Do you think this site has been hit by penguin?
-
Hi Guys,
I need some opinion on a website i am working on www.colourbnners.co.uk
They updated their website in August but the company they used did not take into account the URL structure and hence there's a massive loss in links in August time.
They also dropped off Google for all their key terms except their brand name 'colour banners'
Since then, they have implemented a 301 redirect.Some key points
- They have not received any manual warnings in WMT
- I have disavowed some poor quality links that they have built over the years
- I am building high quality links quite selectively/slowly
- There were a lot of duplicate content issues - these have been resolved now.
So my question to you SEO pros is do you think its penguin? or something that i am missing?
If it is penguin, what is the best form of attack to get it removed?
regards
gezzagrez
-
First, I have to second Marie - the easiest way right now to detect a Penguin drop is to look at the publicly released update dates and compare them to your search traffic. Penguin often hits hard and fast - it's not usually subtle.
One thing I think you have to be careful about is your definition of "quality" vs. Google's. For example, diversity matters to Google. If you guest blog on generally decent sites (non-spammy, for lack of a better word), but that's your only link-building tactic, you could still be in trouble. It's just not natural, in Google's eyes, and they're going to think you're only guest blogging to get links (which may be the truth). It's not that your posts are bad, but you're relying too much on one tactic to the point that it could look manipulative. I'm not saying this is what you're doing - just making a general observation (and one that affects a lot of people right now, IMO).
At first glance (and, please note, link profile analysis can be tricky), I'm seeing a lot of keyword-loaded anchor text. It's a bit tricky, since you have an EMD (so your "brand" is keyword-based), but you may be pushing the variants of "banner(s)" too hard. Again, that can be a sign of artificial link building patterns.
Frankly, you've also got some links that look outright spammy. Take this one, for example:
http://www.constructionindustryscheme.org/
Your link is at the bottom (not even really in a footer) with no context or relevance to the page. This looks incredibly artificial.
-
To determine if it's Penguin, look at your Google analytics. In the left column, click on "Acquisition" and then "all traffic". Then, move a little to the right and click on "google/organic". Change the dates so that you're seeing everything from Jan 1 2012 to present. Do you see a dramatic drop that starts on a particular day? If Penguin has affected you then the drop happened on April 12, 2012, May 25, 2012, October 5, 2012, May 23, 2013 or October 4, 2013. If there's a drop on another day then something else is going on.
A quick look at your backlink profile though, has me concerned. Google is getting really good at only taking in to account links that are truly earned. I'm seeing lots of low quality directory links.
If you do have a drop on a Penguin day, then you've got a long road ahead of you. You have to remove or disavow close to 100% of your self made links AND be able to attract new links. Then you'll need to wait till the algorithm refreshes and see if things improve. If the drop is just gradual with no specific day then it may just be that Google is no longer giving value through the links that are self made. In either case, you need to find ways to attract links naturally. Don't say it can't be done. If you start another thread asking people for ways to attract links to a site selling colour banners you'll get a whack of ideas.
-
thats brilliant how you have got links on them high profile websites! time is an issue that i have. Writing a truly creative piece can take days which is the thing i struggle with most.
In terms on the URL...the URL has always been www.colourbanners.co.uk its just the structure of the deeper pages i.e. www.colourbanners.co.uk/products/mesh-banners all changed.
I don't know whether this triggered something, but there was a huge drop in August (ahrefs shows this pretty well)
I know there are some shoddy links - some of which i disavowed but with no manual penalty im treading carefully. I'm leaning towards it being a problem with the anchor text distribution.
-
Don't say that around these parts! There's always content that can be created that will gain attention. For instance, our main business is phone unlocking yet I've just got links from The Guardian, Forbes, Gizmodo, MSN, Yahoo Finance, Cult of Mac, the list goes on. This is now the third time in 6 months that a piece of work has spread like this. You just have to find the research or idea that will get published on target sites and publish/promote it.
This particular site looks very similar to a problem I'm actually going through. I'd be asking more questions about the switch over in August. What do you mean the URL structure wasn't taken into account? It sounds like it wasn't just a simple redesign.
If the previous URL didn't have a penalty, it seems too coincidental to me that it all of a sudden it would after switching to a new domain.
-
yes its banners.
Yes i guest blog and so i am extremely selective on where my posts go.
I know 'content is king' and all that, but realistically, but how much content can you write about colour banners that gets people interested? its tough and so paying for guest blogs on relevant sites is (in my opinion) still plausible and extremely important.
What are your thoughts on this drop and what would you do?
cheers
gezzagregz
-
URL doesn't exist. Is it "banners" instead?
Quick question. You've mentioned building high quality links, slowly and selectively. This sounds manipulative and when considering a link based penalty, is this the best thing to do?
I suppose I'm actually question how you can be decidedly selective or slow about building links. The route I use is to create content and then beyond my powers of promoting it, hope that others find it interesting and link to it. What method do you use that allows you to select which links you're getting and ensure that you're work won't snowball, with links coming in quicker than you'd expected?
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
-
Site Architecture & URL length
Hello SEO Folks, Wanting to have an expert advice on which one we should give preference. We understand a well put-together site architecture is one of the major factor ranking factor. In the other hand shorter URL also an important factor. Since our site aim to have many pages and destination wise product pages, in order to have shorter URL we avoid to follow the best site structure. in our site a product page do not have the right path to have right architecture, would it hurt our DA ? Thanks in advance John Adventure Emirates
Technical SEO | | Johnauh0 -
Site structure headache
Hello all, I'm struggling to get to grips with a websites site structure. I appreciate that quality content is key etc, and the more content the better, but then I have issues with regards to doorway pages. For example im now starting to develop a lot of ecommerce websites and want to promote this service. should we have pages that detail all of the ins and outs of ecommerce - or should we simplify it to a couple of pages. what is best practice? Also isn't a content hub similar to having doorway pages? let me know what you think! William
Technical SEO | | wseabrook0 -
Https Cached Site
Hi there, I recently switch my site to a new ecommerce platform which hosts the SSL certificate on their end so my site no longer has the HTTPS status unless a user is going through the checkout. Google has cached the HTTPS version of the site so in search it comes up sometimes which leads to a nasty warning that the site may not be what they are looking for. Is there a way to tell google NOT to look at the https version of the site anymore? Thanks! Bianca
Technical SEO | | TheBatesMillStore0 -
I'm thinking I might need to canonicalize back to the home site and combine some content, what do you think?
I have a site that is mostly just podcasts with transcripts, and it has both audio and video versions of the podcasts. I also have a blog that I contribute to that links back to the video/transcript page of these podcasts. So this blog I contribute to has the exact same content (the podcast; both audio and video but no transcript) and then an audio and video version of this podcast. Each post of the podcast has different content on it that is technically unique but I'm not sure it's unique enough. So my question is, should I canonicalize the posts on this blog back to the original video/transcript page of the podcast and then combine the video with the audio posts. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | ThridHour0 -
Changing a site from http to https
Will my rankings be affected if I change domain from http to https and force redirect?
Technical SEO | | Clickatell20 -
Possible penguin hit but then back, now what's next?
hiz, i did a little check on my site by answering the quiz at mytrafficdropped.com and there was a question about on what dates there was drop in organic. and i did checked my analytics on a top sending keyword. here is what i found. see attached image . Traffic dropped totally on April 20 to onwards. Then got back better in june, but again dropped in October, still down.. anythoughts guys ? 1Jk47.png
Technical SEO | | wickedsunny10 -
Multiple Domains for One Site
We are building a site for a new miniature golf course. They have a long name, which they don't want me to mention, but it's equivalent to a name like Golden State Golf and Putt. They also have a restaurant with its own name and brand that will be a part of the mini golf course and its website, much how Hotel websites have their restaurants on their sites. Before becoming our client they purchased golfandputt.com and want to go with this domain for simplicity sake. In addition to this domain name they purchased 7 others that contain the bussiness' full name in some way, such as: goldenstategolfandputt.com goldenstategolfandputt.net, goldenstategolf-guitar.com etc., As well as: 3 variations of the golfandputt.com domain 3 variations of the restaurants name They wish to have all of these redirect to the main website or the restaurant page to "help with SEO," as they told me. From what I have researched on SEOmoz it seems better to simply optimize the website for Golden State Golf and Putt and the restaurant page for the restaurant's name. Additionally, I'm worried that redirecting the domains to the site will actually hurt them in rankings. If someone can shed some light on what the best practices for this sort of situation are I'd be much appreciative. Apologies in advance for the lengthy explanation but its a bit of a unique situation.
Technical SEO | | TVI0 -
How many pages should my site have?
Right now I think I only have 36. What is a good amount of pages to have? Any ideas on ways to add relevant pages to my site? I was thinking about starting a message board. Also, I have a free tech support chat room, and was thinking about posting the logs somewhere on the site. Does that sound like a good idea? Thanks.
Technical SEO | | eugenecomputergeeks0