Panda Penalty Recovery?
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My site: www.stephita.com, is based in Toronto, Canada.
It used to rank top 3 in local and national searches for "wedding invitations" and "wedding invitations toronto". I've now been placed on the dreaded page 2 ;|
I didn't keep up with the times and news, and wasn't aware of Google Panda Penalty until earlier this year
So, I've cleaned up most of my site with what I suspect what caused me to drop:
a) Cloaking pages - I had PHP script generate about 1000 pages of "cloaked" pages. This has been removed, and I've used Google webmaster tools to "remove" the directory as well.
b) Duplicate Content pages - (not cloaked, but I've done content writing on the majority of my product pages)
The 2 items above is what I "assume" caused a Google Penalty... I started this cleanup endeavour late January, and with the content writing to remove what MOZ tools notices as duplicate pages.
I've read online that Panda is now part of the search algorithm. So does that mean, ideally, I should start seeing "better" ranking results now? Or is there a process I should be following and submitting my site for "reconsideration"?
Thanks all!
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If it is Panda then cleaning up the site to make it more useful is your best bet.
- Make sure the design is clean.
- Make sure the writing is answering the user's question, and that it's well written.
- Make sure that the function of the page matches the search query.
Fixing these things should result in an eventual improvement in rankings.
If you were cloaking, that could be a penalty all by itself. Make sure to fix anything shady, and consider whether non-standard implementations or architecture could have confused Googlebot or made it look like you were trying to manipulate rankings. Check Webmaster tools for any warnings or manual penalties for sure.
You can also cross-reference drops in traffic to what others have seen on similar dates to make sure it was Panda.
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There may be other technical issues or algorithm updates in play here. If you haven't done so already, you should check your Analytics against the dates of any algorithm updates using one of the links below.
If you're confident that it's a Panda issue, one of the best guides I've seen is http://www.thesempost.com/understanding-google-panda-definitive-algo-guide-for-seos/.
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