Recent Penguin Update
-
Hi SEOMoz,
Today www.carrentalbuddy.com.au was hit pretty big by the Penguin 2.0 update (I believe).
We had some pretty strong rankings for multiple search terms and we believe we have done everything by the book for Google.
We can't seem to figure out why our rankings have dropped so dramatically recently and was hoping that some SEOMoz's could take a quick look to help us fix this problem.
Kindest Regards,
Chris
-
I have seen any changes in rankings related with penguin 2.0
-
I don't know if you've done everything "by the book" like you say but you have tons of exact match anchors.
-
Check this out:
http://searchengineland.com/penguin-4-with-penguin-2-0-generation-spam-fighting-is-now-live-160544
It is official. I suspect this may be your issue. Since you have done everything "by the book", your site might not have done anything wrong per say. Instead, the other sites may have been deemed bigger "authorities."
-
Any notices or warnings in GWMT?
edit: nevermind, I've been under a rock for a few hours.
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
-
410 or 301 after URL update?
Hi there, A site i'm working on atm has a thousand "not found" errors on google console (of course, I'm sure there are thousands more it's not showing us!). The issue is a lot of them seem to come from a URL change. Damage has been done, the URLs have been changed and I can't stop that... but as you can imagine, i'm keen to fix as many as humanly possible. I don't want to go mad with 301s - but for external links in, this seems like the best solution? On the other hand, Google is reading internal links that simply aren't there anymore. Is it better to hunt down the new page and 301-it anyway? OR should I 410 and grit my teeth while google crawls and recrawls it, warning me that this page really doesn't exist? Essentially I guess I'm asking, how many 301s are too many and will affect our DA? And what's the best solution for dealing with mass 404 errors - many of which aren't attached or linked to from any other pages anymore? Thanks for any insights 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Fubra0 -
Google is not indexing an updated website
We just relaunched a website that has 5 years old, we maintain all the old URLs and articles but for some reason google is not picking up the new website https://www.navisyachts.com. In Google Webmaster Tools we can see the sitemap with over 1000 pages submitted but shows nothing as indexed. The site is loosing traffic rapidly and positions, from the SEO side all looks fine for me. What can be wrong? I’ll appreciate any help. The new website is built over Joomla 3.4, we have it here at MOZ and other than some minor details it doesn't show that something can be wrong with the website. Thank you.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | FWC_SEO0 -
GWT Message - CMS Update Available
Howdy Moz, Just received a message in Google Webmaster Tools about a CMS update: "Joomla Update Available As of the last crawl of your website, you appear to be running Joomla 1.5. One or more of the URLs found were: http://www.website/custom-url/article5034 Google recommends that you update to the latest release. Older or unpatched software may be vulnerable to hacking or malware that can hurt your users. To download the latest release, visit the Joomla download page. If you have already updated to the latest version of Joomla, please disregard this message. If you have any additional questions about why you are receiving this message, Google has provided more background information in a blog post about this subject." Read through the associated blog post. According to the post a generator meta tag is created in Joomla that notes the CMS version. Here's the oddity: The site was on Joomla 1.5 over 2 years ago. 1 Year ago it was updated to Joomla 2.5. About a week ago it was converted completely to Wordpress. According to GWT the last date the Google bot accessed the site was the day before (5/1/14) the email. I went through the code, css/html, and the database and found no reference of Joomla 1.5. Has anyone seen this message? If so, how did you rectify it? Were there any adverse effects on rankings?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AaronHenry0 -
To recover from Penguin update, shall i remove the links or disavow links?
Hi, One of our websites hit by Penguin update and I now know where the links are coming from. I have chance to remove the links from those incoming links but I am a little confused whether i should just remove the links from incoming links or disavow the links? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Rubix0 -
Google Webmaster Now Shows YourMost Recent Links
I just saw this story today about a new Google Webmaster feature which lets you download a file of the most recent links. http://searchengineland.com/google-now-shows-you-your-most-recent-links-127903 I downloaded the file today and I already discovered a major site issue. Our site blog was completely duplicated on a secondary domain we own and Google was showing that site as recent links. I already emailed the dev team to fix this pronto. Anybody else using this new feature and perhaps can share if it helps you in any way.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | irvingw1 -
Dropped ranking - Penguin penalty or duplicate content issue?
Just this weekend a page that had been ranking well for a competitive term fell completely out of the rankings. There are two possible causes and I'm trying to figure out which it is, so I can take action. I found out that I had accidentally put a canonical on another page that was for the same page as the one that dropped out of the rankings. If there are two pages with the same canonical tag with different content, will google drop both of them from the index? The other possibility is that this is a result of the recent Penguin update. The page that dropped has a high amount of exact anchor text. As far as I can tell, there were no other pages with any penalties from the Penguin update. One last question: The page completely dropped from the search index. If this were a Penguin issue, would it have dropped out completely,or just been penalized with a drop in position? If this is a result of the conflicting canonical tags, should I just wait for it to reindex, or should I request a reconsideration of the page?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | gametv0 -
Does 301 redirect to a new domain removes penguin penality
Hi, One of my client has shady link profile and has hit by penguin update. I have confirmed the penalty using Google hack. Now, seeing his link profile, most of his links comes from blog comments which are from unmoderated blogs, and there is no way, we cant remove those comments. But without removing them, we cant get rid of the Google's penguin penality. So, i am planning on 301 redirecting to a new domain. But my question is, will the penality transfers, if i 301 to a new domain? What iff, if someone buys an old domain hit by a penguin update? Please clarify me, or if there are any alternatives to get rid of penguin update, please help me.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Indexxess0