What do you think about SEO of big sites ?
-
Hi,
I was doing some research of new huge sites for example carstory.com that have over million pages and i notice that many new sites have strong growing for number of keywords and then at some point everything start going down
(Image of traffic drop attached)
there are no major updates at this time but you can clearly see even on recent kewyords changes that this site start loosing keywords every day , so number of new keywords are much less that lost keywords.
How would you explain it ? Is that at some point when site have more than X number of indexed pages then power of domain is not enough to keep all of them at the top and those keywords start dropping ?
Please share you opinion and if you have any experience by yourself with huge sites.
Thank You very appreciated
-
It sounds to me like you need to do a Content Audit with the goal of pruning out all pages with zero traffic and zero links from the index. See the following resources:
How To Do a Content Audit - Step by Step (Moz)
Classic Content Audit Articles (Linked-In)
Content Audit Case Studies (Linked-In)
Using URL Profiler for Content Audits ( URL Profiler)
Here's the slide deck for a presentation I gave last year about them.
Here's a recording of a webinar with the presentation above.
Common Content Audit Strategies I think the site you described would be considered Extra Large with a Penalty "Risk" so this is what the tool recommends:
"Focus: Prioritization of Pages for Content Optimization. Are you SURE there is no content-based penalty risk?
Most sites with this many pages have major content issues, meaning this would be the wrong “situation” for them. In the rare case that they don’t, prioritize the pages based on rankings, traffic potential, revenue… and propose how many to improve each month with ongoing copywriting and on-page optimization." -
Hi Dani,
As John mentioned, there are so many factors involved that it's very tough to accurately pinpoint the reasons why a site might start losing rankings.
To answer your question directly - no, there is no tipping point where your link profile just isn't strong enough to carry a certain volume of pages. There is a similar scenario that could happen but I'll get to that in a moment.
The other thing is that to my knowledge, the traffic data in Ahrefs isn't 100% accurate like Analytics, it's more of an estimation based on extrapolating a smaller pool of data. I'm not completely sure about this but that's my understanding. Basically, the drops you're seeing might not actually be as pronounced as the graph indicates.
So, the type of scenario where there are "too many pages" is moreso related to the user experience. If you're creating large volumes of pages just for "better SEO", you're going to have a bad time. If your site has 20 real pages and 80 pages just targeting a keyword then this is where you're like to start seeing a drop in your rankings as the overall quality signals on your site begin to dip.
Users don't enjoy keyword-heavy and redundant pages and the metrics will demonstrate this to search engines very quickly.
You should always be looking to improve the strength of your link profile, but if you're worried about creating too many pages, don't be. Create the pages that make sense for the user, provide a great user experience and you'll be fine.
-
There are too many factors in rankings hence too think one factor is the answer is rarely the way forward.
Do a google search site: That will give you a rough idea of page authority & no. of pages indexed.
I recommend to stop trying to find one "short cut" answer, step back do a site audit - properly identify what is going on. It could be that competitors are now all mobile friendly... so they now rank better. It could be anything. Slow down do it properly, if you think it is domain authority alone, whilst doing a site audit obtain a relevant high authority backlink and see if that assists.
-
So you dont think its just domain authority (page rank) is not enough power to spread across all pages ? like when site has less pages power was enough and rankings climb up but when too many pages been indexed then it wasnt enough to spread across all pages ?
-
Then I would go back to the landing page experience. What is your conversions rate? Are they averaging over 5 minutes on site or less... How many page views? Are page views increasing? A factor in seo is the landing page experience and how long the customers stick around and what they do. There was a site called jabong in india that had a similar issue - they kept improving the landing page experience and all the metrics slowly turned around.
If it not that you have to go back to basics and do a site audit, which you should do annually anyway. https://moz.com/blog/technical-site-audit-for-2015
Hope that assists.
-
Hi,
Thanks for reply. I dont think its seasonal because its a clear that site loosing keywords in google everyday. So at some point at the beginning there was a boost and site was getting more new keywords each day than its been loosing, and now its loosing more than gaining.
-
Firstly there is not enough shared information.
That said we manage several large sites and there are times were they are static and there are dips, but seasonal factors are huge for most large sites, from education to health insurance. So have you accounted for seasonal factors? Also the traffic growth is exponential at the start and from an outside point of view it seems that the landing page experience is not strong enough or not answering the searchers queries.
I would do a deep dive into onsite behavioral analytics and see how long they are staying on, and where dropping off. In short look for pogo sticking.
Hope that assists.
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
-
Looking for SEO advice on Negative SEO attack. Technical SEO
please see this link https://www.dropbox.com/s/thgy57zmmwzodcp/Screenshot 2016-05-31 13.25.23.png?dl=0 you can see my domain is getting tons of chinese spam. I have 410'd the page but it still keeps coming.. 7tnawRV
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mattguitar990 -
XML Sitemap Questions For Big Site
Hey Guys, I have a few question about XML Sitemaps. For a social site that is going to have presonal accounts created, what is the best way to get them indexed? When it comes to profiles I found out that twitter (https://twitter.com/i/directory/profiles) and facebook (https://www.facebook.com/find-friends?ref=pf) have directory pages, but Google plus has xml index pages (http://www.gstatic.com/s2/sitemaps/profiles-sitemap.xml). If we go the XML route, how would we automatically add new profiles to the sitemap? Or is the only option to keep updating your xml profiles using a third party software (sitemapwriter)? If a user chooses to not have their profile indexed (by default it will be index-able), how do we go about deindexing that profile? Is their an automatic way of doing this? Lastly, has anyone dappled with google sitemap generator (https://code.google.com/p/googlesitemapgenerator/) if so do you recommend it? Thank you!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | keywordwizzard0 -
What happens when I redirect an entire site to an established page on another site?
Hi There, I have a website which is dedicated to selling ONE product (in different forms) or my main brand site. It is branded similarly, targets similar keywords, and gets some traffic which convert to leads. Additionally, the auxiliary site has a Google Rank 2 in its own right. I am thinking of consolidating this "auxillary" site to the specific product page on my main site. The reason I am considering doing this is to give a "boost" to the main product page on our main site which has many core keywords sitting with SERP ranking of between 11-20 (so not in first 10) Because this auxiliary site it gets traffic and leads in its own right, I don't want this to be to the detriment of my leads overall. Question is - if I 301 redirect the entire domain from my auxillary site to the equivalent product on my main site am I likely to see a large "boost" to that product page? (i.e. will I likely see my ranking rise from 11 - 20 significantly)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | love-seo-goodness0 -
HTML5 one page website on-site SEO
Hey guys, If for example, I'm faced with a client who has a website similar to: http://www.symphonyonline.co.uk/ How should I proceed with the on-site optimization? Should I create new pages on the website? Should I create a blog for the site to increase my reach? Please give me your tips on how to proceed with this kind of website. Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BruLee0 -
Franchise sites on subdomains
I've been asked by a client to optimise a a webpage for a location i.e. London. Turns out that the location is actually a franchise of the main company. When the company launch a new franchise, so far they have simply added a new page to the main site, for example: mysite.co.uk/sub-folder/london They have so far done this for 10 or so franchises and task someone with optimising that page for their main keyword + location. I think I know the answer to this, but would like to get a back up / additional info on it in terms of ranking / seo benefits. I am going to suggest the idea of using a subdomain for each location, example: london.mysite.co.uk Would this be the correct approach. If you think yes, why? Many thanks,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Webrevolve0 -
Best way to host multiple sites for maximum seo
We have over 100 websites we built for clients that we currently host on 1 shared godaddy hosting account. They each have a link to us but since they are all under one shared account, we feel that we are not maximizing the inbound link potential. I've looked into c class hosting but found that either the ip's were flagged as spam, or they shared nameservers which defeats the purpose. I've also been told that since the c class ip's a hosting company gives to you are all owned by them, that also defeats the purpose. Anyone have any solutions besides opening 130 accounts with different hosting companies? Also, will it make any difference changing existing sites onto different hosts now or are they already tainted?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seopet0 -
SEO for Log in Sites
Hello, I just lunched a website where you have to sign up and to log in in order to use it. So I have the home, also a blog but then the rest of the pages are let's say it "hidden".How would you do the seo for it? I have been cheking facebook, foursquare and some others and they use different approaches. Facebook uses the same description in every single page for example. My site is similar to foursquare users have profile, stats, history, ranking. Well, what is your advice?? Thanks a lot
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | antorome0 -
Can you advise why my site get outranked by sites with way less authority and so on
Hello SeoMoz, As a new member I first want to thank you guys for your service, seomoz is by far the best resource and toolbox I have ever found. I have a question, or more of a request if you could advise me on what I do wrong.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DennisForte
I have a website: www.letsflycheaper.com with a Domain Authority of 80, and my target keywords are keywords like: cheap business class, business class flights.
My target page is: www.letsflycheaper.com/business-class.php. With all my keywords I am page 2 and I have a real hard time getting on the first page, but if I look at my competitors like: www.wholesale-flights.com with a Domain Authority of 'just' 50, crappy backlinks and so on, they are all on the first page with almost all of my keywords that I want to target. What do I do wrong? Can you maybe give me a couple tips on where I should focus on more? Hopefully you guys can help me... Kind Regards, Ramon van Meer0