E-commerce site hit by the latest Panda, please help

[SharewarePros]

Hello mates,

Our site is an e-comerce site http://goo.gl/4QBVjR has been hit hard by the latest

Panda on the last weekend as many other sites such as Retailmenot etc.

We were working hard from one year til now:1. Rewrite all the pages with pour content (less than 100 words), and non-original content.2. The pages where was impossible rewrite the content were 410 gone.3. About the link profile, we were removing all the unnatural links by contacting thewebmaster and finally updating a DISAVOW file at monthly basis.All these tasks were performed and we see some improvements close to the original traffic before 2012Now from the last weekend our traffic down again, so we need to know if we can do anythingor there are something hidden from our eyes.Thank youClaudio

[SharewarePros]

Thank you for your response

[evolvingSEO]

Hi Claudio

I was not using any tools, or even saying the text exactly matches. I was saying the general look, feel, setup, etc of that site is similar to yours (and many others in this genre). I am also saying you need to think of a way to differentiate your site, not just by having unique text, but by anything like: helpful content targeted at your audience, building a community, developing an audience that follows you and comes back for repeat visits. Something that makes you stand out from the rest of the shareware download sites.

[SharewarePros]

Dear Dan,

I agree with you 100%, so which tool are you using to detect duplication with other sites for example pages on our site duplicated with tucows.

There are any massive or batch way to detect it.

We feel this is the major issue with our site.

Waiting for your response

Thank you

Claudio

[evolvingSEO]

I think trust (or lack of trust signals) is a huge factor here.

• For example, the only contact information is a contact form: http://www.freesharewaredepot.com/contact.asp - no phone number, email address, or physical address. This is something heavily mentioned in Google's Quality Raters Guidelines. I've actually happened upon it here: http://www.freesharewaredepot.com/about.asp - but users might want more easily accessible ways to contact you.
• The site also does not show any indicate of who is behind the site - no people's names, and barely pictures etc. This is bad for trust too.
• In general, as a normal user, I have no way of knowing I can trust the editor reviews, or other information - was it actually all created by an expert? is a question that pops into my head.
• Bill's right too - the site is very duplicative of other sites out there in the space, such as - http://www.tucows.com/downloads

The issues above I've addressed only have to to with Panda. Few more thoughts.

• The other thing that strikes me is the imbalance of links to social shares. I don't think Google uses social shares as a direct ranking signal, but I could see them looking for weird differences in numbers as one flag. In other words - the site needs to be promoted and liked holistically - through links, social shares, mentions, etc.
• The site also gets zero brand searches - by this, I mean no one is going to Google and typing "free shareware depot" - which signals to Google, maybe people don't think the site is all that important or memorable. This is why some branding and differentiation is so important.

-Dan

[Bill.Sebald]

It's not really eCommerce - you're only facilitating transactions elsewhere, either through a downloaded app or another site. You're more of a portal.

With that said - and I mean this without any tone - your site model is really, really common. I had a client in your market for a short time, and they looked very similar to you as well. In doing competitive research I saw many others with giant collections of pages, regurgitated "descriptions" and no real expertise, differentiation or personality.

The recommendation I made for them, which they didn't take, is prove to Google you're not a quickly pulled together collection of advertisements. Instead, use your words to show why you should be Top 5 in your market. So I would recommend you change focus and start doing something new. The whole affiliate space might have something to be concerned with here.

(not to mention, you seem to have some clunky content on some of the pages I saw, similar to stuff I see from cheap content houses)

[SharewarePros]

Hello Kevin,

No manual Actions, all I can see from my eyes is fine with the site, I need to know if I'm missing something

Please take a look, all the suggestions will be welcome

Thank you

Claudio

[kwoolf]

Hi Claudio,

I feel your pain. Nearly every time Google updates their algorithm my site takes a hit, but it recovers a week or two later. At some point you're going to have to direct resources to other forms of promotion to Goolge-proof your business. At the end of the day, it's about making money, not getting a number from Google.

I would monitor your WMT account to see if you get any manual actions taken and keep an eye on Moz. I won't make any drastic moves so soon after this hit, but do keep up with the original content and healthy activities.