Google Penguin - Target Landing Page
-
Hello,
One of our sites have been hit by the first penguin update back in April and ever since then we have been removing links and submitting reconsideration requests...
It only seems to have affected our home page as some of our internal landing pages are still ranking OK in the SERPS #1 / #2.
I'm just wondering if we created a landing page for this keyword and drove high quality / relevant links to this landing page could we get it to rank higher than our homepage even though our Homepage is on the 5th page.Hope the above make sense.
Has anybody had any joy with this?
-
I have nothing to add here as Ryan has pretty much nailed it but "algorithmically disadvantaged" made me chuckle!
-
You can achieve what you are asking, but I would not advise doing such.
SEO is about one factor, competition. Period.
If you decided to rank for a unique term such as "fluffy SEO eating bunnies" and no one else is attempting to rank for that term, you can easily rank #1 for it. On the other hand, if 10 other sites try to rank for the same term, then it is a pure competition and one site will win the battle.
It is hard enough to earn rankings. Trying to rank with a penalized site, or for the more sensitive readers "algorithmically disadvantaged", is not wise. You need to resolve the root issue.
To put it in financial terms, add up the sales you have lost over the past months due to lower rankings. Now examine the cost of removing the penalty. Even most small businesses will find it cheaper to have the penalty or Penguin issue dealt with properly then trying to rank with a penalized site.
Also consider Penguin is undergoing a major update. Matt Cutts shared the effects of the next Penguin update will be "jarring and jolting". There are only two ways I can interpret that statement. Either many sites which have not been impacted by Penguin in the past will be affected, sites which have been impacted will be hit a lot harder, or both. My bet is on both.
Having a penalty or Penguin issue on your site is like having your house on fire. You are standing there with a hose trying to put out the fire. It's time to call 911 and have the fire put out, then work on repairing the damage.
I applaud do-it-yourself SEO for small, highly involved business owners under normal circumstances. Manual penalties and algorithmic issues such as Penguin require expertise to deal with, otherwise you will submit 10 Reconsideration Requests and have all 10 declined. Clearly, you are not properly addressing the root issue.
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
-
Just validating a theory I have about why Google is Soft 404ing some of my doctor pages.
As of June 1 doctor pages on our website that say "No ratings are available yet" are being Soft 404ed in our Google Console. We suspect the issue is that wording, due to this post. https://www.contentkingapp.com/academy/index-coverage/faq/submitted-soft-404/ Just wondering if anyone with more expertise than me on 404s or local seo can validate that it is likely this issue. Some examples:
Technical SEO | | Patrick_at_Nebraska_Medicine
https://www.nebraskamed.com/doctors/neil-s-kalsi
https://www.nebraskamed.com/doctors/leslie-a-eiland
https://www.nebraskamed.com/doctors/david-d-ingvoldstad 63647547-aa09-42a8-afe5-4431f277f611-image.png0 -
Is there a way to index important pages manually or to make sure a certain page will get indexed in a short period of time??
Hi There! The problem I'm having is that certain pages are waiting already three months to be indexed. They even have several backlinks. Is it normal to have to wait more than three months before these pages get an indexation? Is there anything i can do to make sure these page will get an indexation soon? Greetings Bob
Technical SEO | | rijwielcashencarry0400 -
Google index graph duration in Google Webmaster Tools
Hello guys, I wonder, my sites are currently being indexed every 7 days, exactly. At Index Status page in GWT. However, this new site gets updated almost everyday, how can I ask google to index faster and more frequently/almost daily? Is it about SItemap.xml frequency ? I changed it today to Daily. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | mdmoz0 -
No confirmation page on Google's Disavow links tool?
I've been going through and doing some spring cleaning on some spammy links to my site. I used Google's Disavow links tool, but after I submit my text file, nothing happens. Should I be getting some sort of confirmation page? After I upload my file, I don't get any notifications telling me Google has received my file or anything like that. It just takes me back to this page: http://cl.ly/image/0S320q46321R/Image 2013-04-26 at 11.15.25 AM.png Am I doing something wrong or is this what everyone else is seeing too?
Technical SEO | | shawn810 -
New EMD update effected my mom's legit author page? From page 1 in SERP to nowhere for her name
I think my mom's site, MargaretTerry.com was hit by this update for her name "Margaret Terry". Went from bouncing around the first page on google.com and .ca all the time to nowhere on the index. The results are now very strange, a mix of Youtube, linked in, and small book stores that she has done events at recently to promote her first book. I was checking after some of my SEO buddys were freaking out about their EMD's getting hit on Sunday. She is an aspiring author with a book coming out this month. There is obviously no ads or spam content on the site... I have never done SEO for it either except a bit of on page I guess. It sucks that people might be grabbing her book soon and when they Google her name nothing shows up. This couldn't have really happened at a worse time. Not to mention the hours spent building the site to her liking, free of charge of course 🙂 Is there anyone I can contact there to help me out? Shouldn't and EMD that is someones name still rank when you search their name?
Technical SEO | | Operatic0 -
How do I 301 redirect a number of pages to one page
I want to redirect all pages in /folder_A /folder_B to /folder_A/index.php. Can I just write one or two lines of code to .htaccess to do that?
Technical SEO | | Heydarian0 -
Will one line of duplicate content drag down my landing page?
I am using copyscape to check for duplicate content on my landing pages. I found three sites that have the exact same sentence as mine, on a page that I rank well for on one of two key terms related to the product. The sentence is not essential to my product page. Do I risk losing page one rank on a key search term when I remove that sentence on my site, in hopes of possibly improving the page on the second key search term? Do I leave it alone? This is an older "template" site with very little that I can do SEO-wise, and I have managed to get a few key prodcut landing pages on page one of Google. It has seen a drop in rank on many landing pages post-panda, and I'm doing my best to clean up what I can. Do I leave well enough alone for a page one rank on one term, or swap out that sentence in hopes of getting better rank on two keywords?
Technical SEO | | Ticket_King0 -
Google Webmaster Tools reports 404s for plain text. Should I create those URLs and 301 them to actual pages?
IA few years back I noticed that Google Webmaster Tools returns 404s from regular text containing a URL, but no anchor tag. I came accross this again today. Is it worthwhile to create those URLs and 301 redirect them to proper pages.
Technical SEO | | Svetoslav0