?

·**  Gallery Wrap vs Museum Wrap Photos on Canvas**

www.getyourphotosoncanvas.com/gallery-wraps-vs-museum-wraps/

Gallery Wrap vs Museum Wrap Canvas, two options for your photo on canvas prints. Find out the difference between Gallery Wrap and Museum Wrap.

#2 | PR

Just as a point of interest, both keyword phrases score A in on page results.

I would be grateful for any ideas or assistance on what might be causing these results and of course guidance on what I need to do to correct the problem.

Thank You.

[Francisco_Meza]

Malware usually refers to "your" site. Go through your code (Control U) and look to see if there is any bad code in there.

I don't know what Siteloki does, but as your site gets bigger, you can expect things like that to happen. Sometimes these sites have you on their sites, then take you off before you know it. I don't know why they do that, but I wouldn't worry too much about it. Again, I would build quality links to your site to offset crap links like siteloki.com.

[rdominey]

So, doing a little more checking I have looked at the source of several
of the link pages from siteloki.com and I was not able to find a link to our
website on the page. So, how is Google considering this a link?

Here is a page: http://www.siteloki.com/keyword/ad  Remember there are currently 13,005 of these?

Is this a malware, virus or something that has infected my site?

Here is a short sample of the links:

http://www.siteloki.com/keyword/Online%20Digital%20Prints

http://www.siteloki.com/keyword/d&hellip

http://www.siteloki.com/keyword/link

[rdominey]

So, doing a little more checking I have looked at the source of several
of the link pages from siteloki.com and I was not able to find a link to our
website on the page. So, how is Google considering this a link?

Here is a page: http://www.siteloki.com/keyword/ad  Remember there are currently 13,005 of these?

Is this a malware, virus or something that has infected my site?

Here is a short sample of the links:

http://www.siteloki.com/keyword/Online%20Digital%20Prints

http://www.siteloki.com/keyword/d&hellip

http://www.siteloki.com/keyword/link

[Francisco_Meza]

Only use OSE as a guideline. I have told this to many people here on SEOmoz. OSE is okay, but it's not a Google Bot. OSE uses RogerBot.

Go by what your GWT says.

OSE is good for competitor analysis.

I don't think this will help though since what probably happened is that it was giving you an artificial boost and Google then devalued the domain.

My BEST ADVICE is to start gaining quality links. If you have money, get BBB and YAHoo Directory. I use BBB because I can "buy" my credibility. Build good links to offset the bad ones you received. You have too little traffic and are not diversified enough so any hit will be big. You need more traffic.

[rdominey]

Francisco,

I posted this as a question this morning. . .

In the process of trying to figure out where all of the “Bad” backlinks are coming from I used the SEOmoz Site Explorer. I can see the links that may be questionable but am not sure how to determine if these are the issue causing the loss of rank or could it be something else. On Google webmasters they list Siteloki.com as the one with the most links. The count is now at 13,005. (see attached WMT report)
I first noticed this a month ago, 6,742 links and have tried contacting them with no reply, no results, I have even posted on the site asking to be removed from their listing and not response.

I do not understand why this site is not showing up in the Site Explorer link analysis report (See attached)?

Could this be some sort of hack or hidden links that Site Explorer does not see?

How do I determine if this is real or not, if it is the reason that Google is demoting us? Google says that we are not being manually penalized?

Iz9ct 5zAQq

[Francisco_Meza]

Yes. So let's use an example. Let's say you hate your competitor and want to do something evil and make them lose rankings. You would build prono links to your competitor's site.

Don't do this because it can be a law suit.

[rdominey]

I have been trying to understand how Google is applying the Algorithmic penalty based on bad backlinks. Google has told us that we are not being manually penalized and Matt Cutts explains that even though you may not be manually penalized you could be demoted based on the algorithm.
Is Google using the anchor text from the “Bad Links” and applying that to the search results when those keywords are used? If so that could account for the strange search results that I am seeing.

Any thoughts on this?

[rdominey]

I agree that I should first tackle the cause of the drop.

How do I correct the problem? I don't even know where to start!

[rdominey]

Thanks for the information on the backlinks. I have looked at the backlinks from SEOmoz Open Site Explorer and see what you are talking about but really don’t understand where they all came from “Except for probably the Globat.com SEO program from a year ago” as I mentioned most of them reference pages that no longer exist and use phrases that Globat.com had recommended. When I contacted Globat they are telling me that these are good links and that Google is not penalizing me for those. Are they lying to me? I left them because I didn’t think that they were helping me with SEO they never once asked me about any change in content, titles or descriptions. I guess they were building links and that was it.
Now, how do I fix this?
And as I mentioned to Francisco, I still don’t understand the strange results from the search that returns different pages from my website with descriptions that are not correct and keywords that do not exist on that page?

[seo-wanna-bs]

If the site is based in the UK for example, it's most likely to show on the 25th. Looking at the back link profile, you can see why penguin would hit. I'm not denying their aren't a ton of on page optimisations that can't be made, but overlooking the actual cause of the drop, would be pretty stupid.

[rdominey]

Francisco,

Thanks for your feedback, I understand what you are saying and I think that is great information regarding the marketing strategy. I would agree that I have probably gone too far in trying to optimize the website and not giving enough consideration to the marketing aspect.  This is something that I will work on during what I hope will be a recovery period.

Our visits were never very high, averaging around 50-60 per day prior to the drop. We were at 56 page rank for the home page. I had been working on trying to increase the ranking then the bottom fell out.

Most of our business is from direct traffic in our real brick and mortar Photo Art Gallery in St. Augustine, big tourist traffic area, and we give each of our visitors a Boucher with our website on it. We were averaging about 2-3 orders per day from organic search traffic and roughly the same from direct traffic. Now that organic search traffic is gone.

I still don’t understand the strange results from the search that returns different pages from my website with descriptions that are not correct and keywords that do not exist on that page?

Let me know about that wedding photo maybe we can work out a
deal.

[seo-wanna-bs]

Thanks that helps a lot. You've definitely been hit by the Penguin update on the 24th. There is a steep decline in traffic on that day and the trend continues.

If you look at your backlinks, most of them are for the term "get your photos on canvas" and I appreciate that is your brand name, I don't think this term would be used as much as it has, naturally.

You need to analyse your backlinks, the ones you've requested your friends to ad in their sidebars, footers, etc etc and tone down the anchor text.

I've not looked at the site, so I'm not sure if there are improvements that can be made their too, but the backlinks are likely your issue here.

[Francisco_Meza]

Let's go back to your title tag:

"Photos on Canvas from the Experts at Get Your Photos on Canvas".

I would probably put something that's easier to read like:

"Photos on Canvas - We Transfer Pictures to Canvas."

Also remember, CTR is a part of the algorithm. IF your site doesn't get clicked on, then Google thinks your site is not appealing to the end users. Here is your meta description:

"Get Your Photos on Canvas offers the best quality photo to canvas prints in the business, Free Digital Proofing Page, Unconditional Satisfaction Guarantee"

If I came to google and saw your title and description, 1st I would get confused just reading your title. It may make sense to you, but I had to read it twice. 2nd, your description " offers the best quality photo to canvas prints in the business" is (sorry) BS. Every company says the same thing: "We're #1, We are the Best, etc". I don't know you from anyone else out there. How do I know you offer the best quality photo to canvas?

I would rewrite the description to something more like:

"Transfer your Wedding, Family, and Art pictures to Canvas! Bring life to your home with Photos on Canvas. See examples."

My point here is maybe you weren't penalized. Maybe people just aren't "ENTICED" enough to click on your ads. If people aren't even clicking on your ads, Google will know that your click stream is low and will lower your rankings accordingly. Read more about clickstream here.

Also, your site took a hit on April 25th, the day after Penguin. I'm not 100% sure it was Penguin. A client of mine was hit exactly on the 24th and almost everyone on SEOMOZ who was hit by Penguin was hit on April 24th.

Your visits are very low overall so I don't think your sample size can show us what happened. It may just be your top performing page that dropped in rankings and your visits went down along with it.

BY THE WAY, I just got married and I'm interested in your services.

[rdominey]

Here is the Organic Analytics for April.

bcVuz.jpg

[rdominey]

I understand what you are saying but not sure how I would “New Term” De-Optimize the titles?

Are you suggesting that it might be better to not use the words photo or canvas in the individual page titles? For example: “Free Convert to Black and white” as opposed to “Free Convert to Black and White for Your Photo on Canvas Prints”.  The assumption being that the description and content would explain that the conversion was for photos on canvas?

This seems contrary to what SEOmoz on page analysis is telling me? But I am open to any good ideas!

[Francisco_Meza]

You should take a snapshot of Traffic Sources > Sources > Organic.

[rdominey]

Paul,

Thanks for taking a look at this!

YCQR8.jpg

[Francisco_Meza]

I think your titles might be over-optimized. As far as I know of Penguin, it penalized over-optimization of websites.

[seo-wanna-bs]

Ray do you have analytics installed? Could you provide a screenshot of April traffic?

[rdominey]

Thank you all for your input.

I have considered the Penguin Update as the start of the issues, but there was a drop in Impressions on the 27th so I’m not sure, maybe both?
This is from webmasters chart:
 Impressions Clicks
4/15/2012 1600 35
4/16/2012 2500 50
4/17/2012 2500 35
4/18/2012 2000 22
4/19/2012 2000 30
4/20/2012 2000 35
4/21/2012 1600 35
4/22/2012 2500 35
4/23/2012 2500 50
4/24/2012 2000 30
4/25/2012 2000 <10
4/26/2012 1300 <10
4/27/2012 1000 <10
4/28/2012 900 <10
4/29/2012 1000 <10
4/30/2012 1600 <10

Have you paid for any links? No I have not. However, I now realize that may have been done as part of a SEO program from “Globat.com” where I was being hosted last year. Most of the links reference old pages that no longer exist. The website was rebuilt and re-hosted in January 2012.

Submitted your site to a bunch of directories or article sites? Maybe that was part of the Globat SEO program.

How is the quality of your content? I think that the quality of the content is very good, all original, all relevant to the product and informative.

These questions in combination with the exact date of the traffic drop will lead you to the answer. I truly hope so, I am not a SEO expert, trying to learn, just a small business owner trying to survive and the website was a considerable part of that effort that is now gone.

With regards to the “Spammy” Title; I’m not sure that it is, Just take a look at the title page of the top five:

Photo on Canvas | Photo to Canvas
Photos to Canvas - Canvas On Demand
Canvas Photos, Canvas Prints, Canvas Printing, Canvas Photo ...
Canvas Press | Photos on Canvas Photos to Art Canvas Prints
Photos on Canvas, Photos to Canvas, Photo Canvas Prints - Zazzle

The name of our business is “Get Your Photos On Canvas” and it is also the title of our website. Having said that, I have considered that Google my look at it as keyword stuffing.  Just not sure?

All of these are great points but have not addressed the original question of why I am getting the search results that I have indicated.
If the problem is bad links or content then why would “Gallery Wrap vs Museum Wrap” be at #2 and the page title “Gallery Wrap vs Museum Wrap Photos on Canvas” produce these strange results with pages that don’t even contain the words Gallery Wrap?

[RyanKent]

Paul nailed it. Since you know your site has not been manually penalized you clearly have been algorithmically "penalized" meaning your site is not performing well due to a permanent adjustment made to Google's algorithm.

Panda deals with content issues and user experience issues.

Penguin deals with manipulative links.

Have you paid for any links? Submitted your site to a bunch of directories or article sites? How is the quality of your content? These questions in combination with the exact date of the traffic drop will lead you to the answer.

[Francisco_Meza]

Ray, this doesn't sound just a little spammy to you:

"Photos on Canvas from the Experts at Get Your Photos on Canvas".

Photos x 2

Canvas x 2

Experts x 1

Get x 1

It just doesn't sound right; at least not to me.

[seo-wanna-bs]

Can you give an exact date that traffic dipped?

Because late April there were several changes:

Panda 3.5 — April 19, 2012

Penguin — April 24, 2012

Panda 3.6 — April 27, 2012

The best starting block is to know which beast you're dealing with. It maybe none of the above, but I think it's important to know whether any of the above, effected you.

Then we can try to unravel the mystery.