Google traffic drops (October 24th 2014) - Penguin 3.0?

[seowoody]

Hi All

My client's site http://www.carismaautodesign.com took a bit of a knock around 24th October 2014. Google organic traffic down by ~32%.

I am trying to understand if site has been hit by a Penguin refresh (3.0) - and if so why?
If it was, it would appear to be a false negative as the site and backlink profile is clean.

The content is perhaps the only area in question... as it's more of a brochure site, therefore content is relatively thin and promotional rather than in-depth/editorial.

For example, the gallery pages are very similar in structure, with the images and specification text being the only variation, click on any of the vehicle interiors to see what I mean - http://www.carismaautodesign.com/gallery/mercedes/viano/

You will see the specification text is unique per vehicle interior, but not hugely; Then how could it be? The interiors all contain the same elements just a variation in seating, leather colour, stiching, wood finish etc.

Question: Do you think...

a.) This IS NOT a Penguin issue but something else (please ellaborate)
b.) This IS a Penguin issue but a false-negative, so do nothing, this will bounce back with next Penguin refresh
c.) This IS a Penguin issue related to content. Merge all gallery pages into one page per vehicle (i.e. one Mercedes Viano Interior page, with all 19 interior galleries as part of the page - thus building one stronger page with more intro text and simple bulleted specification per gallery)
d.) This IS a Penguin issue related to something else (please ellaborate)

Thanks,

[BBEXNinja]

Reviewing your client's backlink profile, I simply don't think the site has enough inbound links to trigger a Penguin hit. Sites that get hit by Penguin usually have very obvious patterns of link/anchor text manipulation, and I just don't see it. When it comes to Penguin-impacted sites, I usually see tens of thousands of inbound links coming from just a few hundred domains and an overcrowding of money keyword anchor texts.

Looking over the anchor texts, I see very few money keywords (what Penguin typically goes after). I would be very surprised if this was a direct Penguin issue.

Perhaps competitors that were previously held back by Penguin have recovered and are now ranking above you? I find that the Google penalty checker by Fruition.net is very useful for detecting whether a site was positively, negatively or directly impacted by a particular Google update.

[MonicaOConnor]

Searchers need content. Ask for product reviews and get them on page. This will help your content issue. If you add product reviews make sure you use an aggregate app that actually puts the reviews on page so that they can be crawled. This is great unique content.

[seowoody]

Thanks for your suggestions.

[seowoody]

Hi Monica

No messages in GWT.

There is a a possibility that when Penguin 3.0 rolled out it gave other sites with better link profiles a boost over your site. A site with a stronger link profile and better content will out rank you even if their DA is lower.

I think this is most likely combined with the Panda 4.1 rollout perhaps targeting the thin gallery pages.

The challenge we have is how to write engaging relevant/semantic content around 19 variations of the same product, when the gallery content is "brochure style" built for users, not search engines.

[MonicaOConnor]

For the competition of the key terms you are trying to rank for, I don't believe you have a strong enough link profile. I also think some great content would improve your rankings.

Penguin 3.0 targeted "link neighborhoods". There is a chance you are suffering for someone else's bad link profile. You can check your linking root domains in Open Site Explorer.

Panda 4.1 is still technically rolling out. You can be hit with Panda effects still, even though the update rolled out 9/25. There are also small algo updates that happen all the time. Do you have any messages in GWT? If you don't then I wouldn't necessarily jump on blaming algo updates for the traffic and rankings loss.

There is a a possibility that when Penguin 3.0 rolled out it gave other sites with better link profiles a boost over your site. A site with a stronger link profile and better content will out rank you even if their DA is lower.

[Party_Experts]

Sorry that was my mistake, I was only testing the Gallery Page and only quickly looked over it - sorry about that.

I fully agree with you that links are not the issue as i can't see enough 'spammy' links pointing to your site for Penguin to punish you. But just to completely rule out Penguin, have you done a full back link audit with Webmaster tools?

It does look like it is content related though, Panda was updated around the end of September but this is a roll out rather than an instant hit, it may have taken time for it to take effect

check out the Panguin Tool - This cross references your site traffic with ALL Google updates it could give you a better picture.

If your links are clean good quality and relevant there should be no reason why you would have a Penguin Penalty. Do you have any messages in WMT?

I would concentrate on building the site content though, from what i can see and what you've said it's quite thin and you will definitely see benefits if you build it up.

[seowoody]

So from what I can see you don't have that many backlinks and the one ones you have are mostly from one website. But with a DA of 42 the inbound links seem relevant and good  quality.

Where are you seeing this data?

http://www.carismaautodesign.com has:

178 links from 37 RD's (Moz's Open Site Explorer Data)
282 links from 115 RD's (Ahrefs Data)
406 links from 88 RD's (Majestics Data)

With links from some DA 90+ domains include ft.com, telegraph.co.uk, nydailynews.com, autoexpress.co.uk to name but a few.

I don't think links is the issue here, which makes me think content perhaps is, but as far as I can see, there was no content related Google updates (which would affect this site) around the time of the drop?

Thanks,

[Party_Experts]

Ok yeah I see.

So from what I can see you don't have that many backlinks and the one ones you have are mostly from one website. But with a DA of 42 the inbound links seem relevant and good  quality.

You do need to work on a backlink strategy though as i don't believe you have enough to have a big enough effect to see a boost in rankings. The more good quality links you have the more chance you have of ranking - That's the Penguin side of things.

As for Panda - Each page does seem to have its own unique content, although the layout is the same, this shouldn't have much of a negative effect as long as the content on each page is original.

What I can't see though is keywords.

for example your Mercedes Gallery page (http://www.carismaautodesign.com/gallery/mercedes/) has no content at all. Google can't read Images so this is very thin content. You could have a paragraph at the top talking about what the user might find on the page.

Even the 'News' page is all image based.

My advise would be to get writing content, original relevant good quality content, use your News page as a sort of Blog and use links within that to link to other pages on your site.

Sorry I may have missed a lot of points but i hope this kind of steers you in the right direction

[seowoody]

Hi there,

Thanks for contributing.
Yes (good point made), I had checked keywords and yes they have all dropped. Some keywords more dramatic than others, see graph for example of "Volkswagen Transporter Conversion" which dropped from #20 down to #37 in google.en-UK and google.en-US.

Bing no where near so dramatic and some keywords even increased during this time.

[Party_Experts]

You can't really tell if you have a penalty based on traffic alone, before you start jumping to the worst case scenario check your keywords.

If you have a penalty your keywords would have dropped dramatically. But if your keywords are still ranking retentively normal than you might want to explore other options for your traffic loss.

Also Penguin doesn't look for content that's Panda's job, Penguin is more looking for spammy links that aren't relative or natural.