Is this a possible Google penalty scenario?
-
In January we were banned from Google due to duplicate websites because of a server configuration error by our previous webmaster. Around 100 of our previously inactive domain names were defaulted to the directory of our company website during a server migration, thus showing the exact same site 100 times... obviously Google was not game and banned us.
At the end of February we were allowed back into the SERPS after fixing the issue and have since steadily regained long-tail keyword phrase rankings, but in Google are still missing our main keyword phrase. This keyword phrase brings in the bulk of our best traffic, so obviously it's an issue.
We've been unable to get above position 21 for this keyword, but in Yahoo, Bing, and Yandex (Russian SE) we're positions 3, 3, and 7 respectively. It seems to me there has to be a penalty in effect, as this keyword gets between 10 and 100 times as much traffic in Google than any of the ones we're ranked for, what do you think?
EDIT: I should mention in the 4-5 years prior to the banning we had been ranked between 15 and 4th in Google, 80% of the time on the first page.
-
Yeah! That was actually the first time I had even heard of Yandex. Of course the issue is that I haven't searched in the Russian version of our keyword using the .ru SE as I'm not sure about any linguistic differences that Google Translate wouldn't account for (it's a financial industry term).
I'm sure we're not ranked highly in the Russian version of the SE though, as we don't have a Russian version of the site! haha
-
Did you see Rand in the latest whiteboard Friday. http://www.seomoz.org/blog/smx-advanced-andy-atkins-kruger-talks-international-seo-and-yandex-whiteboard-friday
Interesting stuff about Yandex and their Algo.
-
You're definitely right about the discrepancies, I pay so much attention to Google that I had forgotten the other SE's show large discrepancies for many of our key phrases/terms.
My thought on the penalty for a certain phrase was that it had to do with the search volume of that phrase, but that's just speculation. I suppose only time and further SEO work will tell.
-
When did Google state they didn't penalize your site in rankings?
My reply was that a penalty is not for a specific term. If your site received a penalty, your entire site is affected (i.e. all terms). If I was to stretch for a corner case, it would be where your site might have a page using a copyrighted term such as "herbal viagra" where Google drops "viagra" from the keyword phrase due to pfizer's copyright.
You can have large discrepancies between Google, Yahoo and Bing. Each company is independent and using their own systems. This is even true between Bing and Yahoo who share a lot of information.
From my own keyword reports I have a site with the following ranks for the same term:
Google - 9, Bing 14, Yahoo 3
Google - 20, Bing - not in top 50, Yahoo - 49
There can definitely be major discrepancies between SERPs.
-
When did Google state they didn't penalize your site in rankings? I thought that's been a trend for years now when you broke the webmaster guidelines in a way that wasn't strong enough to be banned but strong enough to warrant penalty.
Sharing the URL of websites I work on seems like a bad idea to me, so I'll keep it to myself for now. The keyword is "highly competitive" 53%, as determined by SEOMoz's tool and our page has been optimized for this keyword for 5+ years now - hence why we were on page 1 from before 2005 - 2011.
Only once we were banned from Google were we unable to move above the first spot on Page 3, despite regaining #3 rankings in Yahoo and Bing. I don't usually see that large of discrepancies between the SE's, am I wrong?
My one thought is that this also coincides with the release of Panda, though our site has no duplicate content issues.
-
Google does not penalize a site by devaluing your ranking on a given term. They either remove you from their index completely, or they may devalue links to your site which would affect your domain as a whole.
I would recommend taking a very close look at how competitive this keyword is, how well your target page is optimized for it, and make comparisons with the competing sites who outrank you.
For any further details you would need to share the URL and keyword.
-
We are facing similar problem. Although our pages are regularly crawled by google but google doesn't show them on first page. Some are way behind after 100 pages.
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
-
Google's Presentation Yesterday
We hired a new website/marketing company that is a Preferred Google Partner (one of two in Charlotte according to them) and they hosted a presentation by Google at the Google Fiber office in Charlotte yesterday. As expected, there were lots of self-promotion by Google, accompanied with a plethora of data they created to support their PPC Marketing. It was an impressive performance with Molly Dince and Celena Fergusson, presenting Google Marketing Solutions: "Making the Web Work For You" and the keynote speaker Tim Reis, Director of Performance Agencies at Google: speaking on "Mobile Micromoments: Why Your Biggest Opportunities Are In The Smallest Moments" They ended with 15 minutes of Q&A and my question was answered with "I don't know" which I found surprising. So, here it is Thursday morning and I'm asking the same question to my Moz Family for some feedback: "Since the removal of Ads from the right column of a SERP, what percentage of Google traffic comes from Ads vs. the Organics?" I look forward to your comments. TY,
Algorithm Updates | | KevnJr
KJr0 -
Puzzling Penalty Question - Need Expert Help
I'm turning to the Moz Community because we're completely stumped. I actually work at a digital agency, our specialism being SEO. We've dealt with Google penalties before and have always found it fairly easy to identify the source the problem when someone comes to us with a sudden keyword/traffic drop. I'll briefly outline what we've experienced: We took on a client looking for SEO a few months ago. They had an OK site, with a small but high quality and natural link profile, but very little organic visibility. The client is an IT consultancy based in London, so there's a lot of competition for their keywords. All technical issues on the site were addressed, pages were carefully keyword targeted (obviously not in a spammy way) and on-site content, such as services pages, which were quite thin, were enriched with more user focused content. Interesting, shareable content was starting to be created and some basic outreach work had started. Things were starting to pick up. The site started showing and growing for some very relevant keywords in Google, a good range and at different levels (mostly sitting around page 3-4) depending on competition. Local keywords, particularly, were doing well, with a good number sitting on page 1-2. The keywords were starting to deliver a gentle stream of relevant traffic and user behaviour on-site looked good. Then, as of the 28th September 2015, it all went wrong. Our client's site virtually dropped from existence as far as Google was concerned. They literally lost all of their keywords. Our client even dropped hundreds of places for their own brand name. They also lost all rankings for super low competition, non-business terms they were ranking for. So, there's the problem. The keywords have not shown any sign of recovery at all yet and we're, understandably, panicking. The worst thing is that we can't identify what has caused this catastrophic drop. It looks like a Google penalty, but there's nothing we can find that would cause it. There are no messages or warnings in GWT. The link profile is small but high quality. When we started the content was a bit on the thin side, but this doesn't really look like a Panda penalty, and seems far too severe. The site is technically sound. There is no duplicate content issues or plaigarised content. The site is being indexed fine. Moz gives the site a spam score of 1 (our of 11 (i think that's right)). The site is on an ok server, which hasn't been blacklisted or anything. We've tried everything we can to identify a problem. And that's where you guys come in. Any ideas? Anyone seen anything similar around the same time? Unfortunately, we can't share our clients' site's name/URL, but feel free to ask any questions you want and we'll do our best to provide info.
Algorithm Updates | | MRSWebSolutions0 -
Google places - are you still registering your companies?
Is Google plus taking over from Google Places? I have our company and website registered on Google places and Google Plus. Now we have a new website ( same company different product) Should I register a new listing on Google places? And what about Google Plus?
Algorithm Updates | | Realtor1010 -
Did The Last Google Algorithm Update, Hit sites with poor anchor text?
My content is quite strong within my niche, so I ranked well, but last month my rankings plummeted. On closer examination and scrutiny I discovered my anchor text needed updating. Has anyone else seen this happening in the last four weeks?
Algorithm Updates | | simonberenyi0 -
Google and Content at Top of Page Change?
We always hear about how Google made this change or that change this month to their algorithm. Sometimes it's true and other times it's just a rumor. So this week I was speaking with someone in the SEO field who said that this week a change occurred at Google and is going to become more prevalent where content placed at the "top of the fold" on merchant sites with products are going to get better placement, rather than if you have your products at top with some content beneath them at the bottom of the page. Any comments on this?
Algorithm Updates | | applesofgold0 -
My google ranking is coming up but not so much with yahoo and bing. Could someone give me some advice?
I know that no question is supposed to be a dumb questions so I am going to go for it... Our keyword ranking on google for one of our companies capitol collision is getting better all the time but the same can't be said for yahoo or bing. Could you please offer some advice on how to improve this as well? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | allstatetransmission0 -
Google's reaction to site updates
Hi, Is it safe to assume as soon as Google indexes updates I've made to my site that any ranking changes the updates effected will happen at that same time, or is there ever a lag time before these changes ( if any ) take effect?
Algorithm Updates | | minutiae0 -
How do I get the expanded results in a Google search?
I notice for certain site (ex: mint.com) that when I search, the top result has a very detailed view with options to click to different subsections of the site. However for my site, even though we're consistently the top result for our branded terms, the result is still only a single line item. How do I adjust this?
Algorithm Updates | | syount1