Was I hit by Panda/Payday Loan/Penguin?
-
Good Mozzing,
So, as some of you may know based on my previous post, I am working with an odd situation here. I have taken over an account for a company and the Main domain pretty much falls into the category of everything Google hates. I have suggested to the CEO that the practices they did before me were sorta in the Grayhat realm bordering on Blackhat but I need empirical data before I can make any drastic changes.
In May and June of 2013 Panda, Penguin, and Payday Loan all had updates. Our company has nothing do to with porn, apartment rentals, finances, or anything like that, but the SEO methods used were, as I said, questionable.
In June of 2013 there was a drop from 8,000 sessions to 5,000 sessions from organic traffic. If I switch over to all referring traffic the loss increases to 11,000 to 7,000 sessions. To me that seems pretty substantial. Not only that, but according to the data we have not been able to recover.There was a steady climb for about 5 months before the drop, and then now we are in this middle ground.
I have only been here for about 2 weeks, so the things I have been uncovering are pretty amazing.
Is that enough to assume that we were indeed hit by the updates?
-
Who cares to admit complete defeat? Practically no one, of course. Every natural instinct cries out against the idea of personal powerlessness.
I have come to terms with the fact that I am going to need help on this one. I am trying to make a case to my boss for a "second opinion".
UPDATE As this window was open my boss called me in for our meeting. I explained the circumstance and basically his answer was:
"Give me a timeline of everything that needs to happen. We can't cut anything until we build anything (unfortunately I fear he may have stolen my sentence from my interview when I said "don't burn a bridge before you build a bridge")."
So we will go from there. I do think he is beginning to understand the severity. He made an analogy to the Corleone's going 'legit' in the Godfather but wasn't comfortable doing so until we had a plan to go 'legit.'
Thanks again everybody! You have all been a tremendous help!
-
First off...thank you EGOL for mentioning me as someone who understands penalties. The crazy thing is that even though that's all that I do these days, I can sometimes spend several hours digging in to a site's analytics, backlinks and the site itself and still not be completely sure what is causing the traffic drop. It seems that the important point that most are trying to get across in this thread is that you're not likely to be able to solve your problem in this Q&A.
With that being said, here are a few things that you can look at that might give you some clues:
-Have you checked in Webmaster Tools for any manual actions? Go to Search Traffic --> Manual Actions
-Have you run a check for malware? Run the site through sucuri.net.
-Take a look at just the organic non-branded traffic in Google Analytics. To do that look at click Acquisition --> Keywords --> Organic. Then near the right hand side click on "advanced". Set it to exclude your brand name.
Once you've done that can you see a distinct day where the traffic starts to drop? This might give you a clue as to which algorithm you were likely affected by. With that being said, although Panda officially rolled out May 20, many sites that had Panda changes started seeing changes as early as May 17 and Payday loans was live either May 17 or 18. Still, if your drop happened on a day other than May 17-20 then you could be looking at something else. I personally think there have been some minor Panda refreshes in June, but sites that were affected were the ones who saw a big change around May 20.
If there was no obvious change on that date then here's a list of other things you can look at that might be reasons for a traffic drop that are NOT algorithmic:
http://www.hiswebmarketing.com/reasons-for-traffic-to-drop-other-than-penalty/
But, I want to repeat that it's often not a simple diagnosis.
Just to clarify your original post, there was no Penguin update recently. The last one was October of 2013.
-
I want to come back to something important. I want to preach to your boss.
Search engine battles are won through smarts and resources. Resources are content, user experience and promotional investments that you have made in your website. Smarts includes these things: the knowledge, skill and ingenuity of a dedicated staff.
As I said above I have been doing this for a long time. I don't know everything. And, everything in SEO changes constantly. The knowledge that you have today will be less valuable over time. To continue building and revising my knowledge resource, I read and participate in a couple of SEO forums every - single - day. I read what smart people write every - single - day. Two hours a day. I don't have a large company, three or four people. But that investment is made in continuing education.
Above I told you that....
You are being sent out to fight the heavyweight champ alone.
You don't want to do that. If you have a consultant and make a few firm friends here then you can use those relationships to take a gang to your fights. By asking and answering questions for a long time here I can ask lots of people who I have helped but who know things that I do not for assistance and they give me enormous immediate help. You should start building this. Your boss should understand that this is a valuable investment for his business and give you that time.
You are the guy who will be makin' the rain.
Companies who understand this have entire teams of SEOs who will be competing against you. And, they will get advice from their consultants too. Don't fight them alone if you care about winning.
-
Wow....
This has actually turned into a really amazing thread. I can't thank you enough... I'll keep you all posted in some way or another.
Thanks guys!
-
Just to let you know. I have been doing SEO since about 2000 and posting every day in SEO forums since about 2002. I run websites that get millions of visitors per month. I have seen and solved lots of different SEO problems.
Still, when I have to make any important decision, an important repair, a change in the site, or even if I am just looking for ways to improve. I regularly consult with people who know more about these things than me. I often consult with two people on the same problem. Why? I run a few sites but they do SEO on MANY sites. Their experience is broad and they have seen many things that I have not.
I consult with at least one of them every week. Sometimes two or three. I am waiting to get on a call with one of them today. SEO is a highly technical, highly competitive business. Nobody knows everything. One piece of knowledge can increase the income of your site by thousands of dollars a month and millions over time.
You are being sent out to fight the heavyweight champ alone.
Your boss needs to understand this. Share some of the comments you receive here with your boss. I am not trying to sell you anything. I only work on my own sites. Just telling you what I have learned to be valuable.
I give you lots of credit for coming here to ask questions. As you learning and have questions post them here when people can help you. But, small questions about a single topic are the best. You can get quick answers.
Look at many questions here everyday. Subscribe to them so you learn answers. You should read everything that penalty experts like Marie Haynes write. Here is one of her sites and a good place to begin. http://www.mytrafficdropped.com/
She sometimes answers questions here in Q&A. Read penalty questions going back to about 2011 to hear what might affect your site. She has written many good posts on the moz blog. Here is a simple one about penalties.
Your boss should read it too.
http://moz.com/blog/google-algorithm-cheat-sheet-panda-penguin-hummingbird
You will also find that people, even experienced ones with lots of clients and websites under their care will not agree. Why? Because nobody knows exactly how search engines work and how they will respond to changes on a website. There is a lot of guessing but different people guess about different things and different people know about different things. That is why I regularly seek advice from others, here and in private.
Good luck in your work.
-
If it helps when speaking to your boss, know that I'm a Moz employee and do no consulting, and we do not have any type of lead compensation for when we recommend people on the recommended companies, and EGOL does not accept consulting gigs either. Neither of us are saying what we are saying to try to make any money off of you or your company, but rather to try to honestly help your company get the information it needs.
-
The problem I am having is that the CEO feels that he brought me on to solve these problems. He is struggling to justify bringing someone else on.
And yes, they are depending on these hits for cashflow. Thanks again for your input.
It is validating for me knowing that I'm not just incapable and that this is a legitimate problem. Seriously.
-
I remember you have 1500 domains with tons of links between them.
You might have been hit by Panda or Penguin or unnatural links or just been throttled for spam or many other possible problems.
These are complex things to diagnose. Anybody who gives you an answer without looking into your big bunch of sites, your historical traffic, looks at the content and links into your main site and examines your content for panda problems is guessing. Doing all of this work properly and making a recommendation will require a lot of work, and still there will be some guessing. A few to several days, done by someone who knows the problems of sites that have suffered traffic loss will probably be needed.
Some questions are too complex to solve with a quick Q&A consultation. This is one of them.
If your company is depending upon this income to support cashflow, jobs and pay the rent then spending the time needed to get your own skills up might be much more costly than going straight to someone who might be able to solve the problem and get you on track. Your current situation reflects man-years of poor work. Will not be solved overnight.
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
-
How/why is this page allowed to get away with this?
I was doing some research on a competitor's backlinks in Open Site Explorer and I noticed that their most powerful link was coming from this page: http://nytm.org/made-in-nyc. I visited that page and found that this page, carrying a PageRank of 7, is just a long list of followed links. That's literally all that's on the entire page - 618 links. Zero nofollow tags. PR7. On top of that, there's a link at the top right corner that says "Want to Join?" which shows requirements to get your link on that page. One of these is to create a reciprocal link from your site back to theirs. I'm one of those white-hat SEOs who actually listens to Matt Cutts, and the more recent stuff from Moz. This entire page basically goes against everything I've been reading over the past couple years about how reciprocal links are bad, and if you're gonna do it, use a nofollow tag. I've read that pages, or directories, such as these are being penalized by Google, and possible the websites with links to the page could be penalized as well. I've read that exact websites such as these are getting deindexed by the bunches over the past couple years. My real question is how is this page allowed to get away with this? And how are they rewarded with such high PageRank? There's zero content aside from 618 links, all followed. Is this just a case of "Google just hasn't gotten around to finding and penalizing this site yet" or am I just naive enough to actually listen and believe anything that comes out of Matt Cutts videos?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Millermore0 -
Solved PayDay hack - but SERPs show URLs - what should I do?
We had the PayDay hack - and solved it completely. The problem is - the SERPs have over 3,000 URLs pointing to 404 on our website all of which have urls that are like this: <cite>www.onssi.com/2012/2/post1639/payday-loan-companies-us</cite> What should I do? Should I disavow every one of the 3,000? No Follow?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Ocularis0 -
Copied Content/ Copied Website/
Hello guys, I was checking my product descriptions and I found out that there is a website that is using my descriptions word by word, also they use company name, product images, they have a link that sends you to my site, contact form.. I tried to purchase something and the order came through our email, but i made an inquire and it didn't come through. Also they have a sub-folder with my company name. Also they have url's with my company name, and this isn't right is it? I am confused and honestly I don't know what to do, we don't take part to any affiliation program or anything like that and we don't ship out of Europe. This is a Chinese website. Just for curiosity, I noticed that one of our competitors is there as well, and it does seem weird. Here is the links: www.everychina . com/company/repsole_limited-hz1405d06.html
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | PremioOscar0 -
Blogger Reviews w/ Links - Considered a Paid Link?
As part of my daily routine, I checked out inbound.org and stumbled upon an article about Grey Hat SEO techniques. One of the techniques mentioned was sending product to a blogger for review. My question is whether these types of links are really considered paid links. Why shouldn't an e-commerce company evangelize its product by sending to bloggers whose readership is the demographic the company is trying to target? In pre e-commerce marketing, it was very typical for a start-up company to send samples for review. Additionally, as far as flow of commerce is concerned, it makes sense for a product review to direct the reader to the company, whether by including a contact phone number, a mailing address, or in today's e-commerce world, a link to their website. I understand the gaming potential here (as with most SEO techniques, black-hat is usually an extreme implementation), but backlinks from honest product reviews shouldn't have a tinge of black, thus keeping it white-hat. Am I wrong here? Are these types of links really grey? Any help or insight is much appreciated!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | b40040400 -
Powered by/Credit backlinks and nofollow
Pseudo question: I have a website that has 100K pages. On about 50K of those pages I have information that is fed to me via an outside 3rd-party website. Now, I like to give credit where credit is due, so I add a backlink to the website that is feeding me this content. A simple backlink like so: Information provided by: Company ABC Now, this 3rd-party website wants me to remove the nofollow tags from the backlink, but I am very, very skeptical because to me, sending ~50K dofollow backlinks to a single site might make the Google monster upset with me. This 3rd-party site is being very hard-headed about this, to the point where I am thinking of terminating the relationship all together. I digress. Scoured the net before writing this, but couldn't really find anything directly related to my issue. Thoughts? Is a nofollow required here? We're not talking 1 or 2 links here; we're talking tens of thousands (50K is low; it will probably be upwards of 100K when all is said and done as my site has many, many pages). Thanks in advance.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | THB0 -
Penguin Update Seems To Benefit Wikipedia Etc
I was updating product info on my site which was apparently hammered by Penguin. As I was updating I was "Googling" the products. I noticed that every single product I carry, Wikipedia held the #1 position in search results. Anyone else noticing this? I previously held the number 1 position on 2 of my products but I was knocked down to 60+...
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | chronicle0 -
Publishing Press Releases after Google Panda 2.5
For the past few years I have been publish press releases on my site for a number of business. I have high traffic on my site. I noticed that with the Google Panda 2.5 update PRNewswire.com dropped visibility by 83%. Should I stay away from publishing press releases now? Does Google consider Press Releases to be "content scraping" since multiple sources are publishing the release?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BeTheBoss2 -
Which of these elements are good / bad link building practices?
Hi, I need some help. I recently got some help with an seo project from a contractor. He did 50 directory submissions and 50 article submissions. I got good results, going up about 20 places (still a long way to the first page!) on google.co.uk on a tough key word Since this project I learned article marketing is not cool. So I am wondering about what I should do next. The contractor has proposed a new bigger project consisting of the elements listed below. I don’t know which of these elements are ok and which aren’t. If they are not ok are they: 1) a waste of time or 2) something I could get penalized for? Let me know what you think?? Thanks, Andrew 100 ARTICLE SUBMISSIONS [APPROVED ARTICLES] -> 1 article submitted to 100 article directories 50 PRESS RELEASE SUBMISSIONS [APPROVED & SCREENSHOTS]-> 1 PR writing & submissions to top 50 PR distribution sites each 150 PRIVATE BLOGS SUBMISSION [APPROVED ARTICLES] -> 1 article submitted to 150 private blogs submission 100 WEBSITE DIRECTORY SUBMISSION -> 1 url (home page) submitted to 100 top free web directories 50 SOCIAL BOOKMARKING [CONFIRMED LINKS] -> 1 url of site submitted to top 50 social bookmarking websites 40 PROFILE BACK-LINKS [CONFIRMED LINKS] -> 1-3 url's of site submitted and create 40 profile websites 50 SEARCH ENGINES -> submission to all the major search engines 20 NEWS WEBSITES -> Ping all links from reports to news websites
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | fleurya0