Over Optimisation Penalty
-
It seems, some of my pages are being hit by over optimisation penalties. Now to figure out how to tone it down.
The website is for downloading widgets. It's got many great ranks. The pages are dynamic and so titles, h1 are done via variables.
At present the title + H1 are 100% match for the keyword. In addition breadcrumbs home > widgets > big widgets > big blue widgets. All of which being pretty much 100% match for target keyword.
Also, in a gallery, say you're viewing "big blue widgets" there are tabs that link to "small blue widgets" and "medium blue widgets". Again using 100% match anchor text.
None of this was done really for SEO. More for usability. But it appears it's recently negatively effecting SEO. After having a couple of pages, that were ranked number 1, now way at the back of the top 1,000, with un-targeted pages ranking in their place, though to a lesser rank.
I am going to mix up the
tag so that it doesn't match the <title>. I am going to remove the 100% match anchors in the tabs and make them just "small", "medium" and "large". <br /><br />I don't really want to touch the breadcrumbs, because Google uses those in the results and they make perfect logical sense how they're setup. <br /><br />What other changes would you suggest, to help prevent these pages being filtered? <br /><br />Thanks a lot </p></title>
-
Sorry missed this, it's ok to close now. Thanks a lot.
-
Hi Paul,
I'm going through and seeing if questions are ready to be closed out. It's a little hard to tell in this case. Is your question answered, or should I leave it open?
-
Thanks a lot guys still new to the whole SEOMoz Q&A!
-
Just went through and redacted the URL and site name.
I'm not involved with the technical setup of this forum, but as a user not logged in, right now one can only see the question.
-
At the top of each reply you make it shows your name. To the right you should see "EDIT" as an option. You can edit your own replies.
Google crawlers cannot access anything beyond your original question for two weeks.
Although....Matt Cutts is registered on SEOmoz
-
can Google see the responses too?
Can somebody please do me a fav and remove the url, pls
-
A correction to that Ryan. After two weeks, non-members can see the answers, but cannot reply. Only pro members and those with a certain threshold of mozpoints can answer after the two weeks. (I believe it is still two weeks, that's what it was initially at least).
-
Hey Ryan. Some good points.
I believe the page was number 1. But I wasn't monitoring it much for a while, until I noticed it had disappeared.
I actually removed the instance of "nokia n8 themes" on the page, because of the concern of too many instances on the page. But you're right, it should likely appear once.
Once the rank disappeared. The top 10 Nokia N8 Themes page, then started to rank on page 2.
The search on the site, only searches keywords, rather than brands or models etc.
Just did a quick google site search for the term and it's just started to show the correct page, first. But searching the term alone, it's still a gonna. http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=nokia+n8+themes+site:[redacted by staff] &ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
Then search Nokia n8 Themes [redacted] and the correct page ranks. http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=nokia+n8+themes+site:[redacted by staff]&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8#sclient=psy-ab&hl=en&safe=off&client=safari&rls=en&source=hp&q=nokia+n8+themes+tehkseven&pbx=1&oq=nokia+n8+themes+[redacted]&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=330687l331806l0l331849l9l3l0l0l0l0l178l321l0.2l2l0&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.,cf.osb&fp=5b3846bb372396b3&biw=1210&bih=561
So it appears to effect only the direct match "nokia n8 themes". Which is interesting.
Thanks for the responses. I am actually half expecting the page to come back, now that I've removed some of the instances of the KW and diluted the instances of the anchors etc.
-
Regarding the disappearing post, please send an e-mail to help@seomoz.org and share the details including your browser name and version. A few of us have been working to have this issue resolved as it is quite frustrating.
For your issue, when was the last time you noticed your site ranked for "nokia n8 themes" and what was it's position?
While your site is not on page 1 for the phrase, another page from your site is ranked #17 in Google.com for the phrase "nokia n8 themes": [redacted by staff] news/top-10-nokia-n8-themes
This result leads me to believe there is a cannibalization issue on your site. I took a look and you do an excellent job of using anchor text on the ranked page for the term "nokia n8 themes" linking it back to the proper page.
Your page title is "Free Nokia N8 Themes" and header is "Free Themes for your Nokia N8 Phone". Both support the target phrase. Adding a bit of variation between the two is a nice way to include word variations. I would suggest researching the most popular keywords associated with the phrase. Based on a quick AdWords review, I would suggest "Free Nokia N8 Phone Themes" as a slightly better header.
As a note, I tried a site search for "nokia n8 themes" and it returned no results. I was trying to determine if there was an signs of cannibalization elsewhere on your site.
Your backlink profiles for each page look good although there is a page titled "nokia n8 themes" which offers a link to the Top 10 page.
The biggest issue I see is despite your title tag and header, the target phrase is not even used a single time in content on the page. That is a major concern. My suggestion is to add the phrase at least once on the page, preferably as early as possible on the page. That change plus the other changes you have made should lead to the page ranking ahead of, or instead of, the other page from your site.
-
Wow I posted a post, along with my URL and it disappeared? Anyway thanks for the info, I didn't know only Pro members can see the replies.
[redacted by staff] is the URL.
Keyword "Nokia N8 Themes". After 12 months with top spots, it's gone.
As you'll see, I've updated the
tag already to differ slightly from the title.
Looking at competitors sites, you'll see they are all similar in format, although most have a differing
to <title></p> <p>Thanks :)</p></title>
-
Yes, SEOmoz has a private messaging system.
I would also suggest the Q&A setup works quite nice for those hesitant to share URLs. Your main Q&A post is indexed almost immediately so I would not suggest sharing a URL in your initial question. One your question is submitted, you can add a reply with the URL. The reply can only be seen by PRO members and a few frequent participants, but not to the general public. You can share the URL, often your question will be resolved in a matter of hours, then you can edit out the URL.
EDIT: 2 weeks after the Q&A has been posted it become visible to everyone. Thanks Keri for pointing this out.
This method offers the best balance between getting your issue resolved and a need for discretion. Of course, there can always be a greater need for privacy in which case PMs are the next best option.
-
Hi Ryan, this might sound ridiculous, but I don't ever post urls to my site on any SEO forums. Competitors and all that.
Is there a PM system on here?
I just revisited the top 10. And it appears that much of the top 10, have differing
and <title>tags. Which is interesting.</p></title>
-
There was no active link building to the page. But it's still 100% the authority page on the site, for the term. The page that is ranking instead, has no links to it.
The page was number 1 on .co.uk and .com for the target term and it's now on some page I cannot even find but it is in the top 1,000. Maybe 900th?
It's definitely a penalty and I'm 99% sure it's OOP. But I maybe wrong. But there is a reason this page randomly and suddenly went from number 1 to nothing. And looking at the page, which is low in text, due to it being a gallery, there was a large number of instances of the word(s) on the page.
If we're talking about %'s probably about 30% of the entire words on the page, were the target keyword.
It's never been an issue until recently.
-
Paul,
I've seen this type of question asked many times before. Without the URL and the ability to look at the site it is unlikely we can offer proper feedback. We are left to make wild guesses and while it may generate some ideas, it likely wont solve the problem. Any chance you can share a URL?
-
I first suggest to check if the site has been really penalized... Too many times we go for the penalization solution, when maybe it isn't
-
Without looking at the actual site it's hard to make a determination, but simply matching up H1 tags, breadcrumbs, title tags etc is not enough to trigger a penalty, so don't un-optimize your site or you'll have an unoptimized and penalized site. Try to look at places where you have over done it, like too many instances in the content and tone it down a bit.
That is assuming this is why you got a penalty though, there are so many different factors that could trigger a penalty, how are you coming to the conclusion that it is over optimization?
-
My suggestion: try to diversify the kw focus using also semantically related words. That way your page LDA will not be affected (the contrary). Anyway, are you sure it a question of over optimization? Just guessing, because I can't see the pages you talk about; but if you used the kw correctly and not have also flooded the content of the page with the kw overly present in body, sidebar text and footer, then I would also check other factors, as the link hierarchy of the page (what is it's PA?) and if the competence is not performing better on SEO or on other ranking signals (I.e. Social signals) than your pages.
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
-
Regarding Google Title 'Width' and changing Meta Titles w/o Penalty?
A vast majority of pages on my site are now too wide (the character count was fine prior to the March update). I want to go through and update them so they display properly and are not too wide.However, I am concerned, as my understanding was that changing Meta Titles is dangerous and can have a negative effect on your rankings and can cause real issues. Is this an opportunity to change my Titles all-together without any kind of penalty? Or can I only trim the end part? In summary: 1. Can I edit all of my Meta Titles without affecting my rankings? 2. If no, how do I edit them properly to fit within the proper width and not cause any issues? 3. If yes, I can go through and change all my Meta Titles to whatever extent and optimize them to reflect latest best practices? There are changes I wanted to make to all my meta titles but I've been afraid to... due to fear of rankings drops etc Any help with this would be greatly appreciated
On-Page Optimization | | lawfirm0 -
If I enbed the same video from my YouTube account on two different websites, will I get a duplicate content penalty?
I have a YouTube video I want to show my B2B and B2C customers. But I have a different websites for each. If I embed the video will I get duplicate content strike against me?
On-Page Optimization | | RoxBrock0 -
Keyword repeats/presence in url's & over-optimisation
Hi I'm about to launch a redesigned site and worried about overdoing kw presence on-page, primarily using in url's since will already be using kw in titles as well as page content. What's current thinking re over optimisation: If kw is in titles and page content is it best not to repeat again in url structure i.e. less is more, even though this will cause things like SeoMoz on-page grade score to fall, or better to keep them/add them ? Personally i think it makes sense to include kw in url again since helps make the page relevant, and so long as matches the content should help as opposed to hinder rankings for the pages target keyword. However when i look into this some say don't do this since is over-optimisation The sites generally ranking quite well for its target kw which i obviously don't want to lose after re-launch & hopefully improve further, in the case of this example they are 'Sports Centre Services' & 'Sports Centre Equipment Rental'). The sites current url structure is similar to this below example: frankssportscentres.com/services/sports-centre-equipment-rental Would it be better to keep following existing/above format or to go with either of the below options i.e. more kw rich urls or less: frankssportscentres.com/sports-centre-services/sports-centre-equipment-rental Or frankssportscentres.com/sports-centre-services/equipment-rental Or even less frankssportscentres.com/services/equipment-rental Many Thanks in advance for any helpful comments Cheers Dan
On-Page Optimization | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
Hiding Legitimate Content From Google Without Penalty?
Hi Around the time of the April/May 2012 penguin update we lost around 40% of traffic and ever since traffic has slowly been reduced to around 50% of what is was from last year from approx 1000 hits a day to under 500. I'm not convinced totally that penguin is to blame as link building has not been overdone especially when other companies who rank first page for "personalised gifts" have 100's of anchor links pointing back to there sites with this term as the link. I think our site may be hit due to accidental keyword stuffing! Basically when an order is placed the product page is updated with the last message to be engraved on the item, so for example if someone buys 10 wine glasses all personalised with "happy birthday mum, happy birthday dad, happy birthday son etc or if customers choose similar engraving then we have lots of combinations of the same words repeated. This information has increased the number of conversions as it gives customers ideas as what to engrave and I don't really want to remove it from the page. Could anyone advise me on what i need to do, is there a way of telling google to ignore this text, a way of hiding without being penalised? Any ideas greatly appreciated!
On-Page Optimization | | SmithyWhiffy0 -
Local search optimisation
One of the major keywords in our industry “fireplaces” is now viewed as a local search phrase & Google seems to be displaying website results that it views to be local businesses. We have 2 stores, and for some reason they do not appear high on the rankings despite us having a physical location near by... can anyone help? Also, we have a verified location on Google place, but even that doesn’t appear.
On-Page Optimization | | Ray_UK0 -
Post Pinguin Onpage Optimisation - How Do I Build the Perfectly Optimized Page?
Hello, So far I always follow the recomendations of the chocolate donuts example of Rand Fishkin on the Blogpost: How Do I Build the Perfectly Optimized Page? I also think that the onpage grades follow this rules. Do you think this is still all true after pinguin? Personally none of my websites have been afected by the update and I have an A grade on all my landing page. What do you think about the image alt text. Is it still a good idea to use the keyword? Are there any newer resources here on SEOMOZ (I didn't find any with my search)? Thanks for sharing your experiences.. Regards
On-Page Optimization | | stereo690 -
On Page Optimisation Reports
Firstly sorry if this has already been answered - I did look I promise.
On-Page Optimization | | Jock
Secondly sorry if the answer to this is blatently obvious! In the process of trying to optimise my landing pages, I am using On Page Optimisation reports. I have several (ok lots) with F grades which is not surprising as the landing page is not the landing page optimised for a certain keyword. If I change the landing page to the one that I have for a certain keyword then hey presto A or B grade (clever me)! Now here's the thing - presumably the landing page that is listed by default is the one that Google "sees" for a particular keyword. How do I change this if I can or do I have to be patient or am I just being plain daft?! Many thanks0 -
On-page optimisation for CMS based sites
With so many sites being based on a CMS, and with so many hundreds of different CMS out there, as SEO consultants how do you recommend dealing with on-page optimisation for a client where you discover their site is built with a CMS you have not previously used (or even heard of!)
On-Page Optimization | | bjalc20110