Why does Google dislike us so?

[dooberry]

Hi all,

Over the past 18 months one of the sites I look after, www.english-inns.co.uk, has taken a massive dip in Google rankings (as per the graph attached). To give you an idea of what the site is about, we're effectively the largest directory of inns in England and have a mixture of exclusive offers direct from member inns but also have some affiliate links thrown into the mix.

In terms of steps taken to remedy our falling out of grace with Google, these have included:

• A complete website redesign
• Removal of any duplicate content
• 'Adding value' by including interactive maps, better search functionality, promoting exclusive offers, etc.

Unfortunately none of this seems to have helped our situation and we are now sitting at some pretty horrible places in Google's SERP's. For example, even for the keyphrase "english inns" we only rank #5 and this is a term associate with our brand!

Perhaps I'm missing something obvious here... can anyone see any glaring issues with the site?

Any help would be most appreciated Mozzers.

Cheers

google-analytics.png

[dooberry]

Big thanks to Chris (both Painter and Menke), Jesse and Peter for some fantastic answers. Definitely a lot to go on here and I'll be sure to report back on any successes (fingers crossed!).

Thanks again all.

[GPainter]

I would agree with Peter starting from scratch will hurt a lot more than you already are.  You could try looking into other keyword opportunity's sometimes local can be helpful e.g English inn in Sussex.

Unfortunately you do have a bit of an up hill battle with your competitors but its not an impossible battle. They may have more links but if you can build higher quality links there numbers don't mean much. This is easier said than done.

Looks like all in all you've had some good tips

[jesse-landry]

Well taking a quick look at your backlinks, you definitely haven't "nofollowed all of your paid links."

http://www.seoplacement.com/links/links40_6.html

For example, this page is incredibly spammy and exactly what Penguin is targeting. I'd say your company paid a link blasting service somewhere along the lines and you are now seeing the repercussions of said service. Dig into that backlink profile and start removing as many of these as you can find. Keep a log of which ones you remove, which ones you can't, etc. Take screenshots of attempts to remove. Document this as completely as possible in case you should ever have to resubmit to Google. (Speaking of, have you checked for messages in Webmaster Tools?)

I'm 99% sure you've been hit by the Penguin Algo.

Good luck and don't fret. It happens to the best of us.

[crackingmedia]

Definitely do not change domains and start from scratch. You will almost certainly not see page 1 again.

Your domain shows an age of 15 years. That's a good asset to have. Unfortunately, from my check 7 of the other 9 top ten links also have a domain age of 11 years of more.

The kick for your competitors comes I think from the number of incoming links the top 4 sites above yours have, the least of those being over 37,000 whereas your site has 6,000. Whilst of course backlinks are not the only ranking factor they will have a big say in the perceived importance of these sites.

The other factor which may be indicative of Google's ever growing plan to deliver pages from sites that fit the intent of the person searching is that with the top 4 sites you can book directly from the site or the Inns that are shown are theirs and therefore give you much more information per Inn.

The intent of someone searching for an English Inn is most likely because they want more information about them or want to book. Consequently, it seems reasonable that Google will serve pages from sites that offer that. With your site however, being a directory, getting more information or booking a room is always a click away to another site.

Don't give up though. Maybe create more informational content that is more sticky for the visitor and even consider finding a way to provide booking through your site.

I hope that helps,
Peter

[Chris.Menke]

I can't see what's on the left side of that graph but if it's a steep incline, you may be seeing the results of a gradual devaluing of links that helped build your rankings and traffic to the point of early 2012. In any case, it does look link-related to me, in that the authority of your site may be declining relative to other sites that are relevant to your keywords.

[dooberry]

Thanks very much for this Chris - very useful information indeed.

In terms of the paid directory issue, we have recently 'nofollowed' all of our links but I get the distinct impression that this may be too little too late.

Re: the over optimisation issue, I'll take a look into this so thanks for highlighting.

Just a quick followup question, but do you think that we should be considering moving domains and starting from scratch?

[GPainter]

Google hates everyone equally.  I'm showing you as pos 2 for English country inns and you're being out ranked by a site that has higher metrics than you. you do have a large % of your anchor text for one word could be a slight bit of over optimization. On top of that (just an idea) Google is not super keen on directories (aka paid links) and might think you are one. My money would be on you getting out ranked by a site that  just has better stats than you unfortunately it happens.

Someone else around here may have some much better input on the subject though so don't get too down and keep building high quality links and creating great content You can look at less competitive search terms too.