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
-
Googlebot cannot access your site
Hello, I have a website http://www.fivestarstoneinc.com/ and earlier today I got an emil from webmaster tools saying "Googlebot cannot access your site" Wondering what the problem could be and how to fix it.
Technical SEO | | Rank-and-Grow0 -
Staging site and "live" site have both been indexed by Google
While creating a site we forgot to password protect the staging site while it was being built. Now that the site has been moved to the new domain, it has come to my attention that both the staging site (site.staging.com) and the "live" site (site.com) are both being indexed. What is the best way to solve this problem? I was thinking about adding a 301 redirect from the staging site to the live site via HTACCESS. Any recommendations?
Technical SEO | | melen0 -
Mobile SEO for mobile site
Hey there! I own a desktop website and just now finishe building a mobile site ( not a responsive design one) and I wish to start ranking my site on mobile serch result page. due to the automatic redirection from desktop website to the mobile site im confused: where should link to in order to SEO my mobile site? should i link to domin.com and assume the link juice is passing on? or should i link to m.domim.com?
Technical SEO | | logophone0 -
404 Error from site - is this normal?
I have been trying to clean up any 404 errors. We keep getting the following: URL /include/vdimgck.php referring domain http://www.856d.c@m/plus/feedback.php rendered domain unclickable by adding the "@" since I do not know if it is safe. I just turned off the trackbacks and pings in the blog since I saw it was producing duplicate content and from what I read it is not worth keeping those with Wordpress. is vdimgck.php anything some here instantly recognizes ? It tops all our 404 errors, seems like a lot of requests. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | Force70 -
Local business with multiple sites
I'm auditing a local business' sites (a spa) and I wanted to run my recommendations by everyone. There are 3 sites: www.sitename1.com -- main store location, used for Google Places listing #1 www.sitename2.com -- 2nd store location, used for Google Places listing #2 www.sitename3.com -- used for product sales for both locations Sitename1.com has the most ranking power. I'm going to recommend that they move sitename2.com and sitename3.com to sitename1.com as subfolders, 301 redirecting each page to the corresponding page on sitename1.com/subfolder. Google Places listing #2 would be changed from www.sitename2.com to www.sitename.com/location2. Any risks or problems with this strategy anyone can see?
Technical SEO | | 540SEO0 -
New Site Search Critique
Hi I am a huge fan of the SEOMOZ site and this great community which has helped me learn the current SEO skills I have now which are still very basic compared to the pros on the forum. I have tried to follow best practice regarding onsite and technical seo when developing my new site www.cheapfindergames.com and I would really appreciate it if experts on the forum could spare a minute to critique the site from a search perspective please This will give any elements of what onsite and technical SEO I done well and what aspects still need work. I am currently trying to build quality links and social mentions into the site which will take time, and the site has been designed around usability and conversions. Many Thanks Ian
Technical SEO | | ocelot0 -
Why did our site drop in Google rankings?
My site's URL (web address) is: http://tinyurl.com/3svn2l9 Hi there, We operate a travel site that lists numerous tours, accommodation and activities. Since 6th August 2011 we have dropped from top 10 SERP rankings of our pages to around result number 100 (page 10) and losing massive amount of visitors via Google Search. Our Yahoo and Bing rankings are still in the top10. We need your advice and quick! The last changes we have made are the following: -redirected the non-www version to the www version on the 1st August -bought advertising with a follow link in a sidebar that is being populated across the site (+4000 pages) about 2 months ago -added a blog to the website 2 weeks ago and posted 2 posts to date. Additionally, our website structure allows visitors (and bots) to see the same listings via different URLs which caused duplicate content. This has been the case since the launch of our website about 1 year ago. To prevent this duplicate content we have placed canonical tags on the individual listings pages. Why did our site all of a sudden plummet in the rankings?
Technical SEO | | Robbern0 -
Optimize flash site
Hello, How can we optimize a site like this - http://www.ziba.com.au/ . The whole site is in flash. What are the alternatives ?
Technical SEO | | seoug_20050