Used SEOMOZ top 100 Directories, my site ranking lowered, what can we do to fix this?
-
We have made a big mistake.... So what can we do to fix this?
A trainee member of staff has used the seomoz 100 top directories and added to sites from PR10 to PR6 approx about 25 sites, using keywords were possible instead of using the website URL "which i now was stupid!.
Our website ranking have been lowered big time for all keywords used!, eg from 1st to 10th and even disappeared from the top 100
We are contacting all directories asking for the Title link to be changed to the URL instead of a keyword.. Will this help?
I understand that Google give sites a penalty for this!!, but what can i do to put this right and how long would this penalty last for?
Any advice would be highly appreciated...
Thanks
Dean
-
Do you think it could be something to do with the panda update?
My clients are based in the US and Canada so I am not up-to-date on the Panda rollout status in Europe. Hopefully others can offer feedback on that topic.
-
Ryan
We are going to change all the directory links to the url names..
Thank you for your SEO improvement suggestions...
1.footer links = remove
2. cannibalizing your keyword
3. images from a secure server (i will look into this)?
4. verified by visa" and "godaddy secured i will add link to godaddy SSL certificate..
I will make these changes and holpfully see if this improves things..
Do you think it could be something to do with the panda update?
If you think of any thing else that could be knocking us down please let me know...
Thanks Again
Dean
-
Thanks for the additional details Dean.
I need to be absolutely clear regarding "paid" directories. There is a line separating "good" and "bad" directories. Paid directories such as Yahoo, BOTW, Business.com and a few others are perfectly legitimate for Google. These are high quality directories who charge customers for reviewing their site. They have quality standards, and they reject some sites as not meeting those standards. They also do not offer refunds.
Any directory which charges to be listed, guarantees a listing, or offers a refund if you are not listed falls under the category of "paid directories" which would incur a penalty from Google.
With the above understood, is there any possibility your employee included any paid directories? I would suggest reviewing the receipts for any payments made to any directory companies. I suspect one or more directories may have been included which are not on the SEOmoz list. Alternatively, if I recall correctly that list is a few years old and some changes may have occurred with the business practices involved for any given directory service.
I took a brief look at your site and notice many signs of good SEO work, but I also notice many opportunities for improvement. A few quick tips:
-
many of your footer links are spammy. "Moving boxes", "Removal boxes", "storage boxes", "packing boxes", "cardboard boxes", "boxes for moving", "packing boxes for moving" are all anchor texts in your footer, and all of the links point to your home page. I would suggest removing all of them.
-
you are cannibalizing your keywords which has a negative impact on SEO. For example, you have a page on your site /storage-boxes. That page is clearly optimized for the term "storage boxes" yet your footer link points that term to your home page.
-
you are serving your images from a secure server. I believe that causes the images not to be cached which ultimately leads to slower page loads
-
your images for "verified by visa" and "godaddy secured" should be linked images. Users should be able to click the images and verify your site is indeed trusted in those areas. Providing images which are not linked properly is a sign of fraud and should be avoided. If your site has earned those credentials, allow your visitors to easily verify your status by using a properly linked image. If your site has not earned those credentials, remove the images.
-
-
Jacob
Thanks for repsonding
This happened at the begging of August 5th to 10th.. I have experienced this "Google dance" before but only dropping for a couple of days to a week at most and then an increased in ranking, but iv not experienced this for over a month?
I don't think this is the case... ?
Dean
-
Ryan
Thank you for responding..
We are running 4 Sites and 3 have had the same issue apart from one, it seems that only the home pages have been hit on all 3 sites.. internal pages are fine, This happened at the begging of August and the keywords was varied between 3-4 keywords..
We have done nothing different apart from accruing these directories, I have read in previous questions they had penalties for buying these directory links?
At first i though it maybe a panda update? Then i read about penelties for paid directories?
Any advice would be highly apprenticed, as i have come to a standing block?
-
You could be experiencing what is known as the "Google dance". I've noticed many sites will drop several ranks or even pages, only the next day to see they jumped forward 5-15+ ranks from where they started.
-
Hi Dean.
If you used the SEOmoz directory list, it is unlikely your ranking drop was related to any links you earned from those directories. Google can penalize you for paid links, but I am unaware of any directories in the SEOmoz list which violate Google's terms.
The only advice I would offer in using the directories is to vary the anchor text. It is not desirable to use the identical anchor text as those appear quite unnatural. Google obviously understands directory links are not the same as natural links, but it can still be an issue with their algorithmic penalties.
If your staff member varied the keywords, then his efforts are fine. If he or she used the identical keyword or phrase, I would only suggest adjusting it a bit.
While the above is accurate, it does not explain your ranking drop. What other changes have been made to the site? Dropping from 1st to 10th is quite a drop. When exactly was the last time you saw your site at #1 for the keyword? Is it possible there are other issues for which you may have been penalized? Has there been other SEO changes in your site? Or perhaps you were looking at a different search engine?
Without knowing your site URL, the keywords and pages involved we are left to guess.
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
-
What punctuation can you use in meta tags? Are there any Google does not like?
So I know you can use dashes and | in meta tags, but can anyone tell me what other punctuation you can use? Also, it'd be great to know what punctuation you can't use. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | Trevorneo1 -
I have 2 E-commerce sites - Can i cross link?
Good Morning Everyone, I have 2 e-commerce websites that are similar and sell the same products. The content (text/descriptions/titles) is different so the content is not duplicate. SITE A has a ton of blog posts with highly relevant information and we frequently update the blog with posts about the types of products we carry and how it can help people in their daily lives... SITE B has no blog posts, but the content on the blog from SITE A is extremely relevant and helpful to anyone using SITE B. My question is, do you think it is frowned upon if i were to add links on SITE B that point to specific posts on SITE A... For example, if you are browsing a category page on SITE B, i was thinking of adding links on the bottom that would say "For More Information, Please Check Out These Posts on our Blog" www.sitea.com/blog/relevantinfo1 www.sitea.com/blog/relevantinfo2 www.sitea.com/blog/relevantinfo3 I think this would seriously help our browsers and potential customers get all of the information that they need, but what do you think Google would think about this cross-linking and if it violates their guidelines? Thanks for any opinions and advice.
Technical SEO | | Prime850 -
Can anyone review my site please?
just wandering if anyone can review my site and give me some feedback please much grateful I have just really trying to get clients don't have any yet and any help would be great. reseolve.com
Technical SEO | | ReSEOlve0 -
How can i check the speed from section to section on my site
hi, i have a real problem on my site with speed www.in2town.co.uk and one of the problems is from going from section to section, so for example from home page to the travel section. i would like to know how i can time the time it takes from section to section and what tools i need. I urgently need to sort out time delay and make my site much faster, any help would be great
Technical SEO | | ClaireH-1848860 -
Page rank and ranking down
Hi I blog at Technostarry. Some 3 months back during page rank update, my page rank went down from 3 to 2. I don't know the reason behind this. And now, my traffic and ranking is also down. I am not involved in any bad SEO practices, I don't copy paste and I write original content. I am too confused as why and what has happened with my site. If someone could analyze my blog and look at my weak points then that would be great. I would like to get any suggestions to get back my ranking and also page rank back. Thanks.
Technical SEO | | technotech0 -
How can I use a keyword based domain to rank for my existing site?
Hi everyone, From my understanding if your keywords are in your domain name it can help you rank for the keyword. My site www.pixelchefs.com was affected from the latest Google Algorithm changes, as I used my main site as a testing ground for all my back linking. Our site was a single page with Jquery slide, late February the same time with the Google algo changes we uploaded our new site, larger site with lots of pages and info. Result of that was that home page has PR3 and all other pages PR0. Well I don't really depend on Google for any work as most of my work comes from referrals.......but While searching for names for my private page I came across the domain name www.DesignOrlando.com, The specific keyword gets 22,210 view per month according to Google analytics and also contains part of the keyword for all the keywords I am after. I want to use the domain name for my main site but i am not sure what is the best way to forward the domain so Google can start reading my site as DesignOrlando.com Any Suggestions will be very appreciated.
Technical SEO | | alex_pixelchefs0 -
Does google use the wayback machine to determine the age of a site?
I have a site that I had removed from the wayback machine because I didn't want old versions to show. However I noticed that in many seo tools the site now always shows a domain age of zero instead of 6 years ago when I registered it. My question is what do the actual search engines use to determine age when they factor it into the ranking algorithm? By having it removed from the wayback machine, does that make the search engines think the site is brand new? Thanks
Technical SEO | | FastLearner0