How can I tell where I was penalised?
-
It seems for sometime now I have not been showing up the top for my keywords when I use to be ranking #1 and #2 for my main keywords, however now, I don't show up anywhere - this has been for almost a year now, can anyone tell me how I can find out (apart from google web masters tools) where I was penalised?
Thanks
-
I personally would start by using the Panguin tool which gives an overlay of your Google Analytics - make sure you set your date back enough to cover the time prior to when you got hit in order to see if you have been hurt by any of the updates. I have been using this tool for several years and would definitely recommend it - I have done in several other Moz Q&As previously.
Samuel Scott's response mentions the post by Alan Bleweiss and he mentions this tool in it.
Depending on what your analysis uncovers you may find this an interesting read - http://moz.com/blog/ultimate-guide-to-google-penalty-removal
Hope this helps!
-
Definitely a good idea to check what pages you set up, when you put them together and compare that to the release of known updates to determine whether there is a correlation. If that isn't possible or is very labor intensive, you might do some research into the strategies and tactics you employed a year ago and make sure that they have not become punishable tactics in 2015 - sounds obvious but you never know.
You might also consider a website audit to see if that might illuminate a previously unknown problem.
Best of luck and feel free to ask follow-up questions if you have any.
Rob
-
This recent in-depth case study that was published on Moz is a great place to start -- seriously, it's amazing!
-
Can you pinpoint the date your site started to slip? then check that against: http://moz.com/google-algorithm-change that might help identify if you were hit by panda/penguin etc
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
-
Important category pages that can and should be found in SERP but can not be reached by navigating on the webshop itself
Hi, On a webshop we are optimizing, the main navigation consists of the 5 main categories to which all of the products can be assigned. However, the main tabs in the navigation just activate a drop down with all of the subcategories. For example: the tab in the navigation is 'Garden equipment' and when you click on this tab, the drop down is shown with subcategories like 'Lawn mowers', 'Leaf blowers' and so on. Now, the page 'Garden equipment' is one of the main category pages and we want this page to rank of course. This shouldn't be a problem, since there is a separate URL for this page that can be indexed and that can be reached through internal links on the website. However, this page can not be reached when a visitor initially comes on the homepage of the webshop, since the tab in the navigation isn't clickable. This page will only be reached when a subcategory is selected, and then when the visitor goes back to the category page through the breadcrumb or through an internal link. Is it a problem that these important overview category pages can not be reached immediately? Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Mat_C0 -
Can I undo a 301 redirect? Will it penalize my ranking?
I'm in charge of building a website for a company that made a mess. They own domain xxx.it (xxx is not the real domain, just a placeholder). Some years ago they 301 redirected xxx.it to xxx.com (they just changed TLDs). Last year they 301 redirected xxx.com to yyy.com (so, they actually changed domains). Now, after 13 months, the company failed and the new leadership wants me to undo everything and 301 redirect from yyy.com to xxx.it. So: 301 redirect is permanent. So, conceptually it's wrong to undo it. What happens if I undo it? Will my ranking be penalized, even if a significant amount of time has passed (13 months)? Will crawlers detect a loop (even if i remove any 301 redirect from xxx.it and theorically break the loop)? Here is the potential loop: xxx.it -> xxx.com -> yyy.com -> xxx.it -> etc... All of the articles I found on the web are quite old and not clear about this topic, that's why I'm asking this question.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | naska19900 -
H2 Tags- Can you have more than 1 H2 tag
Hi All, Screaming frog has identified that we have a few H2 tags on our pages , although we only have 1 H1 tag. We have numerous H3,H4's etc. I am wondering, is it good SEO to have only 1 H2 tag like with H1 tag or can you have more ? thanks Peter
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PeteC120 -
Can I put a video transcript into a title tag?
I use wistia.com to embed videos onto my company website. Because of the way I have my page setup, I have to embed my video using the iframe embed option. Since I'm using this option, my video transcript isn't going to be SEO friendly. Can I manually insert a title tag within the video iFrame code with the entire transcript? Would that be a good workaround so that I can have the transcript help my page optimization? Thanks! Andrea
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JimDirectMailCoach0 -
Can anyone help me clean up my link profile?
Hi, I've been struggling with my rankings for some 18 months or so. It seems like the plan is to review my back links and remove or disavow the ones that could be causing my site problems. Unfortunately I neither have the time or expertise to perform this task and wonder if there are any freelancers who could work on this project? I look forward to hearing from anyone.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Aikijeff0 -
Can adding backlinks to your video on youtube increase rank?
Hello, I know that adding many backlinks directly to your money site can be harmful as Google doesn't like it but I want to know that I have a video on each post of my website and my one friend told me that if you add backlinks to your video which is linked to your site than it may be helpful to increase your rankings. Is it true? Please let me know. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | intmktcom0 -
How can a page be top rated for a phrase it does not have?
Hi, While looking to buy a Christmas gift to my wife I was searching for yellow diamonds. Being a bit familiar with SEO I gotta understand how the following page was ranked 4th for "yellow diamonds": http://www.bluenile.com/diamonds/fancy-color-diamonds The phrase yellow diamonds is not mentioned even once! Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeytzNet0 -
My website hasn't been cached for over a month. Can anyone tell me why?
I have been working on an eCommerce site www.fuchia.co.uk. I have asked an earlier question about how to get it working and ranking and I took on board what people said (such as optimising product pages etc...) and I think i'm getting there. The problem I have now is that Google hasn't indexed my site in over a month and the homepage cache is 404'ing when I check it on Google. At the moment there is a problem with the site being live for both WWW and non-WWW versions, i have told google in Webmaster what preferred domain to use and will also be getting developers to do 301 to the preferred domain. Would this be the problem stopping Google properly indexing me? also I'm only having around 30 pages of 137 indexed from the last crawl. Can anyone tell me or suggest why my site hasn't been indexed in such a long time? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SEOAndy0