Mobile Friendly Penalty?
-
My website, http://www.stephita.com/ used to appear on the first page of my "locally" searched terms on www.google.ca. Specifically, when users searched for "wedding invitations", we would appear between 1-3 on the rankings.
Sadly, I "ignored warnings" of making my site "mobile friendly" for too long, and only recently made drastic changes to my site to get it to "mobile friendly" status.
So, I've fallen far in the SERP, down to the dreaded second page, for my keyword search: "wedding invitations".
The "mobile friendly" version of my site has been up and running for about 1 month now. My site's home/index page has a PR3, compared to all the other sites that have leaped frogged mine are all at PR1.
Does anybody know the likelihood that my site will ever see the page 1 daylight again? Or has Google Penalized my rankings
Very much appreciated any help the community can provide!
-
Hi Chris,
I appreciate you giving me the feedback on my site issues. I've rectified a few, and will thoroughly go through my site to ensure it complies with the suggestions.
What is the likelihood that once Google sees that the page is cleaner, will my site jump back up to the top? Does the PR3 still factor in SERP?
Thanks!
-
Hi Tyson,
You won't get penalised for having a website that isn't mobile-friendly, what you can expect to see though is poor(er) rankings for searches from a mobile device.
I've had a quick look at your site and the reason for your ranking drops is going to be far more to do with keyword spam and thin content than anything else.
Page Titles & Meta Descriptions For example, this page title for one of the invitations pages:
Wedding Invitations in Vaughan - Stephita Invitations Online, Toronto, Richmond Hill, Markham, Scarborough, Mississauga, Thornhill, Etobicoke, York, East York, Woodbridge, Vaughan, Concord, North York, Maple, New York, Barrie, Ajax, Pickering, Oakville, Newmarket, Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Montreal, Ontario, Canada, Handmade, Wedding Invitations, Thank-you Cards, Save the date, Menus, Programs, Placecards, Stationary, Stationery, Pocketfolds, Pocketfold, Trifold, Tri-fold, Trifolds, Tri-folds
The meta descriptions are very much the same. As a rough guide (length is based on pixels, not characters), page titles should be kept to a max of around 55 characters. The above is 501 characters, by comparison.
These guides are great resources for writing page titles and metas:
Thin Content
The other major factor I noticed was thin content. Of the landing pages I opened, they seemed to have ~100 - 400 words which can be enough if done very well, but I typically suggest more like 1000+ words for your landing pages, making sure you answer all the common questions you users might have about each product. Make the content genuinely helpful for users rather than just telling them all about your business
404s (Broken Links)
There are a few broken links on the site, pointing to the following pages:
http://www.stephita.com/img/swatch/paper_japanese/268.jpg
http://www.stephita.com/img/swatch/paper_japanese/449.jpg
http://www.stephita.com/img/swatch/paper_japanese/460.jpg
http://www.stephita.com/img/swatch/ribbon/488.jpg
http://www.stephita.com/img/swatch/ribbon/489.jpg
http://www.stephita.com/img/swatch/ribbon/490.jpg
http://www.stephita.com/img/swatch/ribbon/644.jpgThe above are images that must have been either moved, removed or renamed. Each of them are referenced on the Swatches page.
Also, they're actually showing me a "soft 404" meaning rather than present me with a 404 page to suggest I clicked a broken link, it keeps that link in the address bar but shows me the home page. Very confusing from the user's perspective since it looks like they've gone to the page they tried clicking yet it's identical to the home page (because it is the home page... kind of!) If you copy/paste one of the above links into your browser, you'll see what I mean.
302 Redirections
If a page is being permanently removed and you want to redirect traffic, strength and search engines to another, you should always use a 301 redirect (a 301 is a permanent redirect) rather than the current 302's (temporary redirect).
This is quite a minor detail compared to the other issues but something to mention anyhow.
Helpful Tools You'll find these tools handy in fixing these issues up and perhaps identifying more with a thorough look through everything.
Moz On-Page Grader - This one will give you a "grade" for your onsite optimisation and highlight potential issues. Screaming Frog SEO Spider - This too will crawl your site much like a search engine and show you a bunch of elements they can "see". It's great to see an overview of all the elements I've listed and so many more.
I know this isn't really what you were looking for but it is the answer I'm afraid. I hope you find it helpful!
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
-
Content Page URL Question
Our main website is geared toward the city where we are located and includes the city name in content page URLs. We also have separate websites for three surrounding cities; these websites have duplicate content except the city name: MainWebsite.com
Local Website Optimization | | sharon75025
City2-MainWebsite.com
City3-MainWebsite.com
City4-MainWebsite.com We're restructuring to eliminate the location websites and only use the main website. The new site will have city pages. We have well established Google business locations for all four cities. We will keep all locations, replacing the location website with the main website. Should we remove City-IL from all content page URLs in the new site? We don't want to lose traffic/ranking for City2 or City3 because the content pages have City1 in the URL. Page URLs are currently formatted as follows: www.MainWebsite.com/Service-1-City1-IL.html
www.MainWebsite.com/Service-2-City1-IL.html
www.MainWebsite.com/Service-3-City1-IL.html
www.MainWebsite.com/Service-4-City1-IL.html Thanks!0 -
I have created a simple website, but one of the panels moves
All right, I've created a simple website (http://fontvilla.com) and I have had a problem for personal reasons. When you execute the code below and see the whiteboard at the right-hand side labeled as the.newsLetter and change the screen size, it moves away unlike that I have just floated right above. But if I float this one right then it floats to the middle of the screen, so works as I want it. In order to do that, I am going to make this reactive, and need to have it like the one above. You got a fix...?? Help, please! Thank you. Thank you. <title></span></p> <p><span>Home </span></p> <p><span></title> <nav> Contact Products About Home </nav> Here is just a simple title This is just a little bit of dummy text. This is just a little bit of dummy text. This is just a little bit of dummy text. This is just a little bit of dummy text. Welcome to A dummy website!! Latest News March 28, 2015 New advanced update with double speed and a whole bunch of cool new st.. more>> March 28, 2015 New advanced update with double speed and a whole bunch of cool new st.. more>>
Local Website Optimization | | fbowable0 -
Meta descriptions in other languages than the page's content?
Hi guys, I need an opinion on the optimization of meta descriptions for a website available in 6 languages that faces the following situation: Main pages are translated in 6 languages, English being primary >> all clear here. BUT The News section includes articles only in English, that are displayed as such on all other language versions of the website. Example:
Local Website Optimization | | Andreea-M
website.com/en/news/article 1
website.com/de/neues/article 1
website.com/fr/nouvelles/article 1
etc. Because we don't have the budget right now to translate all content, I was wondering if I could add only the Meta Titles and Meta Descriptions in the specific languages (using Google Translate), while the content to remain in English. Would this be accepted as reasonable enough for Google, or would it affect the website ranking?
I'd like to avoid major mistakes, so I'm hoping someone here on this forum has a better idea of how to proceed in this case.0 -
How to Get 1st Page Google Rankings for a Local Company?
Hi guys, I'm owning a London removal company - Mega Removals and wants to achieve 1st page rankings on Google UK for keywords like: "removals London", "removal company London", "house removals London" but have no success so far. I need professional advice on how to do it. Should I hire an SEO or should focus on content? I will be very grateful for your help.
Local Website Optimization | | nanton1 -
How many backlinks from one domain?
How many backlinks from one domain is too many? 1? 3? 10? For example, directory listings. If you have 5 separate links to one website in lets say DMOZ (good for you!), is it really only "juicy" one time? Or each one just as awesome? What about multiple guest articles on a related website? If I had 2 or 3 articles on one website that each have different contextual links, is it just the same as if I had one article?
Local Website Optimization | | Cantor-Crane0 -
Diagnosing a likely Penguin Penalty that's never been recovered from
The context: my market Here, for reference, is what I’d like to see with my website (New York Jazz Events), and I think I deserve to see: https://www.dropbox.com/s/1gf2ajw80iciqii/Screenshot 2015-11-27 12.09.08.png?dl=0 Intrigued by that screenshot? Please read further! I have only a few competitors in my market (jazz bands offered in the city of New York for corporate events and weddings), those being Gigmasters, Gigsalad, and Thumbtack. (Each of those three, by the way, are much more general sites than mine (they offer everything from musicians to jugglers), and should be behind me if one is ranking based on quality and relevance.) Of the next nearest type of competitor, single, individual jazz (which also should be behind me if one is ranking based on quality and relevance), there are a dozen or so. The context: my plans No matter what, at the least I’m going to be doing a complete modernization and redesign of my site soon. Please refer to the following screenshot of my Google organic traffic throughout the life of my site while reading the account that follows: https://www.evernote.com/l/AAOQpSw8Hn9DGpCQAt5onH9WMBiwGTDcCk8 What I’d like to find out: exactly what caused the Penguin penalty (if there was one); exactly what would remove it and restore my site to its previous standing. You can see that when my site launched, it only took four months (12/10-4/11) for it to consistently, and seemingly effortlessly, ranking 5th or 6th in Google for the most important keyword combinations related to my industry (such as “jazz band new york,” “jazz trio new york,” “jazz wedding new york”). That's for a new site with no backlinks. From this I inferred that there is little to no direct competition in this market (i.e., jazz bands in New York marketed specifically for weddings and corporate events). Then, around November of 2013, I paid for some bogus links (51 to be exact) to these keyword combinations in order to improve the ranking of my site, which worked briefly (see Google Analytics screenshot, January 13) until Penguin launched the following Spring, at which time my site was essentially removed from the search results altogether due to an apparent algorithmic (not manual) penalty which I presumed were due to these links (although I could be wrong, it could be penalized due to something else that I don’t understand). After removing most of the bad links (down to 3 from 51, see https://www.dropbox.com/s/kolb665rth47q11/bad links 2013-10-24 explorer.numbers?dl=0) and disavowing all the offending URLs, and after Penguin updated to 3.0, Google still failed to recognize my site, with one odd exception: in Fall of 2014 it began to place the keyword combination "jazz bands new york" ("bands" plural, not singular) back on page one, and tied it to a completely undeveloped Google Plus page with zero reviews on it, that it displayed simultaiously (the “knowledge graph?” or “maps listing”?). (Google works in some strange and not very intelligible ways. For example, in a searcher removed the “s” from “bands” and the site remained banished from the results altogether. The same is true for every other keyword variation.) Encouraged by this unexpected development, last Winter (2014-15) and Spring (2015), I developed my Google Plus Local Business page with lots of useful videos and photos, increased the review count from 0 to 13 (all real and all five star, by the way), linked my YouTube page to it, and, on Google’s advice and against my better judgment, closed down my other Google Plus Local Business pages related to other business services I market on the web (I’m a graphic designer and videographer in addition to being a bandleader). (Unhelpfully, Google keeps them in the search results but just marks them as “closed.” Thanks so much, Google. I probably could have left them up.) I also made a massive effort to clean-up my local directory listings so far as possible, removing listings for my competing businesses (again, against my better judgment), making the format of my business address and contact information consistent so far as possible (I'm a service business and so hide my full address when possible, but this is not always possible depending on the policies of the particular citation website, hence some inconsistencies), and added this information to the footer of all the pages on my site. After making these improvements, rather than improving my rankings, my site was entirely removed from the first several pages of Google’s search results, including for the keyword combination "jazz bands new york.” On occasions when my site could be located (several pages down), it was no longer associated with my Google Plus Local Business page, unless one searched specifically for my site’s name, New York Jazz Events (which nobody does, because 99.9% of people searching on Google don't know my business name). Some questions this raised in my mind: Why did Google make a link between my site and my Google Plus Local Business page back when the page was undeveloped? Why did Google then break that link (stop the association my website with their business page (or knowledge graph, or maps listing, whichever it is now), apart from the exception noted above) once the Google Plus Local Business page was developed? And indeed, why wouldn't developing that page, along with cleaning up my citations, logically result in more search term combinations bringing my results back to the first page, along with the link to the Google Plus Local Business page, rather than the opposite? Then, unexpectedly, this last November my website rank for "jazz bands new york" in Google briefly returned from "buried" all the way to #1! And the 1st page of the search results was dominated by my site in three places, all #1: the top spot for paid ads (as usual), the very top of the natural search results (first time ever), and the top and only local listing, on the right! I was even ahead of two giant national corporate competitors, which would seem to be impossible to me as they probably have thousands of backlinks. I basically “owned” page one of Google to an extent I’ve never seen for anyone before. It was actually a bit bizarre. You can see this here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/1gf2ajw80iciqii/Screenshot 2015-11-27 12.09.08.png?dl=0 Now, what is also bizarre, was that, as before, I was still buried for every other keyword combination that's relevant to my site, including extremely similar combinations (for example, substituting "band" for "bands," or "NYC" for "New York," etc.). These keyword combinations essentially return the exact same results, only with my site missing from organic and local. As I mentioned, these astonishing results were temporary, and now my site is again buried for all keyword combinations including the once and sometimes astonishingly-performing “jazz bands new york.” Something else interesting and relevant to this conundrum: I’ve done searches for all my three major keyword search terms in Bing, and guess what? In the top three results for two out of the three of my search terms in organic results, with my Bing local listing right up there, and my other website (NYCJazz.com) not far behind! Now, it's strange to me that these incredibly great (and, as far as I'm concerned, high quality) Bing rankings lead to no inquiries, that nearly all of my customers find me from my paid advertising in Google, but that's another bafflement for another day… what is relevant to this discussion, is that my Bing results makes the essential invisibility of my website and my local business listing in Google's natural results all the more baffling. One could speculate that Google is a more sophisticated search engine and is returning more relevant results, except that that's not true… my site is in fact the most relevant for those terms (or at least, to be generous, in the top few in terms of relevance). And in the past, before Penguin, it used to be in the top few results in Google, just like in Bing. It's hard for me to swallow that I'm just lacking in proper SEO, when it used to rank great, when I've subsequently been working hard to further improve the SEO for years, and it's a top site everywhere else. Something has to be up with Google… I wish I knew what it was and what I could do… What I have done already: I’ve worked hard over the last five years cleaning up bad backlinks and making citations consistent. I think I understand well my most important keywords already, and have my pages optimized for them. I understand on-page optimization and think my site’s in pretty good shape in that regard (and I will further improve the on page optimization when I redesign it very soon.) It could use more good backlinks, but that’s a problem for the future as far as I’m concerned, and not related to the penalty in any case. I understand AdWords well and my ad is at the top of the search results consistently for all relevant keywords, so I don’t need any help there… Anyone who may have any insight to this… thanks very much in advance!
Local Website Optimization | | ChuckBraman0 -
Content spinning or duplicate content — a potential penalty or a safe technique?
Currently I’m working on the local UK business website www.londonlocksmith.london and I have to say a few practises of the competition got me confused. For example websites like these:
Local Website Optimization | | PayPro
http://lambeth-trusted-local-locksmith.co.uk/
http://clapham-trusted-local-locksmith.co.uk/
http://streathamhill-trusted-local-locksmith.co.uk/
http://hernehillse24-trustedlocallocksmith.co.uk/ All of them rank decent for the main regional keyword (e.g. Lambeth locksmith) and have an ok-ish DA. But as you scroll through these websites you see that the content is the same for all of them except for the location name, plus they all link to each other (see the footer). Now my question is: can this be a good technique for higher local ranking by creating dedicated websites (not just landing pages) with the target keyword in the domain name? And also: what is your experience with such ways of keyword targeting; what do you think in general about content spinning for local services with high competition?; what are your suggestions?0