Massive Google Drop on two sites!
-
Hi All,
We have experienced a massive Google drop on Two of our eCommerce websites in the past week.
From Feb - July we were ranked 2 for various key words
In Aug we dropped to 8
In September to 96 if not lower.
We pay for monthly link building and add unique product info each week (but not much new content such as articles or blogs).
My SEO guys has not been that helpful and just sent me a link to the Panda update blog, which doesn't mean a great deal to me.
Obviously this has had a massive effect on business, and ideally i need to diagnose the problem and find a new startegy on moving forward, so most likely looking for a for a new SEO guy/company as well.
I need someone is proactive, communicates well and make constant suggestions about moving forward not just link building.
One thing I would like to add is these two site have a different homepage, category and range structure, but do share some if the 2000 product database.
Can anyone help? Any advice on sorting this would be gratefully appreciated.
Thanks
M
-
I think it's dangerous to speculate that you were hit by EMD without knowing all of the facts. EMD hit Sep 28. There was also a major Panda update Sep 27. But you mentioned that you started dropping in August.
Can you tell the exact date of your drop? If it was Aug 20 there was a Panda update then. You mentioned that your two sites share the same 2000 product database. If they have duplicate pages, or pages with significantly duplicated product descriptions then this is a big flag for Panda.
You mentioned that you pay for linkbuilding. Some linkbuilding has been punished by Penguin. Now, Penguin affected most sites on Apr 24 and many more on May 25. However, there are some people who have documented that a site may be able to be affected by Penguin at any time. (They still believe a refresh is necessary for recovery). So, if your traffic drop happened within a few weeks of a major keyword anchor texted linkbuilding campaign then Penguin is a possibility.
Have you checked your WMT for any warnings of unnatural links? This is a possibility as well.
Plus there are a pile of other factors. Check this list for a bunch of other possibilities for a ranking/traffic drop.
-
I'd say you probably need to look at how you are building links as well as the content on your site to see if it is spammy or not.
I haven't seen the site so it's really hard to tell what has caused the drops but in conclusion;
-
Look at your content, is it spammy, is it stuff users want to read or is it written for search engines?
-
Link Building, what kind of links are being built? are they spammy? (use open site explorer) look at creating a new link building strategy that focuses on quality.
If you want to talk further about it you are welcome to PM me and I can give you site a proper look over and see if I can help you
-
-
This has all been very helpful, thank you. So the questions Im left with are
What do I do next? - I am running SEOMoz crawl/report will go through everything with a fine tooth comb?
Do I need to do more link building and what budget would be good?
Do I need better site content?
Any major flaws?
Why was the main reasons the drop so big?Could anyone help to put a strategy together and take on this work?
-
Thanks guys for all your help, at least I have an idea of how to move forward,. I have PM the URLs over or shall i post them here openly??
-
Like Carlos said most likely the EMD update.
See - http://mozcast.com/metrics and tab 'EMD Influence'.
Regarding your SEO people, you may not have access to your webmaster tools account but you could put your website domain so we could take a quick look.
It wouldn't take very long to tell if your SEO people are doing a good job or not.
Just so you understand a little better, Google puts some weight (From what I have seen, a lot) on a website which has an EMD (exact match domain) and that also targets that term.
I have seen websites rank with an EMD on the first page with little to no link building.
Google has just turned the power on EMD's down. As you can see from my link.
The reason why the guys above are saying your must have a poor link profile is because even when Google turned the power down, the link building you should have should of held you up.
So... EMD turned down, poor link profile (which should have held you up) = drop
Answer - Build your link profile up.
But it maybe something else until we can see your site, for all I know your whole site is duplicate content and you have been penalised.
-
Happy to help. The first thing you need to do is find out if the SEO done to your site could also be the reason why your site dropped. Even with the EMD update, to drop from #8 to #96 there must be something else going on.
Ask yourself these questions:
Is the content on your site over-optimised?
Does your link profile look unnatural (exact keyword anchor text, low quality links, article directories, blog comments, link wheels, etc.) ?
Could you have any on-page issues (duplicate content, over-optimised meta, etc.)?
If you show us your sites we will be able to give you better advice.
-
PS webmaster tools is not showing anything, status is currently
No new messages or recent critical issues.
-
Thanks Carlos, very helpful. I'm thinking about finding some new help, any tips what i should start focusing on first and how long this may take to get back up?
-
Before the recent update from Google having the keywords in the domain helped a lot.
I'm sure that they still help somehow, but to get back to where you were you will need to build up the authority of your site (good links, social signals, quality content, etc - nothing new).
As Simon said, also check your WMT account and see if you have any messages from Google regarding unnatural links.
-
Yes they are out of three words in the domain, two are the search term, for both sites. Is this something you help with?
-
Sounds like your SEO guy doesn't really pay much attention and his attitude towards you coming to him with that query suggests that he might be doing some poor link building which might have got you penalised by Google.
Do you have access to webmaster tools? if so you may have a message about unnatural links.
Whats the website and maybe I can have a better look for you.
-
are the domains "exact match domains"?
if so, you may want to have a look at this: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/googles-emd-algo-update-early-data
If it is a Panda or Penguin penalty you will have to conduct a link review and remove links to your site that could be triggered the penalty. More on how to do that here: http://www.branded3.com/b3labs/cleaning-your-links-a-step-by-step-guide/
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
-
Google Analytics Tagging
Hi. I'm trying to figure out a solution to three questions one of my current clients has asked me in regards to Google Analytics tagging, and I'm unsure how to respond. Can anyone help? See below the questions, 1. In Google Acquisition > Overview, their paid media is reporting as "Other". They do not run any Google paid ads. They only run Facebook paid ads. Is there a way to update the source so that it says "Paid" versus "Other" within the default channel? The current solution was advised to create a channel group that the client has to then tick on overtime they want to see this data with the correct labeling. They would prefer to see it in the default. Is it just a matter of going into the *default channel, choosing the "Paid" option, and then specifying the source/medium that contains Facebook, CPC, or referral to be categorized under this channel? Or is it something else? *Aware that changes to the Default Channel are permanent changes and will change how new traffic is classified. 2. In Google Acquisition > Overview > Referral, the clients website is showing up as a referring domain, both the TLD and the subdomain. My understanding is that it should actually be reporting under the "Direct" channel. How do I correct this? Is it just a matter of updating the Direct channel to include those domains? Or do I need to update the settings? The domain's www. http: all 301 redirect to their https://domain.com and https://subdomain.domain.com. Within settings it has been specified as www.domain.com and URL is http:// - also noticed that Bot Filtering has not been checked, assuming this could mess up the analytic data if not define? Do you know? 3. Audience segmentation > The client wants to be able to define it's audience by shopping intent and informational intent. Is there a clear way to do this, for example, by keywords used, e.g. buy, product name, entry (shopping intent), versus e.g. non-purchase intent, entry to the blog, length of time on site (info intent). Would be happy to have a conversation about the last question, since I'm conscious that there are probably multiple ways to define this - thanks. To the group, thank you for readying my questions and helping me with these solutions - your time is appreciated and valued. Sincerely, Amanda
Search Behavior | | AmandaValle.Digital0 -
Search Analytics update in Google Webmasters Tools? Where can we find search queries bringing traffic to website?
I just got up and see Search Analytic's being updated today totally. Their is no option to see old reports. As Search Analytics only share 999 keywords.
Search Behavior | | csfarnsworth
Whats next now?
How can a webmaster finds all search queries bringing traffic to his website?
Any paid or free tool?
Google Analytic's > Acquisition > Search engine optimization > search queries will this area helps? Whole question revolves around. Any good tool that will help you find all the queries bringing traffic to my website?0 -
Setting up Google Analytics
Hello, I will try to explain what I want and I am not sure if that is possible. Firstly I want to set up my Google Analytics that I would know where people come from and how many of them click on Google Ads. For example:
Search Behavior | | FCRMediaLietuva
Facebook > 2% of them click on ads.
Google > 3% of them click on ads.
Direct > 6% of them click on ads.Or whatever the results are. Secondly I would like to take people coming from facebook and divide them into age groups. For example: 100 ad clicks from facebook.
25-34: 9 clicks (9% of total facebook clicks, 2% of total ad clicks)
18-24: 7 clicks (.....
35-44: ... and so on Thirdly I would like to know which group use the adblocker the most.
Any other stuff that would be interesting if working with adsense? I believe that this would help me working with my target audience the best on facebook. Should this be set as goals? Sorry I am not an expert of Google Analytics 🙂 Thanks for the help.0 -
Industry Benchmarks for Google Analytics
Hey Mozites! I was wondering if anyone has come across any good resources for industry benchmarks relating to google analytics? (Social stats would be great as well, but Google Analytics is my main concern) Specifically, I have a client that is a bank and I would love to be able to compare their stats (traffic, unique visitors, bounce rate, time on site, conversion rates...) to other regional banks. Any ideas? Thanks for reading and for your help!
Search Behavior | | iBecC0 -
Does Google recognise locality
We have been undertaking some website work recently and have identified that within our own geographical location of Hull, the www.styletech.co.uk website is first on page one. However, when moving approximately 30 miles away we are on Googles fourth page. We are in an independent network area e.g. Kingston Communications rather than BT, would this have an impact on how Google responds?
Search Behavior | | StyleTech0 -
Why are brand, company name queries not showing up on Google SERP1?
I'm a bit confused today at Google's SERPs for a number of queries I've done. The first one that sparked my interest is when I searched for 'pinterest' (no quotes) and pinterest.com was NOT on the first page. In fact, the first pinterest.com result was on page 3 and was the page for somebody named Bil Chamberlain, who himself must be more related to the search term pinterest than pinterest.com itself. I've done this for a variety of search terms, signed out of google, signed in, and some companies' home page, or website in general comes up, and some do not. search for facebook, facebook.com is #1 search for united airlines, united.com's "Club and Lounges" page is on SERP 5. Am I missing something in google's search result methodology? I'd love to be directed to some article or discussion related to this because the last time I checked, most brand name or company name queries turned out company or brand home pages as reesult #1. I very well may just be behind the times. CCpjw
Search Behavior | | Buildings0 -
Google slow to index new domains and subs?
Anyone finding Google slow to index new websites at the moment? Made a new site on Thursday and posted a number off high quality, relevant, backlinks to it the same day and now on Monday it is still not indexed. Have see the same with a couple of sub domains I have created off a website with a moz score of 40. Normally can get new sites indexed within hours but this seems super slow.
Search Behavior | | Grumpy_Carl0 -
Google Places, NAP, multiple address with one phone number
How sensitive do you think the Google Places NAP algorithm is? If I have different Google Places pages for one client with multiple locations, but the same phone number for all locations with different addresses, will this hurt my Google Places ranking or organic webpage result?
Search Behavior | | Mike-i0