Have I been Hit by a Penguin? No Warning in Webmaster / Some Pages still Rank
-
Hi all,
I have recently signed up to MOZ as I have seen a large drop in the turnover of a site I work with as well as a slump in visitors.
I know part of this slump is the transition from google product search from being free to paid and chewing through our adwords budget quicker.
The other part though seems a little more tricky, I have always been under the impression from reading online that an algorithm update would see a site destroyed for most terms and a notification generated in webmaster tools, however the site still seems to still rank for some terms, others however it has fallen off the face of the earth for.
As you can see in the attachment webmaster tools is showing much decreased visibility, and MOZ agrees with this. Key terms that have lost rank have done so by around 4-10 positions.
The content on the site has all been hand written by myself, however some of the pages are a little "stale" so I am currently running through re-writing every product page on the site (1000 products or so) all my product pages grade a minimum B with 99% A on the Moz page grader.
I am keeping my fingers crossed that fresh content should assist in getting google interested again?
However my real questions is, Is this Penguin? or is this just stale content?
-
Thanks for the detailed response, It is very much appreciated.
-
Hello speedingorange,
You wrote: "I have always been under the impression from reading online that an algorithm update would see a site destroyed for most terms and a notification generated in webmaster tools, however the site still seems to still rank for some terms, others however it has fallen off the face of the earth for. "
I think you have it backwards. The Panda update, which is NOT algorithmic, is the one that would that would "see a site destroyed for most terms and a notification generated in webmaster tools". The Penguin update, which IS algorithmic, is the one that would cause "site still seems to still rank for some terms, others however it has fallen off the face of the earth for". And a Penguin penalty does not result in a Google Webmaster Tools notification. (That is my understanding. I'm sure someone will correct me if I am mixed up, And I am OK with being corrected.)
Two of my sites are suffering from what I believe is Penguin damage. For both the damage is a lot of rank lost for only a few keyword phrases. Other phrases continue to rank normally. When I did a bunch of keyword research (using Moz, Ahrefs, and Majestic results blended together) I found that the few keyword phrases that I severely lost rank for had both:
- a high percentage of Follow links using exactly those phrases as anchor text, and
- links from sources that didn't really pertain to the anchor text or to our website.
My understanding is that these are the type of things that Penguin will bite you for. So we did remove or change a few of the anchor text links, and did a Google Disavow on most of the remaining links. We did leave a few anchor text links that were from good pertinent sites. This was done in early June, and we still have not seen any results. I have read that we will not see any big results from submitting a Disavow file until Google updates Penguin again. So we are keeping our fingers crossed until then.
Couple of quick things to explore if you are going to try a similar rescue. First, we did not pay any attention to our NoFollow links since they supposedly do not effect rankings. Second, we did create a nice file of follow links from all our link research, and used it as an additional submission with the Link Detox tool (the spreadsheet report from that tool is very valuable when checking for overoptimized anchor text). Third, we disavowed entire domains rather than individual links because we heard that was most effective.
Good luck!
-
I will give it a read.
Many THanks
James
-
It's not stale content. As the dates in the graph appear to correspond to Penguin 2.0, I'd be thinking along those lines.
Google algorithm change history: http://moz.com/google-algorithm-change
-
I really recommend you to read this Case Study. It's quite long, but it will help you to understand how to use this and some other tools to find out if you where a Penguin's Victim.
http://www.linkresearchtools.com/case-studies/elearners-penguin-2-0-penalty-analysis/
-
Thanks Romeo,
I will be sure to check this out ASAP.
-
Hello speedingorange,
You can use this tool to find out if you have any Toxic inbound links. https://www.linkresearchtools.com/members/signup.php?product=linkdetox
Once you've discovered it, you can ask to Disavow them from your Google Webmaster Tools account and wait a couple of weeks to have them removed.
Good luck,
Romeo.
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
-
Backlinks to internal pages help website to rank better or vice versa?
Hi Moz community, We have our backlinks mostly pointed to our homepage. We are trying to rank better and not having minimum number of backlinks to our internal pages is one of the things I worry about. Backlinks to homepage alone help in ranking internal pages or backlinks to internal pages help in ranking homepage? Or both required? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
One of our top visited page (login page) missing primary keyword, does this makes ranking drop of our homepage for same keyword?
Hi all, So, I have removed the "primary keyword" from login page, which is most visited page on our website to avoid keywords in non related pages. I noticed our homepage ranking dropped for same "primary keyword". Visitors of this login page directly land without searching with "primary keyword". Then how removing it from such page drops our ranking? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Indexing of Search Pages
I have a question on indexing search pages of an ecommerce or any website. I read Google doesn't recommend this and sites shouldn't allow indexing of their search pages. I recently attended an SEO event (BrightonSEO) and one of the talks was on search pages and how big players like eBay, Amazon do index their search pages. In fact, it is a core part of the pages that are indexed. eBay has to do it, as their product pages are on a time frame and Amazon only allows certain category search pages to be indexed. Reviewing my competitors, they are indexing search pages and this is why they have thousands and millions of web pages indexed. What are your thoughts? I thought search pages were too dynamic (URL strings) and they wouldn't have a unique page title, meta description or rich content to act as a well optimised page. Am I missing a trick here? Cyto
Algorithm Updates | | Bio-RadAbs0 -
On-Page Markup: Still a Worthwhile Practice?
So I have a question for the community that hopefully someone can help me with. Previously, whenever I created/worked on a website, when I would create or edit the content, I would bold the keywords, italicize certain items, add internal/external links and generally mark-up the content. More recently, however, I've noticed that both my client and many of their leading competitors have abandoned this practice. Now, it appears that all the text appears as plain text, there are rarely bold or italicized items and there does not seem to be as much emphasis on inserting internal/external links. While I understand the ladder to still be an effective/holistic approach to SEO, I'm wondering why the former (the bold, italicized, text variation) has gone by the wayside. So with that, is adding bold/italicized text still a worthwhile SEO technique and is it something I should continue applying to sites I work on? Please advise.
Algorithm Updates | | maxcarnage0 -
Recent Algorithm Update Impact on Rankings
I've read that the most recent algorithm update by Google is targeting dodgy links. I have a client's website who within the last few days has been smashed out of of top positions for the most competitive keywords (and many others). I'm worried that the site has been penalised, however I can't understand why it would be. The site only has 11 domains linking to it (65 links total) and a lot of these links are coming from the same websites that link to all of our other web clients and none of them have experienced this sudden and significant drop in rankings. Does anyone know if Google is targeting a specific type of site, or how I can determine if my client's website has been penalised? I've not made any significant changes recently to the site's content or meta data, however rankings have remained steady for months now. It just seemed to happen overnight that they dropped off everything (eg. middle of page 2 to page 8 of search results for some of the better keywords) Thank you in advance for any assistance!
Algorithm Updates | | JuiceBoxOM0 -
Is Moz Domain Authority still relvant when it comes to Google ranking?
My understanding of Moz DA is that it is predominantly based on external links. Since Penguin I am noticing more and more websites ranking high in Google with a "low" number of links and certainly a low DA but quality and relevancy of content and also of offering. I understand that there was always more to ranking than DA but is it anymore even relevant to how a site will rank in Google?
Algorithm Updates | | halloranc0 -
Rankings drop
Hi! Since the new Penguin rollout, we've seen rankings drop for http://www.leanonturkey.co.uk/ for the terms 'turkey recipes' (UK) and 'low fat recipes' (UK) from #4 and #15 respectively. This may be down to very strong competition, but I'm also concerned over the on-page content, which may not be detailed enough. Any tips would be much appreciated!
Algorithm Updates | | neooptic0 -
Penguin 2.0 - Any signs yet?
I'm waiting, probing and analyzing and haven't seen any signs of a Penguin change. I am seeing some of my head terms bounce around the last couple of days. Mostly bouncing up and then back down again. I'm not sure if these are signs of an algo change starting, and working through Google's servers. Has anyone seen anything yet?
Algorithm Updates | | tdawson090
