Penalised for specific keywords
-
Hi guys and girls,
I've recently taken over management of a client that appears to be suffering a punishment on Google for specific keywords.
Firstly has anyone encountered an issue such as this before, specific keyword de-ranking, and if so did re inclusion requests yield any joy?
Thank you in advance for any assistance.
-
Another option is to ask webmasters to change your anchor text. But you'll have to do that on a link-by-link basis, in order to provide anchor text that is relevant to both the source and target page.
Also, we've seen a lot of luck changing some portion of your profile to generic anchor text like "read more", "more info" or "website", as well as others using the destination page's title as the anchor text. Finally, you can resort to raw URLs in some, as well. What we try to do there is use a raw URL where we can use either the brand name or the destination page's title in the same sentence. -
Hi James,
I just answered your PM. thanks
Carla
-
Thank you both for your opinions, this has been a great help.
-
Excellent point and something I have not considered.
Thanks Jon
-
Ahh yes, the delete or dilute dilemma
In my experience, only sites with very few links can get away with dilution. If your site has thousands of links, and a large percentage are exact anchors, you'd have to engage in some very obvious bulk link building to dilute things quickly and sufficiently. In that scenario, best to find a way to remove the links, either by reaching out to webmasters or through a disavow.
-
Hi Jon and James,
Just a thought but if you have over-optimized a specific anchor text instead of disavowing the links you may want to add more links but with different anchor text so that the anchor text looks more diverse. I'll give you an example.
Over-optimizaed anchor text = "abc"
Hypothetical Current situation
- Amount of "abc" links = 25
- Name brand links = 100
Hypothetical Solution
- Amount of "abc" links = 25
- Name brand links = 100
- New links with "def" anchor text = 10
- New links with "ghi" anchor text = 10
Good luck!
-
Sure, Google's Penguin update has keyword level components, and Google has been penalizing sites at a keyword level for many years when they find a site with too many links coming in using exact match anchor text. Depending on the scope of the problem, there are a number of potential solutions. This post might be helpful in terms of potentially fixing the issue: http://moz.com/blog/google-disavow-tool
-
Hi James,
I did encounter something similar. You have probably overoptimized a specific keyword. If all your incoming links have the same anchor text and it is not your brand name then Google is punishing you for non-natural link building. Are you ranking for other keywords?. You might have been sandboxed and not know it. What is the domain name?
Thanks
Carla
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
-
My Top Keywords Ranking Going Down (continuously)
hi,
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | seotoolshero06
I have an affiliate website where most of my articles are about product Reviews. And it was all going good before 15 february. After that Most of my keywords that were in top 3 places in SERP loses their position.
One of the keyword that was hurted badly after is "best coffee beans".
I have checked the search console and their is no warning issues or something suspicious. I have improved the onpage again, fixing every issue i got from audit tools, from speed to optimize images, titles to alt text, in short everything i could or that can be improved. But still coffee beans keyword is going down every passing day.
I am so worried and want you guys to please help me regarding this. Thanks2 -
Ranking Fluctuation on "Canvas Prints" keyword in google.co.uk
Hello Moz We are struggling for "canvas prints" ranking in google.co.uk since last 2 years. every time in SERP my webpage has been changed. i want to rank this URL on this particular keyword - "canvas prints" Can you tell me why my page has been fluctuate every time in SERP's. mtwpvf
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | CommercePundit1 -
G.A. question - removing a specific page's data from total site's results?
I hope I can explain this clearly, hang in there! One of the clients of the law firm I work for does some SEO work for the firm and one thing he has been doing is googling a certain keyword over and over again to trick google's auto fill into using that keyword. When he runs his program he generates around 500 hits to one of our attorney's bio pages. This happens once or twice a week, and since I don't consider them real organic traffic it has been really messing up my GA reports. Is there a way to block that landing page from my overall reports? Or is there a better way to deal with the skewed data? Any help or advice is appreciated, I am still so new to SEO I feel like a lot of my questions are obvious, but please go easy on me!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | MyOwnSEO0 -
Keyword Phrase vs. separate keywords - Title Tag best practices
Hello, What is your opinion about when to use a keyword phrase vs. 2 keywords, separated by a comma, in the title tag? For example, on this page, the title could be either: NLP Hypnosis, Language Patterns | Nlpca.com or NLP and Hypnosis Including Language Patterns | Nlpca.com Which do you guys think is best with respect to rankings, updates, and future updates?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BobGW0 -
A site is using their competitors names in their Meta Keywords and Descriptions
I can't imagine this is a White Hat SEO technique, but they don't seem to be punished for it by Google - yet. How does Google treat the use of your competitors names in your meta keywords/descriptions? Is it a good idea?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | PeterConnor0 -
Best method to target similar keywords??
Hi Guys, We have client that wants to target 3 similar terms (used, secondhand and pre-owned) variations. We have been having a discussion about the different methods to try but can't make a decision on the best route. The target page has a list of pre-owned products so whichever route was take these products still need to be visible without creating duplicate content issues.... 1 - Go all in on one page do our best at optimising a single page for all 3. - i don't like this route.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Kal-SEO
2 - Stick with the current pre-owned url and create a url for used and secondhand with a 301 redirect back to the pre-owned url.
3 - Create three individual pages aimed at a keyword individually, keep the pre-owned as the original and add canonical links to used and secondhand I look forward to hearing your thoughts.
Thanks in advanced0 -
Highly competitive keywords ranking
Hi , I just start one page website ( website that give a user one service like backlinkswatch . com or prchecker ) This niche is so competitive and the first 5 results for keywords that I have selected for my website have a google pagerank > 4 I know that ranking for high competitive keywords take more times but what Can I do to make it fast without getting penalized , all what I hear now is guest post and guest post and guest post any other idea ??
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | loumi0 -
Penalised by Google - Should I Redirect to a new domain?
Last month my rankings dropped a couple of pages on Google and am no longer receiving as many visits from Google as I used to. It's coming up to summer which is the time my business naturally picks up yet I can't fix this problem. I have a crazy idea of redirecting my established site onto a new domain in hopes that the penalty would be removed. I have tried removing any manipulative links yet my ranking are not coming back. Anyone had success in redirecting to a new domain?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | penn730