Panda recovery. Is it possible ?
-
Dear all,
To begin, english is not my native language, so I'm very sorry if I make some mistake.
On the 23th march 2012, Panda penalized my website (a coupon website) Avec-Reduction (dot com for the url). At this date, I have lost more than 70% of my traffic.
The structure of the website was like an e-commerce website. Categories -> merchant page -> coupon page. The content was to thin for Google, I'm agree wit that.
So, in may, I have made a new version. Here you can see the most important modifications :
- A smallest header (-100px height).
- 2 columns website (the oldest website had 3 columns)
- I have deleted the category menu with the list of all categories and the alphabetical menu.
- less ads on the website (since few days I have also deleted the 2 adense blocks)
- The coupons was promoted with the thumbs of the merchant on the home listing. Now I have few top lists in text only.
- I have deleted all the categories pages (one page by category of merchant, with the listing of all the merchants of the category). Now I have only one page for this. Same thing with the alphabetical pages. All these deleted pages have a 301 redirect. The 2 new pages (categorie page and alphabetical page) are on noindex.
- I have deleted all the promo codes pages, all the coupons are now on the merchant page (301 redirect used).
- I have create an anti-spam system for the review codes (I have a lot of spam on these forms, even if I cleaned every day/2days). Now, I have no spam.
- Visitors have now the possibility to put a note and a review for each merchant. This fonctionality is new, so not a lot of reviews for the moment.
- All the merchants pages without promo codes have a noindex on the robot tag.
- Since july, I have the possibility to use the "title" of each promo code. I can personnalised the promo code. On the same time, to have more content, I have the possibility to add sales or great promos for each merchants, not only promo codes.
- Affiliate links are created on JS which open a new window (a redirect page with noindex).
That's the end of the most important changes on my website. I have a better speed page (/2 since july) because I have optimized my images, CSS, JS...
At the end of july, I had health problem and the website has no update until the first days of october. Now, the website is updated every day, but between july and october I have no panda recovery.
I have no duplicate content, I try to add the most content I can. So I don't understand why Google Panda penalized me again and again. Some of my competitors have a lot of keyword stuffing (4, 5, 6, ... 10 lines of KS on each merchant pages). Some of them have only affiliate merchants, automatic script to put coupons on websites), few "same" websites...
I have less than 30% of affiliated merchant, I validate all the coupons or promo manually, I personalized all my coupons... So I don't understand what to do.
I will appreciate all help. If you see problems on my wesite or if you know tips to have a panda recovery, I will be very happy to have informations.
Many thanks for all.
Sincerely,
Florent
-
Dear Edward,
You are right. I have seen some US/UK coupons websites with informations about the company or the website (payment methods, shipping methods...). I think it's a good idea to have better content. On France, there are not a lot of coupons websites with these types of informations. The market on our country is important but less thant country like USA. So, a lot of websites are made automaticly, in few days some webmasters have few coupons website and they win money because they have a network with power.
I think I will use this option on the near future. 2600 merchants, it will be long to add these informations but if it's possible to have a Panda Recovery, I think it's not a hard work, just necessary.
Thx for your help.
Sincerely,
F.
-
I've worked with a few Coupon/Promo Codes sites since the launch of Penguin with some success and some failure. The biggest issues I've found between coupon sites is a lack of truly original content and very thin content, with pages frequently saying the same thing as other pages but slightly re-worded. Duplicate content issues are usually common as well.
Ex: "Check out our coupon codes for [company/website]...[more filler text here]."
One strategy that seems to be fairly effective (and logical) for such sites is filling the retailer coupon pages with information relevant to the coupons (which obviously vary) as well as the company. Ex: company history, background, etc. -- content that's truly unique from page to page.
-
Dear eyepaq,
Many thanks for your reply, that's great.
Like you say, I'm sure that my change are good for the future so when the panda filter (sorry for having used the word penality, in France we used the word "filtre", it's difficult to speak in other language :p).
you don't have to be good to stay safe or recover from panda, you need to be better then the rest of the sites that are covering the same niche.
I'm ok with that, that's the only point on which I have no idea to be better. I have see all the most important US coupons websites to help me but they are to big for me. Technically they are better, better design and I think they have a lot of persons which work every day for the website. In France, there are less competitors, 5 biggest and all the other are very simple website like mine.
+ panda it's only about the content (site speed, affiliate format, links etc are not taking into account - for those you have other filters and penalties)
I know, but havind a better speed is good for visitor. I think it's good for Google to show that speed page is important for the website.
Spot the ones that are still up and try to improve the content in order to be better then those are have a different approach for the same niche / area in order to get a spot for the diverse spots. In this way you will get back.
I will work on this :).
First assess the situation and see if you can be better - in terms of content - then those that are still on top in visibility that are targeting more or less the same content as you do. If you can beat them - change your content strategy and approach the same content in a different format and flow in order to make it on the top results as one of the sites that are part of the diversity results.
Ok but it's very difficult. I use 2 websites on my niche that have better traffic than. Why these 2 websites ? Only because they have a simple design and not a lot of options on the merchant pages. These 2 websites have problems which I haven't got but no pand filter and better traffic. The reason ? They are oldest than me and they have a lot of links (one have more 1 million link). So it's not very clean but they rank well.
Just a last question. Do you think it's better for me to "crypt" the coupon code (on the html code) ? Why ? Just because Google can see that we have all the same code. If I use a crypt code, perhaps it will be better to say "I have unique content" ? Do you think that it'a a good idea ?
Once again many thanks for your post. You are very clear for me and you give me another vision to solve my problem :).
Sincerely,
Florent
-
Hi Florent,
All the changes that you did are very good and for sure it will help your site - but not necessarily on the Panda issue.
When talking about panda you need to consider a few things:
-
panda is not a penalty - it's a filter (very important difference)
-
you don't have to be good to stay safe or recover from panda, you need to be better then the rest of the sites that are covering the same niche.
-
panda it's only about the content (site speed, affiliate format, links etc are not taking into account - for those you have other filters and penalties)
So, fi you are 100% that Panda is to blame for your drop in rankings you need to compare your self with the competition first and see how can you be better then them.
Just put your self in Google shoes - if you have 10 sites on the same niche with more or less the same content you want to keep 1 or 2, populate the rest of the results with diverse results and move the rest -50 or whatever.
If you are not the one on the 1 or 2 set then you are one of the one that just got moved back - way back (down).
Spot the ones that are still up and try to improve the content in order to be better then those are have a different approach for the same niche / area in order to get a spot for the diverse spots. In this way you will get back.
First assess the situation and see if you can be better - in terms of content - then those that are still on top in visibility that are targeting more or less the same content as you do. If you can beat them - change your content strategy and approach the same content in a different format and flow in order to make it on the top results as one of the sites that are part of the diversity results.
Hope it helps. Is it clear or I am beating around the bush ?
Cheers !
-
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
-
Is it possible that Google is pulling description from third party websites and displaying in the description section in organic result?
Hi all, I have come across the most weird situation ever in my SEO career. Google is displaying description in organic results for brand term under the website URL that doesnt exist on the website ANYWHERE but this description does appear on some directory sites created back in 2002 or so. Is there a possibility that Google is pulling info from directory sites and displaying as a description in the organic results? I am super confused! Help needed! Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Malika10 -
Possible for SERP appearance to change on a keyword?
Hi, We're currently working with a brand name which happens to be the name of a small town in the US (126 population). When Googling the brand / town name, there's a map on the right-hand side of the SERP. (Google Maps, with the town highlighted) We're based in Sweden, and this is even showing up on a search on the Swedish Google. I'm wondering; Is it possible for the map to "be removed" as our brand becomes more known? Does anyone have any similar experiences? Is it a better idea to just switch brand name?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JSTRANDELL0 -
Panda 4.0 Update Affected Site - What should be a the minimum Code to Text Ratio we should aim for ?
Hi All, My eCommerce site got hit badly with the Panda 4.0 update so we have been doing some site auditing and analysis identifying issues which need addressing. We have thin/duplicate issues which I am quite sure was part of the reason we were affected by this even though we use rel=next and rel=prev along with having a separate view all page although we don't concanical tag to this page as I dont' think users would benefit from seeing to many items on one page. This led me to look at our Code to Content Ratio. We have now managed to increase it from 9% to approx 18-22% on popular pages by getting rid of unnecessary code etc. My question is , is there an ideal percentage the code to content ratio should be ?.. and what should I be aiming for ? Also any other Panda 4.0 advice would also be appreciated thanks Sarah
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SarahCollins0 -
Our quilting site was hit by Panda/Penguin...should we start a second "traffic" site?
I built a website for my wife who is a quilter called LearnHowToMakeQuilts.com. However, it has been hit by Panda or Penguin (I’m not quite sure) and am scared to tell her to go ahead and keep building the site up. She really wants to post on her blog on Learnhowtomakequilts.com, but I’m afraid it will be in vain for Google’s search engine. Yahoo and Bing still rank well. I don’t want her to produce good content that will never rank well if the whole site is penalized in some way. I’ve overly optimized in linking strongly to the keywords “how to make a quilt” for our main keyword, mainly to the home page and I think that is one of the main reasons we are incurring some kind of penalty. First main question: From looking at the attached Google Analytics image, does anyone know if it was Panda or Penguin that we were “hit” by? And, what can be done about it? (We originally wanted to build a nice content website, but were lured in by a get rich quick personality to rather make a “squeeze page” for the Home page and force all your people through that page to get to the really good content. Thus, our avenge time on site per person is terrible and Pages per Visit is low at: 1.2. We really want to try to improve it some day. She has a local business website, Customcarequilts.com that did not get hit. Second question: Should we start a second site rather than invest the time in trying to repair the damage from my bad link building and article marketing? We do need to keep the site up and running because it has her online quilting course for beginner quilters to learn how to quilt their first quilt. We host the videos through Amazon S3 and were selling at least one course every other day. But now that the Google drop has hit, we are lucky to sell one quilting course per month. So, if we start a second site we can use that to build as a big content site that we can use to introduce people to learnhowtomakequilts.com that has Martha’s quilting course. So, should we go ahead and start a new fresh site rather than to repair the damage done by my bad over optimizing? (We’ve already picked out a great website name that would work really well with her personal facebook page.) Or, here’s a second option, which is to use her local business website: customcarequilts.com. She created it in 2003 and has had it ever since. It is only PR 1. Would this be an option? Anyway I’m looking for guidance on whether we should pursue repairing the damage and whether we should start a second fresh site or use an existing site to create new content (for getting new quilters to eventually purchase her course). Brad & Martha Novacek rnUXcWd
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BradNovi0 -
Whether our shared articles caused Panda hit to our high quality site
Hello, We are a quality site hit by Panda Our article collection: http://www.nlpca(dot)com/DCweb/NLP_Articles.html is partially articles written by the site owners and partially articles that are elsewhere on them web. We have permission to post every article, but I don't know if Google knows that. Could this be why we were hit by Panda? And if so, what do we do? We've dropped way down in rank but have worked our way half-way back up. Two of our main keywords are: NLP NLP Training Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BobGW0 -
Were small sites hit by Panda?
It seems that primarily large sites were hit by Panda, but does any one know of / own a small site that was hit by Panda?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nicole.healthline0 -
How can scraper sites be successful post Panda?
I read this article on SEJ: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/scrapers-and-the-panda-update/34192/ And, I'm a bit confused as to how a scraper site can be successful post Panda? Didn't panda specifically target sites that have duplicate content & shouldn't scraper sites actually be suffering?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nicole.healthline0 -
With Panda, which is more important, traffic or quantity?
If you were to prioritize how to fix a site, would you focus on traffic or quantity of urls? So for example, if 10% of a site had thin content, but accounted for 50% of the traffic and 50% of the site had a different type of thin content but only accounted for 5% of organic traffic, which would you work on first? I realize both need to be fixed, but am unsure of which to tackle first (this is an extremely large site). Also, I am wondering if the simply the presence of thin content on a domain can affect a site even if it isn't receiving any traffic.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nicole.healthline0