Traffic down 60% - about to cry, please help

[julianhearn]

Hiya guys and girls,

I've just spent 6 months, a lot of blood sweat and tears, and money developing www.happier.co.uk.

In the last weeks the site started to make a trickle of money, still loss making but showing green shoots. But then on Friday the traffic dropped due to my rankings on google.co.uk dropping.

Visits:

Thur 25th april = 1950

Fri 26th april = 1284

Sat 27th april = 906

So it looks like Ive been hit with some sort of penalty. I did get a warning on the 20th april about an increase in the number of 404 errors, currently showing 77. I've now remove the links to those 404 pages, ive left the 404 pages as is, as was suggested here: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-to-fix-crawl-errors-in-google-webmaster-tools. Could that be the reason?

We have spent a lot of time on site design and content. We think the site is good, but I agree it has a long way to go but without income that is hard, so we have been struggling through. Any ideas on the reason/s for the penalty?

Big thanks,

Julian.

[julianhearn]

Yes that all makes total sense.

It's a real shame that google are so harsh on new sites. New sites need traffic from google like a baby needs oyxgen, and without it they might not be able to survive.

Happier is self funded and about 6 months old, and still losing money every week. I've thought about pluging the plug a fair few times. I'm not sure how much more money to invest, I might be just throwing good money after bad. Sorry whinge over.

[Carson-Ward]

There's an SEO debate going on right now about whether Panda is less likely to hit established brands. My position is that yes, it is more likely to impact small/new brands and sites. Perhaps once your brand is more established and you have a lot of comments on more of these pages you can try removing the noindex.

Without a full audit I may be missing something, but I hope this helps!

[julianhearn]

Firstly I would like to say a big thanks, your advice and thoughts are greatly appreciated. It has taken the pressure off me a bit, I was panicing but now I'm just a little worried.

I will talk to the tech guys today about noindexing the single deal pages and using a simliar layout to the code pages plus the comment layout from facebook. I don't really want to it as those pages are great for the long tail, checkout the traffic to hotukdeals.com who have a single page for every code and every deal, e.g. hotukdeals.com/deals/adidas-vintage-airline-bag-50-off-15-00-adidas-co-uk-1542011

But I can't afford to carry on with the current drop in traffic so have to make same changes fast.

Man do I hate google at the moment, they rank so much crap and obvious spam in their serps, but penalise a site like happier.co.uk on we have spent a lot of time carefully designing, adding quality content and playing by the rules.

[Carson-Ward]

The easy questions first: no, I don't think meta descriptions have anything to do with it. Google just crawls in spikes, especially if it detects a higher rate of change than usual. It's generally nothing to be concerned about.

As for thin pages, I think it's fine that you make the distinction between deals and codes. As a user, it just feels like "codes" are more valuable. It's a good idea. You have pages for each large brand, which is hugely important. Categories are also fine, as long as you don't multiply them endlessly.

I'm mostly concerned with pages like this:

http://www.happier.co.uk/deals/marks-and-spencer/3-pack-cotton-pyjamas-10-ms

I'd handle all of these as dropdowns like you seem to be doing on the home page, and make it like these pages never existed. I don't think this will hurt you much, either. I doubt anyone Googles, "deals on 3 packs of cotton pyjamas," and even if they do Google will pull up the text on brand pages.

As for the comments on these deals, see how Facebook does them. Load the first 3 most recent, then have an option for "show all comments."

I would personally put all NSFW content, or anything close to it, behind an authorization wall, then store the authorization in a cookie. This might hurt your rankings for these types of deals, but I feel like it would be well worth it to avoid being classified as someone dealing in adult content. It's unlikely to happen, but it's totally not worth the risk.

Again, I think your site will be fine if you keep at it, even in it's current shape. You know your industry better than I do, but from an SEO perspective I'd make these changes. Think about them and let me know if you see a flaw in them.

[julianhearn]

Hey Carson,

I really appreciated you taking the time to give such a well considered answer. It does make total sense. I feel the same that it's less likely to be a problem with links (which have built naturally and in an ethical way, therefore it would be really harsh to get a penalty for links).

I agree the problem could be thin pages, however to add a little more info into the mix.

1. We wanted to only display voucher codes, and not stuff the page with "deals" that add no extra value. We felt only showing codes in the codes category was a better user experience, than something like this: vouchercodes.co.uk/johnlewis.com - who just fill the page up with "deals" when there are no codes available - e.g. this is what we currently do http://www.happier.co.uk/codes/john-lewis - do you think it would be better to add a few "deals" even though the person visiting this page is looking for "discount codes"?

2. The deal page template is similar to the market leader's - e.g. hotukdeals.com/deals/rowntree-jelly-tots-randoms-160g-64p-pick-mix-150g-74p-fruittella-4pk-55p-mentos-1540682 - hotukdeals.com are in the top 100 sites in the UK according to alexa

In summary, I had considered the issue of thin pages before designing Happier.co.uk and knew it could be an issue, but there is only so much content user's want about a deal or code, and the market leaders seem to rank very well, so felt it would appear almost spammy to fill the pages up with more content, which I understand is opposite to normal advice for webpages.

Not sure about the nsfw content - I know we list sites like ann summers which is a high street brand in the uk which sells sex toys, etc, but as a high street brand I thought they were ok, plus everyone in this niche lists their codes and deals. But users can add content to happier.co.uk so I'm not 100% if more nsfw content is listed, I will check that out.

There are some crawl stats from GWT that spike on the same day our traffic drop, e.g.

Normal kilobyes downloaded per day about 15000, on 27th april it peaked at 45164. See attached image.

And finally, I was told that my IT guys fixed a problem with the meta descriptions the day before the drop in traffic, on most pages with the codes category, previously the meta desc what a templated one, but a handwritten one was in the db but not being used. So they changed that and now the handwritten one is being used. Personally, I can't believe that google would drop traffic to a site just because the meta desc was changed, especially as they are not suppose to use that in ranking a site.

So for the long reply but sometime a lot of info is needed, google is such a tricky beast these days. Here is a summary of my questions:

1. Do you think it would be better to add a few "deals" even though the person visiting this page is looking for "discount codes"?

2. Do the crawl stats, especially to spike in kilobytes per day, point at the problem?

3. Could changing the meta description be the cause?

Thank you for your time,

Julian.

jwWDNmg

[Carson-Ward]

Hi there,

I'm sorry that your site isn't doing as well as you'd like. Hopefully we can get to the bottom of this!

First, I've dealt with a LOT of link penalty questions, and I don't think that's what's happening. Consider, for example, that you have a ton of links for your Frugal 100 program. If you were slapped by Penguin, you would almost definitely not be ranking for "Frugal 100."

If your traffic is down - and SearchMetrics doesn't see it that way - please remember that it could just be fluctuation and SERP volatility that newer sites are prone to. Google tests, gives, takes away, and then gives back.

If you've been penalized (and I'm kinda doubting it), it's probably because of Panda. You have a LOT of really thin pages with little or no content on them and a heavy template. Can you add more content per page or scale back on the template space for individual deals? Do each of these deals need their very own page? I'm not sure, but a lot of deal sites don't do that.

I also noted that you have some adult deals on your site. Do keep in mind that Google might choose not to show the site for SFW deal-related terms if it thinks your content has a lot of NSFW stuff on it.

I hope this helps. Your site doesn't feel like most sites that get penalized - it seems useful to the people it serves. I think you'll be just fine in the end

[julianhearn]

I thought it was now normal for google to send out a "unnatural links" email, e.g. http://searchengineland.com/googles-cutts-on-how-to-locate-unnatural-links-pointing-to-your-web-site-148190

in the article is says "As you know, Google has been sendingunnatural link warnings to Webmasters for about a year now." dated 13th feb 2013.

So can it be a link penalty without a link warning email? By the way the links are natural and certainly not from thousands of sites, GWT is showing links from 292 domains.

[TammyWood]

No, Google won't tell you the specifics, but I agree this is from the quick building of links in a short amount of time.

[julianhearn]

if it was to do with links would I have got an email from saying that they found unnatural links? Then give me a chance to sort the problem out. Because I didnt I assume that links are not the problem.

[KenyonManu3-SEOSEM]

Google is probably not happy with your link building, I would try to contact some of the links that are not relevant and ask to be removed. I don't know if that will be the best way to spend your time considering the 28,000 new links in 3 months. Maybe some positive social signals would take some of the suspicion down, I think to make 28,000 links seem natural your would have to be trending and going viral on the social networks but even some small work may help.

[KarlBantleman]

Vouchercodes and hotukdeals have been around for many years and therefore got a considerable amount of authority. What is your traffic like on weekends? I used to run a deals website similar to your own and traffic was always down on the weekend because people would use it more during the build up to the weekend.

[julianhearn]

Hi Rich,

28000 sounds a lot but if a site adds us to their blogroll and they have 28000 pages that would account for all the links.

We done the following types of links building:

1. Top quality content, e.g:

• http://www.happier.co.uk/blog/apple-ripping-off-everyone-apart-from-americans-average-iphone-5-international-mark-up-32-samsung-s3-11-3153 (got a link from guadian.co.uk)
• http://www.happier.co.uk/blog/the-frugal-100-awards-2013-edition-2741 (this is where a lot of links can from, all from related niche blogs, they either mentioned us in a post or added a badge to their right nav)
• http://www.happier.co.uk/blog/the-uk-economy-a-billion-here-a-billion-there-1530 (this got a few quality links)
• http://www.happier.co.uk/blog/20-of-the-best-positive-psychology-blogs-of-2012-113 (a few quality links)

Also we have done, some guest posting on related and quality niche blogs, listed the site on some directories (not many), and some general out reach.

[Sarbs]

You appear to have aquired an aweful lot of links in a very short time. A look on Majestic SEO is telling me you have gained 28000 in the last 90 days, how have you been going about link building?

[julianhearn]

Hi Andy,

Thanks for the answer.

Yes it an affiliate site, but these types of sites can do amazing well in terms of rankings and traffic, check these two:

http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/vouchercodes.co.uk#

http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/hotukdeals.com

and of course http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/retailmenot.com

They are all similar sites. Maybe linking out from the homepage was not a great idea, but I thought it was user friendly, e.g. user see a code, so they click and go directly to merchant and get the code instead of going to deeper page, then get the code. In fact, I just checked and that is just how retailmenot.com works, which to my knowledge is most popular coupon site in the world.

I'm still dazed and confused.

[SEOAndy]

i doubt that is the reason for your drop in all honesty, i'd suggest if you can redirecting to a category to avoid any issues though.

Id suggest adding more value content to the front page, at the moment its just a link-out affiliate site, these don't usually do amazingly well in search - you are adding a blog and forum that is great but maybe look at surfacing them on the front page if you can to add some depth to the site other than via the top nav.

other than that without delving into your stats and GWT i can't say too much.