Yesterday, I've written a support mail to bing webmastertools. Surprisingly I got a very comprehensive answer within hours! Thumbs up!

The answer: "Yes, you are right. Since this lazy load feature is a 3^rd party application, as initial troubleshooting steps and to isolate the issue, please try to turn off this feature on your end."

Well, I try to turn off the lazy load for the specific page and see what's happening.

Best wishes,
Georg.

Hi,

test google versus bing:

I am searching results for

site:schicksal.com Freitag, der 13.

Bing, organic: http://goo.gl/bfXAU0 - article found on 1st position
Bing, image search: http://goo.gl/EXDSdv - no search results

Google, organic: http://goo.gl/VIi5C6 - article found on 1st position
Google, image: http://goo.gl/m5SRjA - main article image is found on 1st position

I've done some other quick checks with Bing: The big images are NOT found at the image search, only the teaser images which are on the overview pages.

So, can anybody confirm this behavior? Do Bing have a problem with the lazy load of google.pagespeed?

Best wishes,

Georg.

Just tried to use the Google Webmaster Tool "fetch as googlebot" - the lazy loaded images where shown on the screenshot.

But the question remains: Is it possible that the google bot is not seeing the images for the ranking because the are loaded with javascript?

Hi,

we are using the apache module of google pagespeed. It works really great, helps a lot. But today I've asked me one question:

Does the "lazy load" feature for images harm the ranking?

The module reworks the page to load the images only if the are visible at the screen. Is this behavior also triggered by the google bot? Or are the images invisible for google?

Any expirience about that?

Best wishes,

Georg.

Hi,

we have some articles like this:

http://www.schicksal.com/Orakel/Freitag-13

The main image has a width of 100% and a height of 100%. Today, I've discovered that GWT Instant Preview has some troubles with rendering the page.

We have CSS rules to deliver the image with the right dimensions. If a bot like google is not sending any screen height / width we assume the screen size is 2560x1440.

Does this harm the ranking of the page? (Content starts below the fold/image) What is a "default" screen size for google? How do they determine if something is "above the fold"?

Any tips or ideas?

Best wishes,

Georg.

Hi Mike,

wow, what a comprehensive reply, thanks a lot!

I think it's time for a new SEO cheat sheet

Best wishes,

Georg.

Hi folks,

I was asked to write a short top 10 SEO list for editors. My search returned outdated results and SEO is changing fast these days…

So, here is my little survey: What are the best settings for these most important things:

1. Title tag: How many characters / words? Best keyword positions? Best tricks?
2. Meta description: How many characters / words? Best keyword positions? Best tricks?
3. Meta keywords: Use them? How many?
4. H1 tag: How many characters / words? Best keyword positions? Best tricks?
5. H2-H6 tags: How many characters? Best keyword positions? Best tricks?
6. Image alternative text: How many characters / words? Best tricks?
7. Text length: Minimum, maximum? What’s better:  1 long article or split an article in several pages?
8. How much links within an article? Min? Max?
9. Usage of keywords within links?
10. Your favorite SEO tip?

I would love to hear your thoughts

Best wishes,
Georg.

Still no progress. So we have decided to rename our main urls and run into the next mess, have a look here: http://www.seo-stories.com/post/31927940673/google-penguin-penalty-duplicate-content-problem

Hi Andy,

no, thats not the case at my site.

Best wishes,

Georg.

Hi Peter,

thanks for your answer!

Well, it's even more complicated!

It's an astrology calendar with planet aspect data for each day starting from 1900-01-01 to 2099-12-31, so there are around 73,000 pages, it's a big database.

People are searching for a date and the planet aspects. So I need the "old pages" and the future pages in the index.

People are also searching their birthday and want to know their zodiac. My calendar is providing this info.

This is an example:
http://www.schicksal.com/horoskop/tageshoroskop/1951/09/10

The best thing is to do nothing at the moment I think. The alternativ is to cut the content of the current day from the main page and let the user click a button which redirects to the current day page. But this is not user friendly and I will do nothing at them moment.

Any other idea would be great

Best wishes,

Georg.

Hi Muhammed,

because the content is different. This would devaluate all calendar pages.

Best wishes,
Georg.

Hi,

I've a calender page which changes every day.

The main url is
/calendar

For every day, there is another url:

/calendar/2012/09/12
/calendar/2012/09/13
/calendar/2012/09/14

So, if the 13th september arrives, the content of the page 
/calendar/2012/09/13
will be shown at
/calendar

So, it's duplicate content.

What to do in this situation?

a) Redirect from /calendar to /calendar/2012/09/13 with 301? (but the redirect changes the day after to  /calendar/2012/09/14)

b) Redirect from /calendar to /calendar/2012/09/13 with 302 (but I will loose the link juice of /calendar?)

c) Add a canonical tag at /calendar (which leads to /calendar/2012/09/13) - but I will loose the power of /calendar (?) - and it will change every day...

Any ideas or other suggestions?

Best wishes,

Georg.

Oh, very cool site! Thanks for the info!

Hi Peter,

were there any major google ranking updates in the last days? (end of july?)

Best wishes,
Georg.

Hi Steven,

in the last days it got even worse (!). We lost the number 1 position of our main keyword. Also keyword combinations. So we have lost again half of our remaining traffic.

I am pretty frustrated, I need some time to analyze this new situation. I will post the new findings here in some days.

Best wishes,

Georg.

Hi Grace,

thanks for your long post and for sharing your experience! Well, I am using a different software / content mangement system, so I am not able to have the same issue as you.

Best wishes,
Georg.

Hi George,

thanks for the link!

It looks like google has changed the mobile rules.

I've added a new meta tag:
http://www.schicksal.com/Astrologie/Astro-Schule/Transite

and on the mobile version:

And I've removed the robots.txt entries.

I cannot use the "vary" - "User-Agent" header because the site needs to be cachable by varnish.

Let's see whats happening in the next days.

Best wishes,

Georg.

Hi,

http://www.schicksal.com has a "normal" and a "mobile' version.

We are using a browser detection routine to redirect the visitor to the "default site" or the "mobile site".

The mobile site is here:
 http://www.schicksal.com/m

The robots.txt contains these lines:

User-agent: *
Allow: /

User-agent: Googlebot
Disallow: /m
Allow: /

User-agent: Googlebot-Mobile
Disallow: /
Allow: /m

Sitemap: http://www.schicksal.com/sitemaps/index

So, the idea is: Only allow the Googlebot-Mobile Bot to access the mobile site.

We have also separate sitemaps for default and mobile version. One of the mobile sitemap is here

My problem: Webmaster tool is saying that Google received 898 urls from the mobile sitemap, but none has been indexed. (Google has indexed 550 from the "web sitemap".) I've checked the webmaster tools - no errors on the sitemap.

So, if you are searching at google.com/m - you are getting results from the default web page, but not the mobile version.

This is not that bad because you will be redirected to the mobile version.

So, my question:

Is this the "normal" behaviour? Or is there something wrong with my config?

Would it be better to move the mobile site to a subdomain like m.schicksal.com?

Best wishes,

Georg.

Hi Roy,

yep, the turnover also went down. But not 50% but like 35%. We are still working very hard to get the turnaround...

Best wishes,

Georg.

Hi Peter,

thanks for the link!

Well, that are really bad news

Quote:

• Wait for news of a future Penguin Update and see if you recover after it happens
• If it doesn’t, try further cleaning or consider starting over with a fresh site

We can't change the domain - that is our brand...

Do you know the cycle of the panda updates? What do you think, when will be the next penguin update?

The good news this week: Some of our rankings are coming back slowly.

Best wishes,

Georg.

Here is the complete analysis why we have lost our rankings: http://www.seo-stories.com/post/22524770229/how-to-get-back-the-rankings-after-the-penguin-update

Furthermore I've described all our actions so far to regain our rankings after the penguin ate the half of our fish.

Hi girls & boys,

today, I've made some on page analysis. I've found out that Google is delivering the "wrong" page from our site at several keywords.

I think this is a very strong signal that onpage optimization is penalized in some way.

But have a look at my new blog post:

Penguin ranking analysis - downgraded due to on page over optimization

Best wishes,
Georg.

Hi Grant,

you are not alone...

My site lost 50% traffic. I've already created a question: http://www.seomoz.org/q/lost-50-google-traffic-in-one-day-panic

The reasons are - probably:

a) over optimization of your site

b) bad links from outer web space...

c) bad anchor texts

I am still investigating why our site was hit that hard.

I've created a new website: http://www.seo-stories.com for all pengiun victims.

Ich hope that helped a bit.

Best wishes,

Georg.

Hi girls and guys,

nothing has been changed so far. But I've written a new blog post:

After the penguin update disaster: Confessions of a bad seo guy: http://www.seo-stories.com/post/22062656569/after-the-penguin-update-disaster-confessions-of-a-bad

@ Alan: In this post I've described the reasons of our activities.

Best wishes,
Georg.

Hi Alan,

if it would be that easy...

I will write a blog post about all our seo activities in the past years and the reason why we did this. I would ask you again after you know all details...

@ Rand: Thanks! Well, it took 3h to have a domain, a website and got alltogether into the google index... I wrote a separate blog post about that

Best wishes,

Georg.

Here is the penguin:

http://www.seo-stories.com/post/21985421183/google-called-the-25th-april-2012-ranking-update

Hi girls + boys,

after being so frustraded about this penguin update, I've started a blog today: The SEO Stories (@SEOStories)

I will there report my activities to bring my site back to the top rankings. I would be glad about some support...

I hope, you will like my kind of humour...

http://www.seo-stories.com/post/21985421183/google-called-the-25th-april-2012-ranking-update

Best wishes,
Georg.

Hi Josh,

thank you very much for your analysis!!!

How do you find out if a page / domain is "spam flagged"? Do they harm our site?

Best wishes,

Georg.

Hi,

now I've removed a lot of seo onpage tweaks. We will see if this would help something. I will write a detailled report later on.

Best wishes,
Georg.

Hi Josh,

have a look here:

http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/schicksal.com

Best wishes,

Georg.

Hi Josh,

it's www.schicksal.com

I've altered the source code meanwhile, I've removed some keyword links. I will report this later on.

Best wishes,

Georg.

I would buy one

Hi Terry,

you are not alone... we are also affected:

http://www.seomoz.org/q/lost-50-google-traffic-in-one-day-panic

Best wishes,

Georg.

More info about penguin at search engine land - Google Penguin Update Recovery Tips & Advice

Hi James,

your are not alone. Our site lost 50% traffic...

Here is our thread: http://www.seomoz.org/q/lost-50-google-traffic-in-one-day-panic

After a very hard night and a lot of thinking, I've an idea.

We are using a lot of "keyword links" on our site.

It's - by the way - http://www.schicksal.com - an astrology site. We have lost 72% visibility - according to figures of sistrix.com.

So, we are doing this:

Zodiacs

Description of Zodiacs

Now a list with zodiacs

Aries (longer, descriptive title

short description of aries

In that case the "aries" keyword in the description is getting the link to the article.

I think, google doesn't like this after pengiun.

So, what is better:

a)

Aries

description

b)

Aries

description ... read more

What do you think?

Best wishes,

Georg.

link-spam.png

Google provides a form where you can them that your site was hit by error: http://searchengineland.com/penguin-update-peck-your-site-by-mistake-googles-got-a-form-for-that-119698

Hi, You are not alone... http://www.seomoz.org/q/lost-50-google-traffic-in-one-day-panic Best wishes, Georg

Damn, it's the penguin update...

http://searchengineland.com/the-penguin-update-googles-webspam-algorithm-gets-official-name-119623

Hi Matt + Alan,

thanks for your fast answers!

Well, the directory only gets 0,33% of all traffic. So I will delete it, that saves the maintenance time + cost.

Best wishes,
Georg.

Hi,

I've a site which has a link directory included. About 700 entries. Each entry has an own page with a title, description and of course a link to the extern site. The link is not marked as "nofollow".

The site is only linking to similar / relevent other sites.

Now the seo question:

1. Keep the link directory as is?
2. Add a nofollow to the links?
3. Remove the link directory? (and about 700 pages)

Best wishes,

Georg.

Hi,

thanks for all responses so far!

I've looked in our access stats... Today we will have less visitors than yesterday, so the nitemare is still not over...

I don't think it's a good idea to wait some days and do nothing. There must be a reason for this - a penalty or a ranking algo change. And the only way around is to remove the "thing" which caused the mess.

Possibly reasons:

1. Over optimized on page (could be) - restructure site and recode html
2. Bad links (can't be removed easily) which are punished by google

I can't restructure / recode the site within days but within 1-2 weeks. If we get back the top positions meanwhile, I will also apply the new code to be fit for the future.

Have I overseen a thing?

Best wishes,

Georg.

No, we have no paid links. We have written several articles which were sent to press agencies over the years. Blogs, newspapers, other sites etc. are linking our content.

Hi Matt,

thank you for your advices! I will have a look at Rands whiteboard. So your suggestion is to reformat / restructure the html code to get out of this?

Best wishes,

Georg.

Hi Ivo,

thanks for your fast answer and the link to article! We have not done any article spinning (I didn't know about article spinning till last week...). We have not done any link building for the high traffic keywords, but we have done link building for other keywords (which are not affected).

No, we had no break down a month ago, I've attached our analytics...

So, if it's a penalty - what to do?

Best wishes,

Georg.

lTUzy.png

Hi girls + guys,

a site of us were hit by a google update or a google penalty. We have lost 50% google traffic in one day (25th april, 2012). (Total visitors in average per day: 6k, yesterday: 3k)

It's a german website, so I think google.de (germany) was updated. Our rankings in google.at (austria) are also affected, but it's not that bad as in google.de.

We have not done any specific on page seo activities in the last two months. GWT doesn't have any message for us (no critical errors).

After my first analyse I can say this:

• google has indexed 17k pages (thats fine)
• we are on 1st place with our domain name
• the last three days, the google traffic went up (+20%), but yesterday it was 50% below average (so -70%)
• last week we had a very good day, we had twice the traffic than normal, but this calmed down the following days
• we have lost number no. 1 places at two high traffic keywords. We had these no 1 rankings for years. We have been outranked by two of our competitors, but they have not done any onpage changes.
• We have lost a lot of positions at a lot of keywords. But there are also keywords which moved up.
• We have good content, useres are visiting 5 pages in average.
• No virus, no hacker (no hidden cloaking page)
• it's an old domain (2002)
• Lot of (good) inbound links
• Lot's of likes, g+. Good twitter activty.

So, all in all I think it's more likely a ranking algo change than a penalty (a penalty for what reason?)

My specific question(s): Is there any "check list" which could help me to find out the reason for this mess?

What is the best strategy to regain the positions? New HTML code? New On page seo? (seomoz grades most of our important pages an A)

Any idea would be appreciated!

Best wishes,
Georg.

Hi Alan,

well, I am not affected by Panda - it's a german website. But Panda is arriving soon

Your answer makes sense, I'll give it a try and "noindex" the search result.

Best wishes,

Georg.

Hi,

I've a website with about 1000 articles.Each article has one ore more keywords / tags. So I display these keywords at the article page and put a link to the intern search engine. (Like a tag cloud)

The search engine lists als articles with the same keyword and creates a result page. This result page is indexed by Google. The search result contains the title of the article, a short description (150-300 chars.) and a link to the article.

So, Google believes, that there are about 5.000 pages instead of 1.000 because auf the link to the search result pages.

The old rule was for me: More pages in Google = better.

But is this still true nowadays? Would be a "noindex, follow" better on these search result pages? (Is there a way to tell Google that this is a search result page?)

Best wishes,

Georg.