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Thanks! Well I would not think this abnormal if it was a shift between a few position.. Even to 25.. But as an example today i have had about 20 KW out of my list of 150 that went up 197 positions EACH back to their regular or better 2-6 ranking then  I have another 40 KW that are still further at a ranking of 200 or further. Every day is about the same yo-yo effet. I do see a general drop as well with some KW that slowly went down the 25.. So it feels like I am getting hit by some kind of weird randon update. But I am also wondering if this has to do with my ranking tracker..

Organic traffic is down 47% to LY for march...  I am trying to get it better, but it is hard to keep track of progress with such variations..

Id love to hear if anyone knows more about this case..

So.. For the last several weeks (I noticed March 11th), we are having some weird ranking drops. Our keywords will drop overnight from their usual position between 2-6 to further than 200 and then be back to normal a couple days later.

We use Sheerseo to track daily ranking.  I track about 15 KW everyday and noticed it happening then. Is this part of the recent changes?

I am just really puzzled that we are seeing drops and then going back to normal and then drops again.  It is hard to know where you stand with such drastic differences day to day.

Any ideas?

When I do a site search with Google (i.e. site:www.mysite.com), Google reports "About 7,500 results" -- but when I click through to the end of the results and choose to include omitted results, Google really has only 210 results for my site.

I had an issue months back with a large # of URLs being indexed because of query strings and some other non-optimized technicalities - at that time I could see that Google really had indexed all of those URLs - but I've since implemented canonical URLs and fixed most (if not all) of my technical issues in order to get our index count down.

At first I thought it would just be a matter of time for them to reconcile this, perhaps they were looking at cached data or something, but it's been months and the "About 7,500 results" just won't change even though the actual pages indexed keeps dropping!

Does anyone know why Google would be still reporting a high index count, which doesn't actually reflect what is currently indexed?

Thanks!

We are well into development of a hotel affiliate website (using Expedia Affiliate Network), and I know there are many challenges to SEO when using an affiliate system - one of the biggest being how to handle duplicate content.

Outside of blog posts and static marketing pages, the majority of the textual content is contained in hotel descriptions. We will be creating unique descriptions over time, but we are a small team and this will be a lengthy process.

My question for you mozzers, is whether or not it's advisable for ranking purposes to noindex any page with mostly 'stock' content, and only allow Google to index hotel pages with unique descriptions?

Thanks for any input!

Thanks! I am not sure how to look at ISPs of the visit. As far as email newslrtter, it was always done with mailchimp and tracked as such I believe (in campaigns).

Well yes and no. It depens on the time frame. We have seen a drop of traffic all over recently (after the new panda/penguin updates) but at the time the switch occured (Sept 21 2011) and for several months after that, other traffic types were up which was consistent with what we were experiencing before the direct traffic drop. No switch in sources.

Direct traffic starts dropping overnight sept 21st
Referrals start dropping about Oct 18th
Organic search is up and doing fine the entire time, but not showing a spike

Now numbers are different, but the environment is different, which is why I choose to look back at last Fall to try to identify what happened.
Hubby is looking into services we might have stopped using that might have been the cause..

Hi, yes I mean actual direct traffic , not search related. No outside mktg was done so it cannot be that. Newsletter increased since then, so not that either.

Search on brand term is doing ok, but direct traffic is WAY down. 
I thought it could be the way google assigns direct now vs then.. But cant find any info to substantiate that. I would accept a double digit drop but the fact it happens overnight, just seems weird..

I am attaching the graph to show what I mean...

QCkRW

Hmm.. Well It is not that It is just surfacing, it is just that I am asking around only now

I have a sitemap and no problem for page indexation. The pages that are losing the most traffic are still indexed. no issue with that.
We also have no errors 400 or 500 recorded on GWT..

Given we apparently had a previous SEO dude use link exchange network on us (yeah I know nothing better than getting f**ked and paying for it)  we do fall in the penguin a bit and did fall a bit in the panda updates, but more in a slow manner, losing positions one at a time, rather than being dumped to page 5 or 40 overnight. Though I dont see what that would have to do with direct traffic loss??

I have been seeing a trend for a while that is intesifying.

My direct traffic numbers are down A LOT. We are not down 50% to LY (in actual number not just percentage of traffic)

I am trying to understand what could be the causes of this issue.

I was considering simply bigger meaner competition, but I actually perform decently on my returning customers.  Also my performance on my brand keyword is more inline with my current trend so I would except these KW to do equally as bad if the actual brand/store was the issue.

The more surprising even, is the fact that I can trace back the start of the trend exactly to the day. Overnight on Sept 22 LY direct traffic went down 30% (to LY) when it was trending UP 20-25%(to LY) before.

Now, we did do a redesign of the website on May 2011 (4 months before the drop), and did change host Oct 2011 (a couple weeks after the start of the trend).

Do you have any clue as to why this could be happening?

Did GA start tracking direct traffic differently?
Any thoughts?

Thanks Donnie. Yes, I completely believe that the right attitude is what you are talking about above. I guess I am just trying to understand the rhyme and reason to it all because, while I believe in the long term it is not all about SEO, and it is more about the user and their experience (and conversion!), at the end of the day, they are not especially following that motto and yet something is working in a very strong way for them. So while I fully intend to apply the best to my own work, I do want to understand the reasoning in what I am doing or not doing, and the whys of the result I am and will be getting.
Basically figuring what the "good" is of what they are doing  Somehow it is taking me a while LOL

Thanks for taking the time to answer. So going back to the original #1, this is what I am getting

title: Grandes chaussures et chaussure grandes tailles pour grandes pointures - Pas de Géant (granted no s on this one, so only half plural)

Description:  Pas de geant le site de vente en ligne de grandes chaussures grandes tailles pour femme a grandes pointures escarpins sandales bottes et autres chaussures grande taille femme42 43 44 45 pour trouver vos chaussures grandes pointureset grande taille femme

h1: pas de géant (actually sounds like they have quite a few different h1 on this page)

body: P_as de Géant_ vous propose une vaste gamme de chaussures tendance en grandes pointures pour femme! Des chaussures grandes tailles pour femme en pointure 42, 43, 44 et méme du 45. Les modèles de chaussures grandes pointures de Pas de Géant répondent à tous les styles, toutes les occasions et toutes les saisons : escarpins, sandales, bottes,…etc. Chausser de grandes chaussures que ce soit des escarpins, sandales et bottes glamour, casual, ou de détente en grandes pointures c’est aujourd’hui possible grâce à Pas de Géant !

I am sorry to be so insistent. But I really do want to understand how such a website can dominate a competitive market like this one. I really want to figure this out. Because while some it makes sense, the rest just seems to go completely against everything I am reading about Google new "be perfect" rules. And yes, they probably dont have bad marks against them like backlinks or else. but they sure dont seemt o fit under the perfect non optimized website that Google is now talking about. Extremely little copy, lots of KW use everywhere in not so natural ways, not good social activity. 
What i do see is that they don't have internal linking in their items description but do use the targeted keyword in the url and item name and most of the time in their derscription. Recently some of their pages have been triple ranking in google (on certain terms, their category page, and 2 items pages take the #3,4 and 5 position). So something they are doing must be working. Something I have seldom seen in this market.and i am just not getting it. especially given the quality of the site.

I guess I am still puzzled..

Thanks Derek, keep us poste don what you find for sure!

Yep these are the ones.. as far as keyword stuffing I was talking about the description of the home page  of #1. see the bold words in the attempted phrase below (for those who dont speak the language). This is far from natural looking to me.

Pas de geant le site de vente en ligne de grandes chaussures grandes tailles pour femme a grandes pointures escarpins sandales bottes et autres chaussures grande taille femme42 43 44 45 pour trouver vos chaussures grandes pointureset grande taille femme

About over optimization, that is definitely one I would want more feedback on.

Yes they dont do much , so over optimizing is far off, but every single product is named: ballerines grandes tailles XXX (or plus size shoe XXXX).. too me that is not very natural.?
I was advised against that in the past.

Also woudn't their "qui sommes nous?" page count as far as keyword stuffing?

I wouldn't even dare to write like that. Am basically trying to define if I am misunderstanding over optimization. (there is also quite a few broken links on that page)

As far as natural looking anchor, do you mind giving me an example so I can understand better?
 Are we saying that naming my product like that "plus size shoes claudia" , "plus size ballerinas erica" etc.. is the way to go then? That seems like over optimization to me.

I also noticed they have no links in their item description (internal linking) is that something that helping them as well then?

As you see, a sea of questions on this one

So... our results keep slipping little by little. I am trying to understand the rhyme and reason to it all (aren't we all?)
Since Penguin, one website seems to have strongly benefited from the update. And I can't seem to understand why except maybe for the lack of seo efforts which resulted in no bad efforts. 
Search for "chaussures grandes tailles" in google.FR, you will find what I am talking about.

This is what I seemed to have gathered.

The #1 result has the KW in both their title and description is using blatant keyword stuffing (ie just  astring of keyword with no phrase structure), has done little with links or optimization, does have 300 facebook fans (but they seem to have been bought according to the last 3 months activity). Text is very limited on their site. They have a lower authority than other websites.They are also a newcomer as far as the market goes.

It is important to note, that they also rank #1 on many of the related field keyword or top 3. So according to google this is a "winning" website as of now.and that is why it grabbed my attention.

The #2 results, is a big website, equivalent to zappos or the like, seems to have redone their optimization following penguin and to me seems to do a pretty good job at writing "natural" content for the user, not for google, as much as possible without killing their seo chances. Their authority should be good, and tons of people are linking to them. They also do use a lot of PR blog/article.(legit ones though I am not sure about before). They invest heavily in adwords and ads altogether (tv/radio/etc..). They are the big guy but are not specialized on this keyword.

The lower results, are not as representative, a mish mash of good and bad but all are specialized stores in this market including mine. They all get some ranking on some of the major keywords but not nearly as much as that #1 website which is killing it all (see semrush for more on it). So I thought I would focus on these 2 top (neither of which are mine) to start a conversation.Though feel free to comment if you have any hindsight on any of them.

Can anyone explain to me why the #1 can possibly be #1? I would love to hear everyone's opinion on the matter. 
I fully understand that in the long run that #1 might not be #1 forever,  but then again it has been several months now at least and the longer that last, the more likely they are to gain new (possibly repeat) customers...

Hi, I am trying to clean up the seo of my website. Recently stopped using a professional which might have been using grey hat tactics.

I am researching, researching , researching but having trouble pulling the trigger on what I am finding.

I have a couple old link exchanges going on. They are quite old. Some of them are on the footer of a website, and therefore bring in a lot of links (ie every time a new page is created). I am wondering if I should ask to get these links removed..

My link profile is pretty bad(at least according to me), nothing extremely bad, but lots of leftover of links coming from petitions, forums etc.. that I can't get removed.

I have recently gotten some mention on good website but they have a way around linking directly to any website so I dont get much help from that..

If you guys need my website I can share if need be.

thanks!