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Hi Niners:
I have run a Xenu link report and there are no broken links or anything out of the ordinary.
Could having additional pages indexed by Google devalue a site in Google's eyes? The additional pages co-incide with a decline in ranking.
Thanks,
Alan
Greeting MOZ Community:
I run www.nyc-officespace-leader.com, a real estate website in New York City.
The page count in Google Webmaster Tools Index status for our site is 850. The page count in our Webmaster Tools Sitemap is 637. Why is there a discrepancy between the two?
What does the Google Webmaster Tools Index represent? If we filed a removal request for pages we did not want indexed, will these pages still show in the Google Webmaster Tools page count despite the fact that they no longer display in search results? The number of pages displayed in our Google Webmaster Tools Index remains at about 850 despite the removal request. Before a site upgrade in June the number of URLs in the Google Webmaster Tools Index and Google Webmaster Site Map were almost the same.
I am concerned that page bloat has something to do with a recent drop in ranking.
Thanks everyone!!
Alan
Greetings MOZ Community:
Webmaster Tools under "Index Status" shows 850 URLs indexed for our website (www.nyc-officespace-leader.com). The number of URLs indexed jumped by around 175 around June 10th, shortly after we launched a new version of our website. No new URLs were added to the site upgrade.
Under Webmaster Tools under "Crawl, Site maps", it shows 637 pages submitted and 599 indexed.
Prior to June 6th there was not a significant difference in the number of pages shown between the "Index Status" and "Crawl. Site Maps". Now there is a differential of 175.
The 850 URLs in "Index Status" is equal to the number of URLs in the MOZ domain crawl report I ran yesterday.
Since this differential developed, ranking has declined sharply. Perhaps I am hit by the new version of Panda, but Google indexing junk pages (if that is in fact happening) could have something to do with it.
Is this differential between the number of URLs shown in "Index Status" and "Crawl, Sitemaps" normal?
I am attaching Images of the two screens from Webmaster Tools as well as the MOZ crawl to illustrate what has occurred.
My developer seems stumped by this. He has submitted a removal request for the 175 URLs to Google, but they remain in the index. Any suggestions?
Thanks,
Alan
Hi Brad:
I have had a very similar experience. Reduced ranking across the board for any competitive term, but not eliminated.
My site contains 300 listing pages (product pages). Those listing are usually short (less than 125 words). Would beefing them up to 200-300 words help? Also the title tags for these terms are not that well written. Some look like this:
"242 W. 38th St. - Manhattan, New York", "12 W. 37th St. - Manhattan, New York,"
Some are more elaborate like: "14 Penn Plaza | Great Midtown Office Rental | 2,313 SF Negotiable", "Lease 14 Penn Plaza Executive Offices | 34th Street | 4836 SF"
Could poor title tags contribute to the penalty.
Also, many listings have "Manhattan, New York" added at the end of the title tag, really impoverishing it, like: "Park Avenue South 27th & 28th Street- Manhattan, New York"
"44th Street-Eighth & Ninth Avenues - Manhattan, New York"
These title tags seem really poor. Could that trigger the Panda penalty?
Also, many title tags for other page categories have "Metro Manhattan Office Space" at the end of them. Could this trigger the penalty? I think the title tags are really bad.
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Hi Egol:
Will Google remove Panda penalties once content is improved? Or does an improvement take months (like waiting for a Penguin update)
I can potentially correct two out of the three issues you mention without enormous SEO costs. I am not sure how to address the structural problems.
Thanks,
Alan
Hi EGOL:
Interesting. But why now? Panda updates have been rolling out frequently to no ill effect. There have been no material changes in the content in the last few months except for updating many key pages with better content.
How is this latest update of Panda different?
What would you suggest I do to escape from this penalty?
I have a bout 350 product pages with thin content (less than 120 words each). Would no indexing them or rewriting them help? What if I increased the content by 100-150 words? But I would think that Google would understand that product pages could have light content and still add value.
Thanks, Alan
I have subscribed to Majestic SEO for three years and am considering cancelling it as it cost $600/year.
Is this a false economy? Will I be losing essential data? Also, MOZ seems really deficient in the link tracking department. Its data seems plain wrong, showing far fewer domains pointing at my site than either Google Webmaster Tools or Majestic SEO.
If I get rid of Majestic SEO are there any free/low cost tools that could take it's place?
Thanks, Alan
I operate a New York City commercial real estate web site (www.nyc-officespace-leader.com). Ranking and traffic have dropped steeply since early June.
Around May 20th a new Panda update was launched by Google and I wonder if that could partially explain the drop. My site contains the following:
-300 listing pages. These are product pages and often contain less than 100 words. Many have not been changed in two years.
-150 Building pages. These contain less than 220 words. Many have not been changed in two years.
-40 blog pages. We have been adding 1 or 2 per month.
-50 or 60 neighborhood and type of space pages. These contain 200-600 words.
Could our drop in traffic be due to Panda? I might add that an upgraded version of the site with new forms, a modified right rail an header was launched on June 6th. Also, we submitted a disavow file with Google on April 20th for about 100 toxic domains, one third of the 300 domains that link to us.
In order to take remedial action we need to understand what has happened. Any ideas???
Thanks, Alan
I operate a real estate web site in New York City (www.nyc-officespace-leader.com). It was hit by Penguin in April 2012, with search volume falling from 6,800 per month in March 2012 to 3,300 by June 2012.
After refreshing content and changing the theme, volume recovered to 4,300 per month in October 2013. There was a big improvement in early October 2013, perhaps tied to a Panda update.
In November 2013 I hired an SEO company. They are reputable; on MOZ's recommended list. After following all their suggestions (searching and removing duplicate content, disavowing toxic links, improving the site structure to make it easier for Google to index listings, re-writing ten key landing pages, improving the design of the user interface) ranking and traffic started to decline in April of 2014 and crashed in June 2014 after an upgraded design with improved user interface was launched. Search volume is went from 4700 in March to around 3800 in June. However ranking on the keywords that generate conversions has really declined, and clicks from those terms are down at least 65%. My online business is severely compromised after I have spent almost double the anticipated budget to improve ranking and conversion.
A few questions:
1. Could a drop in the number of domains lining to our site have led to this decline? About 30 domains that had toxic links to us agreed to remove them. We had another 70 domains disavowed in late April. We only have 78 domains pointing to our domain now, far less than before (see attached AHREFs image). It seems there is a correlation in the timeline between the number of domains pointing to us and ranking performance. The number of domains pointing to us has never been this low. Could this be causing the drop? My SEO firm believes that the quality of these links are very low and the fact that many are gone is in fact a plus.
2. The number of indexed pages has jumped to 851 from 675 in early June (see attached image from Google Webmaster tools), right after a site upgrade. The number of pages in the site map is around 650. Could the indexation of the extra 175 page somehow have diluted the quality of the site in Google's eyes? We have filed removal request for these pages in Mid June and again last week with Google but they still appear. In 2013 we also launched an upgrade and Google indexed an extra 500 pages (canonical tags were not set up correctly) and search volume and ranking collapsed. Oddly enough when the number of pages indexed by Google fell, ranking improved. I wonder if something similar has occurred.
3. May 2014 Panda update. Many of our URLs are product URLs of listings. They have less than 100 words. Could Google suddenly be penalizing us for that? It is very difficult to write descriptions of hundreds of words for products that change quickly. I would think the Google takes this into account.
If someone could present some insight into this issue I would be very, very grateful. I have spent over $25,000 on SEO reports, wireframe design and coding and now find myself in a worse position than when I started. My SEO provider is now requesting that I purchase even more reports for several thousand dollars and I can't afford it, nor can I justify it after such poor results. I wish they would take it upon themselves to identify what went wrong. In any case, if anyone has any suggestions I would really appreciate it. I am very suspicious that this drop started in earnest at the time of link removal and the disavow and accelerated at the time of the launch of the upgrade.
Thanks, Alan
Hi Jane:
Great observation regarding listing pages on real estate sites!! It is very difficult for me to add unique content for hundreds of listings. There are only so many ways to describe an office or loft space. Writing more than 150-200 words per listing is difficult since the product is generic. So what is the best way around this? My SEO provider suggested I "no-index" these pages. But I am concerned about non-indexing 300 of my product pages, concerned that Google would view 300 no-index on a 650 page site as suspect, like I am trying to hide something.
My SEO provider believes that we were hit by Penguin 1.0 in April 2012. Traffic dropped about 60% at that point. It recovered in October partially as there was a Google update at that time. It has dropped in the last two months, with the drop accelerating as an upgrade of the site was launched in June.
I think my SEO firm is discouraging further SEO as I am maxed out financially after spending more than $25,000 on SEO, coding, design in the last 8 months with nothing to show for it. They may think I hold them accountable (I do, I expect some results eventually) so they are not encouraging me to move forward. I find it very discouraging that after such a major effort there are no results. Maybe results can be achieved but I would need to budget $50,000-$100,000 to get some momentum. But that is out of the question unfortunately.
Hi Martijn:
Thanks for the response!! A few questions:
-What do I do about real estate listing pages? It is difficult to create a 400 word description for an office. I guess I could beef up the content to maybe 150 words but the language will be similar.
-We had many toxic links removed in the last 60 days so maybe that is creating the drop. Which will be a faster way to create quality links: post high quality content on our blog or solicit links? I am very surprised my SEO company did not choose to go down this road initially.
Thanks for your assistance. Alan
Hi EGOL:
There is certainly a verifiable, correct answer. Question is how to obtain it. I tend to agree with you, I think some technical issue is going on. My SEO company may or may not have their own agenda or may have over looked this. The jump to 851 pages from 675 in the Google Index in early June is really suspicious. The site map only contains 635 pages. So seems technical. Question is what to I attempt to fix first and at what cost.
In any case, thanks again!!! Alan
Hi Egol:
I understand. But I am trying to prioritize what needs to be done first. I have spent about $40,000 in the last 8 months on a series of SEO audits, coding, wireframes without any improvement. Implementing all the suggestions made in the SEO audits. Don't want to continue to waste resources without generating results.
Regarding technical issues, with all due respect, my SEO provider (MOZ approved) disagrees with you. An excerpt form their message to me yesterday below. So based on their suggestions it may make sense to focus on content, but I am not sure, which is why I have posted to this forum. Sorry if my questions overlap at times, but this is so technical that it is better to be safe than sorry. I see that you respond often to these posts and I really appreciate the time you take to respond in such a thorough manner.
XXXX is not overly concerned that technical/indexation issues are at the heart of the SEO issues. We are seeing conflicting indexation numbers from Google (see screenshot) showing 442 results with an "omitted results" message from Google. Additionally GWT reports conflicting index numbers depending on what report you use: Some at 843, other reports in the 539 range. Also, keep in mind that there has yet to be a Penguin update and therefore Google may not be accounting for some of the positive things that were done in past months.
Your developers appear to handling things correctly with the no index issues of listings pages, but we did find the following indexed pages:
Subdomain listings.nyc-officespace-leader.com has 37 pages indexed.
There are other irrelevant pages indexed on the www subdomain (20-30+), such as:
The /listings/search? pages are out of Google's index (this is a good thing).
Per our recommendations from our last meeting, you should probably noindex,follow /listings/ pages that have 'stock' (duplicate) content, do not drive much traffic and are low quality pages etc. We outlined this strategy in the deck we provide from our last meeting.
Most of your building pages have 80%+ bounce rates: This obviously is a content issue (e.g. no listings for people to view/click on the building page), and this is also an SEO issue (Google does take into account bounce rates from your pages back to the SERPs).
Traffic dropped by about 10-15% on 5/19 when Panda 4 came out (see attached screenshot showing drop in Google/Organic traffic on May 20 -- Panda update was May 19). The loss in traffic is probably from lower rankings on some extremely high converting keywords, which would explain the general drop in leads/inquiries/etc. Bottom line, you need to improve content. However, as we've said in the past, there is no guarantee with just a content marketing based approach and it could take months to recover. Thus, content improvement via conversion optimization is the best approach in order to generate more immediate business and still provide longer term organic traffic growth. We could supplement traffic with PPC to generate more immediate traffic, but this is not worth doing until the website is improved since it would likely be wasted money.
After 6 months of effort with an SEO provider, the results of our campaign have been minimal. we are in the process of reevaluating our effort to cut costs and improve ROI. Our site is for a commercial real estate brokerage in New York City.
Which of these options would have the best shot of creating results in the not too long term future:
-Create a keyword matrix and optimize pages for specific terms. Maybe optimize 50 pages.
-Add content to "thin" pages. Rewrite 150-250 listing and building pages.
-Audit user interface and adjust the design of forms and pages to improve conversions.
-Link building campaign to improve the link profile of a site with not many links (most of those being of low quality).
I would really like to do something about links, but have been told this will have no effect until the next "Penguin refresh". In fact I have been told the best bet is to improve user interface since it is becoming increasingly difficult to improve ranking.
Any thoughts? Thanks, lan
Greetings MOZ Community?
I manage a commercial real estate site (www.nyc-officespace-leader.com).
Visitors view listings (for example:http://www.nyc-officespace-leader.com/listings/303-broadway-building-office-sublet-11189sf). If they want more details they click on the "Interested In This Space, Contact a Broker" button. They get directed to a contact us form like: http://www.nyc-officespace-leader.com/contact-us?from_listing=303-broadway-building-office-sublet-11189sf
We are redesigning this form. Remove much of the text and allowing the visitor to check questions pertaining to the property, like "Schedule a Tour", "Get Floorplans", "Details on Similar Space'.
Currently this conversion form is on its own URL, and as such has menus on top, which I am concerned could distract the visitor. Would we get better conversions if this form was a Java script pop up with no menus. That way there would be no distraction for the visitor and we would have a better chance of converting them. Any thoughts?
Also, we are using Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics to track conversions. Would changing to a Java Script pop up form have any implications for tracking?
Thanks everyone!!! Alan
Hi Marie:
Thanks for your quite detailed response to my question. Some of the possibilities you mention probably don't apply for the following reasons:
1. None of the URLs' changed, so it cannot be that.
2. Page titles did not change, so it's not that.
3. As for unnatural links, these have existed for several years. In fact we succeeded in getting 28 our of 100 removed and made a disavow request for Google for the other 80 toxic links. While the link profile is weak it is not worse than what it was before.
When the upgrade was launched in early June Wordpress was upgraded to the latest version. I wonder if at that time some issue did not develop with robot txt or no-index. I find it very curious if that a removal request was made for the 175 URLs on June then the number of indexed pages went down for a few days and now they are back to 851.
My developer may be a little bit shy about accepting responsibility about this issue. Is there any source, a Guru or sorts that could check the Wordpress installation to see if that is the source of the 175 appearing on Google that should not be there? Someone way to eliminate any doubt about what is causing this issue?
Thanks, Alan
Hi Joe:
Thanks for your response!!
My site is kind of dead in the water at the moment. It is my primary lead generation tool so this is very bad. Do you think that getting social media likes shares and links on Twitter and Facebook will work faster that acquiring links? Also what do you mean by using "an absolute domain" for social media posts? At the moment I take the URLS and have them reduced by Bitly so they are not as long. Is that OK? Also, on Twitter I always use #OfficeSpace at the end of the Tweet, is that best practice?
Regarding building links, do you think this would occur naturally if I add high quality blog posts or do you think it best if I somehow solicit these links? Can I develop these links myself or am I better off hiring an online marketing firm to generate them?
On a global basis I am a bit puzzled regarding how links work and when the effect ranking. My SEO firm claims that Google looks at link profile only when there is a Penguin update and that these only occur once or twice a year. So I am puzzled that my ranking has dropped after links have been removed, because there has not been an update. By the same token I have been told even if I build links that will have no effect until the next Penguin update. Am I understanding this correctly?
Best, Alan
Google Webmaster Tools has been successfully installed on my website, (www.nyc-officespace-leader.com) for more than five years. Suddenly, today I have received a request to Verify this Site". This makes no sense.
The only possibility I can think of is that this is somehow tied to the following events in the last month:
1. Launch of new version of website on June 4th
2. Installation of Google of Tag Manager
3. Sudden Increase in number of pages indexed by Google. Unexplained indexing of an additional 175 pages. About 625 pages should be indexed, while 800 are now indexed.
In the last month ranking and traffic have fallen sharply. Could it be tat these issues are all linked? But the strangest issue is the request to verify the site.
Does anyone have any ideas?
Thanks,
Alan
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On June 14th the number of indexed pages for our website on Google Webmaster tools increased from 676 to 851 pages. Our ranking and traffic have taken a big hit since then.
The increase in indexed pages is linked to a design upgrade of our website. The upgrade was made June 6th. No new URLS were added. A few forms were changed, the sidebar and header were redesigned. Also, Google Tag Manager was added to the site.
My SEO provider, a reputable firm endorsed by MOZ, believes the extra 175 pages indexed by Google, pages that do not offer much content, may be causing the ranking decline.
My developer submitted a page removal request to Google via Webmaster tools around June 20th. Now when a Google search is done for site:www.nyc-officespace-leader.com 851 results display. Would these extra pages cause a drop in ranking?
My developer issued a link removal request for these pages around June 20th and the number in the Google search results appeared to drop to 451 for a few days, now it is back up to 851. In Google Webmaster Tools it is still listed as 851 pages. My ranking drop more and more everyday.
At the end of displayed Google Search Results for site:www.nyc-officespace-leader.comvery strange URSL are displaying like:www.nyc-officespace-leader.com/wp-content/plugins/...
If we can get rid of these issues should ranking return to what it was before?I suspect this is an issue with sitemaps and Robot text. Are there any firms or coders who specialize in this? My developer has really dropped the ball.
Thanks everyone!! Alan
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Hi Joseph:
Thanks so much for your response!
Our DA and PA numbers were a lot better in the past. Domain Authority was around 35 last September.
Since November I took the following steps that were suppose to help according to my SEO provider:
-Ran Copyscape report on site and got rid of about 12 pages of partially duplicate content. Page count for our site is 650 pages.
-A former developer had a mirror site that was indexed by Google. We had that removed.
-We used a 3rd party listing source that had thousands of pointed thousands of alpha numeric URLs to our site. We removed these links.
-In April we requested that about 100 domains remove toxic links to our site. About 30 complied. We disavowed the rest. We followed Google's SEO best practices, so I am very puzzled by the drop in DA and PA.
Any ideas???
Thanks, Ala
Greetings:
Our New York City commercial real estate site is www.nyc-officespace-leader.com.
Key MOZ metric are as follows:
Domain Authority: 23
Page Authority: 33
28 Root Domains linking to the site
179 Total Links.
In the last six months domain authority, page authority, domains linking to the site have declined. We have focused on removing duplicate content and low quality links which may have had a negative impact on the above metrics.
Our ranking has dropped greatly in the last two months. Could it be due to the above metrics? These numbers seem pretty bad. How can I reverse without engaging in any black hat behavior that could work against me in the future?
Ideas?
Thanks, Alan Rosinsky
Is there a risk to no-indexing the listing pages? Thanks, Alan
Hi Benjamin:
I think your suggestions are excellent. However from a practical point of view there are 350 listings so it is a lot of work to beef them all up.
Once visitors are on the site and they run listing searches, the click thru rate is pretty good, but the problem is more with Google, that many listing are not indexed and they don't generate many clicks.
My SEO company suggests deindexing them because they don't generate much click thru and the high bounce rate may be harming our overall indexing. They are of the opinion that it is best to focus on improving content on categories of pages that have a high click thru rate like neighborhoods and types of space, deindexing listings (I don't know how 350 no indexes would look to Google) and displaying the listings in more appealing manner like in lists and maps.
As for video, do you think that would attract more interest than photos?
Thanks,Alan
Hi Prestashop:
I am a commercial real estate broker, so no Zillow or anything comparable in my industry.
If I were to beef up the listing content, would 200-300 words be enough? Should I add some H2 tags and headings?
There are 350 listings, so it is a lot of work if it going to be professionally written.
Thanks,
Alan
Thanks Prestashop, Benjamin, Devanur!In principal I understand it is better to beef up content, however the listings get rented quickly. They take 30-60 minutes each to create these pages between the content, tags and photos.
They all get rented within a few weeks to a few months, there is major turn over. So it would be extremely labor intensive to write elaborate content for each.
Furthermore it means that it makes it very difficult to add a lot of listings because of the amount of content if I have to take ranking and amount of content into account each time I write a listing.
Is there any risk that Google would penalize the site by setting these listings to "No-Index"? It would make thing easier.
It may make more sense to add content to the building pages as they are permanent and there are only 150 of them.
Thoughts??
Thanks,
Alan
Greetings Moz Community:
As a commercial real estate broker in Manhattan I run a web site with over 600 pages. Basically the pages are organized in the following categories:
1. Neighborhoods (Example:http://www.nyc-officespace-leader.com/neighborhoods/midtown-manhattan) 25 PAGES Low bounce rate
2. Types of Space (Example:http://www.nyc-officespace-leader.com/commercial-space/loft-space)
15 PAGES Low bounce rate.
3. Blog (Example:http://www.nyc-officespace-leader.com/blog/how-long-does-leasing-process-take
30 PAGES Medium/high bounce rate
4. Services (Example:http://www.nyc-officespace-leader.com/brokerage-services/relocate-to-new-office-space) High bounce rate
3 PAGES
5. About Us (Example:http://www.nyc-officespace-leader.com/about-us/what-we-do
4 PAGES High bounce rate
6. Listings (Example:http://www.nyc-officespace-leader.com/listings/305-fifth-avenue-office-suite-1340sf)
300 PAGES High bounce rate (65%), thin content
7. Buildings (Example:http://www.nyc-officespace-leader.com/928-broadway
300 PAGES Very high bounce rate (exceeding 75%)
Most of the listing pages do not have more than 100 words. My SEO firm is advising me to set them "No-Index, Follow". They believe the thin content could be hurting me.
Is this an acceptable strategy? I am concerned that when Google detects 300 pages set to "No-Follow" they could interpret this as the site seeking to hide something and penalize us.
Also, the building pages have a low click thru rate. Would it make sense to set them to "No-Follow" as well?
Basically, would it increase authority in Google's eyes if we set pages that have thin content and/or low click thru rates to "No-Follow"?
Any harm in doing this for about half the pages on the site?
I might add that while I don't suffer from any manual penalty volume has gone down substantially in the last month. We upgraded the site in early June and somehow 175 pages were submitted to Google that should not have been indexed. A removal request has been made for those pages. Prior to that we were hit by Panda in April 2012 with search volume dropping from about 7,000 per month to 3,000 per month. Volume had increased back to 4,500 by April this year only to start tanking again. It was down to 3,600 in June. About 30 toxic links were removed in late April and a disavow file was submitted with Google in late April for removal of links from 80 toxic domains.
Thanks in advance for your responses!! Alan
Hi Samuel:
Thanks so much for taking the time to respond to my post!!
You make an excellent point about the necessity to create content useful for humans rather than search engines, a position my SEO firm has also taken.
My site has received no manual penalty from Google. Besides launching an upgraded version that made mostly cosmetic changes, not much has changed on the site since February.
But I should mention that in late April a link removal requests were made to about 100 toxic domains. About 30 web masters voluntarily removed their links. In mid May we filed a disavow request with Google for the other 70 domains. Could the removal of these links and the disavowal request have something to do with the fall in ranking and traffic? Please note the site only had about 280 domains linking to it in March and now there are even less. The quality of the incoming domains was pretty poor.
Good suggestion regarding adding no-follows to the poorly performing building and listing pages. But we have a bit of a challenge with listing pages. They get rented quickly and it becomes unfeasible to add them to the site, and they are absolutely essential, if we need to add 300-400 words of content and write title and description tags. So how would you suggest we manage listings if we should not "no-index" them?
Regarding our potentially spammy domain, we have used it for the site since 2006. An alternative domain (www.metro-manhattan.com) exists that redirects to our primary domain (www.nyc-officespace-leader.com). Do you think it would be better to redirect the site to the www.metro-manhattan.com domain? It better matches the brand "Metro Manhattan Office Space". But I have heard domain changes can be dangerous nightmares.
You point out a potential issue with dashed in our domain. Do you think the single dash in Metro-Manhattan.com would also appear spammy? Incidentally, I don't think the content on our site looks spammy at all, maybe there is some thin content but not spammy.
Thanks for your assistance!!! Alan
Greeting MOZ Community:
I operate www.nyc-officespace-leader.com, a New York City commercial real estate web site established in 2006. An SEO effort has been ongoing since September 2013 and traffic has dropped about 30% in the last month.
The site has about 650 pages. 350 are listing pages, 150 are building pages. The listing and building pages have an average bounce rate of about 75%. The other 150 pages have a bounce rate of about 35%. The building and listing pages are dragging down click through rates for the entire site. My SEO firm believe there might be a benefit to "no-index, follow" these high bounce rate URLs.
From an SEO perspective, would it be worthwhile to "no-index-follow" most of the building and listing pages in order to reduce the bounce rate? Would Google view the site as a higher quality site if I had these pages de-indexed and the average bounce rate for the site dropped significantly. If I no-indexed these pages would Google provide bette ranking to the pages that already perform well?
As a real estate broker, I will constantly be adding many property listings that do not have much content so it seems that a "no-index, follow" would be good for the listings unless Google penalizes sites that have too many "no-index, follow" pages.
Any thoughts???
Thanks,
Alan
Six months after starting a marketing campaign and spending a lot of money on SEO audits, link removals, wire frames, copywriting and coding my web site (www.nyc-officespace-leader.com) traffic dropped significantly after I launched a new version of my site in early June. Traffic is down about 27%, but most of the traffic from competitive terms is gone and the number of leads (phone calls, form completions) is off by about 70%.
On june 6th an upgraded version of the site with mostly cosmetic changes (narrower header without social media buttons, streamlined conversion forms, new right rail was launched. No URLs were changed, and the text remained mostly the same. But somehow my developers botched up either canonical tags or Robot Text and 175 URLs with very little/no content were indexed by Google. At that point my ranking and traffic. A few days ago a request to remove those pages was made via Google WebmasterTools and now the number of pages indexed is down to 675 rather than the incorrect 850 from before. But ranking, traffic and lead generation have not yet recovered. After spending almost $25,000 over nine months this is rather frustrating.
I might add the site has very few links from incoming domains and those links are not high quality. An SEO audit was performed in February and in April a link removal campaign occurred with about 30 domains agreeing to remove links and a disavow file being submitted for another 70-80 domains that would not agree to remove links.
My SEO believes that we should focus on improving visitor engagement rather that on more esoteric SEO like trying to build incoming links. They think that improving useability will improve conversions and would generate results faster than traditional SEO. Also, they think that improving click through rates, reducing bounce rates will improve ranking by signaling to Google that the site is providing value to visitors.
Does this sound like a reasonable approach? On one hand I don't see how my site with a MOZ domain authority could possibly compete against sites with a high number of quality incoming links and that maybe building a better link profile would yield faster results. On the other hand, it seems logical that Google would reward a site that creates a better user experience.
Any thoughts from the MOZ community???? Does it sound like the recent loss of traffic is due to the indexing of the 175 pages? If so, when should my traffic and ranking return?
Incidentally, these are the steps taken since last November to improve SEO:
SEO Traffic & Ranking Drop Analysis and Recommendations (included in-depth SEO technical audit and recommendations).
Unnatural Link Removal Program
Content Optimization (Audit & Strategy with 20 page keyword matrix)
CORE (also provided wireframe for /visitor-details pages at no-charge)
SEO Copywriting for 10 pages
New wire frames implemented on site on June 6th
Jump in indexed pages by 175 on June 10th. Google Webmaster Tools removal request made for those low quality pages on June 23rd.
Thanks, Alan
Yes, and I appreciate it!
Alan
Hi Egol:
How did you locate this duplicate or re-published content?
Obviously what you have pointed out is a major source of concern so I ran Copyscape search this afternoon for duplicate content and did not locate any the URLs you mention in the "this", "this" link above. It appears you entered the URL of the blog post in Google's search bar. Would that work? This method would be pretty slow going with 600 URLs.
Thanks,
Alan
Hi Egol:
Thanks for the suggestion.
When I click on _ repeat the search with the omitted results included _I get 448 results not the entire 859 results. Seems very strange. Some of these URLS have light content but I don't believe they are dups. I don't see any content outside our website when I click this.
Am I doing something wrong? I would think the total of 859 would appear not 447 URLs.
Thanks!!
Alan
Hi Egol:
In the content of launching an upgraded site, could the canonicalization have implemented incorrectly? That could account for 175 pages sudden new content as the thin content has been there for some time.
I am particularly suspicious regarding canonicalization as there was an issue involving multi page URLs of property listings when the site was migrated from Drupal to Wordpress last Summer.
Thoughts?
Thanks, Alan
Hi Egol:
Thanks so much for taking the time for your thorough response!!
Apparently infitter24.rssing.com/chan-13023009/all is poaching my content, taking my original content and adding it to there site. I am not quiet sure what to do about that.
You have pointed out something very useful and I appreciate it and will act upon it. However it does not explain the sudden appearance of the 175 pages on Googles index that did not appear at the end of May and somehow coincided with uploading of the new version of our website in early June. Any ideas???
Thanks,
Alan
Greetings MOZ Community:
On June 14th Google Webmaster tools indicated an increase in the number of indexed pages, going from 676 to 851 pages. New pages had been added to the domain in the previous month. The number of pages blocked by robots increased at that time from 332 (June 1st) to 551 June 22nd), yet the number of indexed pages still increased to 851.
The following changes occurred between June 5th and June 15th:
-A new redesigned version of the site was launched on June 4th, with some links to social media and blog removed on some pages, but with no new URLs added. The design platform was and is Wordpress.
-Google GTM code was added to the site.
-An exception was made by our hosting company to ModSecurity on our server (for i-frames) to allow GTM to function.
In the last ten days my web traffic has decline about 15%, however the quality of traffic has declined enormously and the number of new inquiries we get is off by around 65%. Click through rates have declined from about 2.55 pages to about 2 pages.
Obviously this is not a good situation.
My SEO provider, a reputable firm endorsed by MOZ, believes the extra 175 pages indexed by Google, pages that do not offer much content, may be causing the ranking decline.
My developer is examining the issue. They think there may be some tie in with the installation of GTM. They are noticing an additional issue, the sites Contact Us form will not work if the GTM script is enabled. They find it curious that both issues occurred around the same time.
Our domain is www.nyc-officespace-leader. Does anyone have any idea why these extra pages are appearing and how they can be removed? Anyone have experience with GTM causing issues with this?
Thanks everyone!!!
Alan
When I try to use the on page grader and enter my URL, an error message appears stating: "Sorry But This Page Inaccessible".
The URL is http://www.nyc-officespace-leader.com/commercial-space/office-space and it works fine when I enter it on my browser. Any page from this domain generates this error. Is there a bug with this tool?
How would I go about tracking ranking on various keywords? I see it is possible to tag keywords, and I have done so for about 250. But I don't know how to generate a ranking report for these keywords; ideally I would like to do so filtering them by the label I have applied.
Any suggestions?
Thanks,
Alan
Greetings:
When I try to use the on page grader and enter my URL, an error message appears stating: "Sorry But This Page Inaccessible".
The URL is http://www.nyc-officespace-leader.com/commercial-space/office-space and it works fine when I enter it on my browser. Any page from this domain generates this error. Is there a bug with this tool?
How would I go about tracking ranking on various keywords? I see it is possible to tag keywords, and I have done so for about 250. But I don't know how to generate a ranking report for these keywords; ideally I would like to do so filtering them by the label I have applied.
Any suggestions?
Thanks,
Alan
Thanks your response Lesley!!
Not worried about my password being hacked by very concerned about disabling Mod Security as both my developer and the hosting company have told me that could cause major security risks.
At the same time I have have not seen any documentation about sites running GTM ever getting hacked. Our site runs on Wordpress in a virtual server environment. Are you saying that disabling Mod Security in this environment is not going to increase risks of getting hacked in a major way? It is really strange as tech support at InMotion Hosting strongly advised against disabling Mod Security. At the same time I would like the more advanced features available with GTM.
Thoughts??
Thanks, Alan
Greetings MOZ community!!!
Both my hosting company and developer have told me that in order to install Google Tag Manager it is necessary to disable the rule securing against malicious i-frame attacks in Mod Security and that this would leave the site (we operate on a virtual private server and out hosting company is InMotion Hosting) extremely vulnerable to attack.
I can't believe that Google would write code that could allow potential security issues? Is this true?
Does anyone know of a way to install GTM while maintaining site security?
What functionality will we lose if we choose to stick with the old version of Google Analytics rather than upgrade?
Thanks everyone!!!
Alan
Greetings MOZ Community!!
My SEO firm plans has requested that Google Analytics GTM be installed on my website to better track goals and events.
My developer will be responsible for installing the GTM script on my website and the SEO firm will actually configure GTM to track goals.
Is anyone aware of GTM causing server errors/issues when installed? My developer claims that running GTM would create additional vulnerability to hacking. Is anyone aware of potential security risks from running Google Tag Manager?
Once Google Tag Manager is installed, will it make the site more difficult for my developer to administer? Will there be increased risk of the code breaking?
Overall, is GTM a big improvement over the existing version of Google Analytics? Is it worth the effort to install? My SEO firm is very much in favor of this upgrade. I would like to move forward provided there is no major downside.
I look forward to feedback. Thanks, Alan
Thanks!! Your suggestion to get a detailed list of the HTML imperfections is excellent.
So as long as the site loads relatively quickly, code validates and site map is correctly set up, you don't think some sloppiness in the HTML (and I will determine exactly what that is) will hamper Google ranking fatally?
Shame to spend tens of thousands of dollars on SEO and code kills the effort.
Thanks,
Alan
Greetings MOZ Community:
My real estate website www.nyc-officespace-leader.com, originally designed in Drupal, was relaunched using Wordpress in 2013. The code for all URLs validates. The relaunch was performed by developers in Argentina.
As part of an SEO campaign, I very reputable design/coding company in the has provided new wire frames to correct useability issues holding back conversions. In the course of the design adjustments they inspected the code and have told me that it is inefficient, that a number of shortcuts were taken and that the code does not conform to Wordpress best practices. What concerns me most is their claim that the quality of coding makes it more difficult for Google to index the site and this may be detrimental to ranking.
Is it possible for the original developers to clean up this code if the deficiencies are pointed out to them? Or once coding shortcuts are taken are they impossible to fix?
Would it make sense for me to request that the new design team put together a list of HTML deficiencies and provide to the original developers and ask them to correct?
I am spending tens of thousands of dollars on content optimization, content marketing. It would be absurd if these coding issues would ultimately prevent improvement in ranking and traffic.
At the same time, I hate to be a cynic but the domestic design/coding firm, while being very professional, does have an incentive in getting me to ditch the original design so I commit to an costly rebranding. If these issues are really minor maybe it is not worth making the effort to clean up the code (assuming that is even possible) and focus the budget on content marketing.
Any thoughts?
My site was only effected by Google's algorithm (Penguin),there is no manual penalty.
Well I though I was in luck as I understand Penguin 2.0 was rolled out today!
So are you saying that despite the new Penguin update, Google will not review our disavow file and that the only action to take is to ping the links from the low quality domains in order to expedite Google's review of our site?
Thanks,
Alan
My site does not have a manual penalty. The penalty is the Penguin. We were first hit in April 2012, with a drop in traffic from 6700/month to as low as 3,000 about a year ago. Since then after a site relaunch, some new content, social media traffic has climbed back up to about 4,500/month. Since November I am working with a MOZ recommended SEO firm. Link audit and disavow remove has been done and now content marketing is commencing.
Do you think my domain should be changed? Being that there has been an improvement I would think not, but am not sure.
Also, while my domain www.nyc-officespace-leader.com my brand is Metro Manhattan. I have owned the domain www.metro-manhattan.com since 2010. In fact that domain has redirected back to ww.nyc-officespace-leader.com for 4 years.
Would it make sense make www.metro-manhattan.com the primary domain? Would it help get around any penalties? From a branding point of view it would might be beneficial. But then I would lose all the links.
Hi Oleg:
Thanks for taking the time to respond.
The 87 links looked very spammy to me, consisting of low quality directories for the most part. So your response regarding the 31% removal is very encouraging.
My SEO is convinced my site was hit with a Penguin penalty in April of 2012. There has been a partial but incomplete recovery in search traffic. There never was a manual penalty.
Are you saying that removing a lot of these bad links will actually result in poorer ranking? My SEO firm has told me to get a significant recovery I need to start a program of content marketing to have new high quality links created.
Regarding the disavow, are you saying that if Google does not refresh Penguin for another 6 months I will not receive the benefit of the disavow until then?
Thanks,
Alan
Hi MOZ Community:
I hired an SEO firm to run a link audit, identify bad links, request that those links be removed and upload a disavow file to Google Webmaster tools for the domains that would not agree to remove their links.
My SEO company after emailing the owners of the bad domains linking to us obtained the following results:
NYCOfficeSpaceLeader
Only a total of 27 domains out of 87 found domains have been removed so far. Seven additional domains have asked for a link removal ransom which we are refusing.
Only getting 27 removed seems really low. Is this normal? Is there any way to increase this number?
Will the disavow file have any effect and if so when? If Google does not actually remove the links, how can I determine when the disavow file has been processed.
I feel a little silly having paid a lot of money and the only tangible effect to date is that links from 27 domains have been removed. Has it been a worthwhile investment for only having links from 27 domains removed? My company does not have an unlimited marketing budget so obviously there is some concern. At the same time the SEO firm seems professional.
Thanks,
Alan
Hi Keri:
No the forms are not going through a third-party processor on a different domain or different subdomain.
Originally they wanted $1,500 to set up tracking of goals and event tracking. Now they are willing to charge me $750 for only goal tracking with the ability to add event tracking for another $750 in the future. They would do the following for the original $1,500 (see below):
I am very curious how long it would take a knowledgeable person to set this up. While I beleive them to be very professional I don't want to pay $750 for one hour of someone's tiem.
Analytics Technical Review
Data Set Used:
– Default Data range: July 15, 2013 – Mar 7, 2014 (unless otherwise noted)
– Note redesign on July 10, 2013 and moved from Drupal to WordPress.
– Web Property: www.NYC-OfficeSpace-Leader.com (UA-976308-1)
– View (formerly called Profiles): www.NYC-OfficeSpace-Leader.com (default)
– Date ranges chosen to: Account for change in data format (urls) with new website launch July 2013.
Multiple views (formerly called profiles) including unfiltered “RAW” and analysis views. Always ensure that there is an unfiltered set of data: Data collection is not retro-active in GA. Create an “analysis” view with filters to:
– Remove internal traffic and create more advanced data sets.
– Clean up URI and query parameters (capitalization) for better page report data.
Verify proper set up of all goals for forms (contact broker, contact us, request more info, schedule a showing, ask me a question).
Use call tracking to track visitor behavior associated with phone calls (Top vendors: Call Rail, IfbyPhone, LogMyCalls, Mongoose Metrics).
Set up content grouping in order to provide easier analysis of listing pages as a whole. (https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/2853423?hl=en)
Use event tracking to track interaction with on page elements such as navigation menu items and click contact a broker button. (https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1033068?hl=en)
– Use events instead of goals (events can be goals too).
– There are more analysis tools to understand events in context with one another (instead of using goals to track on-page events).
Set up enhanced link attribution. Distinguish different links that lead to the same page for in-page analytics: (https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/2558867?hl=en&utm_id=ad)
Set up social reports for better social traffic analysis (admin >> (choose web property) >> social settings).
Upgrade to Universal Analytics for better tracking capability, and because you’ll eventually be forced to upgrade by Google. (https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/3450662?hl=en)
Thanks Spencer!!
I understand that $750 for an agency may not be worthwhile, however I will also be paying them $6,600 to re-write and keyword optimize 58 URLs, so there is more involved than only $750. Furthermore I will probably engage them for a content marketing campaign to the tune of $2,500 per month.
But I would very much like to understand how long the set up for Google Analytics will take, as to that is the key for understanding if I am being over charged.
Thanks,
Alan
Greetings Moz Community!
My firm operates commercial real estate website that contains 3-4 forms. Each form represents a goals. Google Analytics has been set up for years, but it does not track these form completions/goals properly.
My SEO firm has offered to configure Goals on Google Analytics for $750. Is this a fair price? If the set up takes one hour, I am really over paying. But if this is a complex project that may take 7-9 hours the pricing seems OK.
Also, the SEO firm will require an additional $750 in the future to set up event tracking. Is this excessive?
I might add that my developer will need to add code to my web site.
My SEO company has proven reliable and accurate. I can go to sleep at night knowing they are doing a good job. Where as my Argentinian developers really try their best, but perhaps because of the language barrier, they can make mistakes from time to time. I am willing to pay a premium to ensure that the job is done correctly domestically, however I don't appreciate over paying.
Is the $750 payment for setting up Google Analytics reasonable assuming the job is done well???
Thanks,
Alan
So to map out the site and build internal text links that manipulate link equity is not that labor intensive after keywords have been selected for landing pages?
While I am am impressed by the provider's knowledge and service, somehow I find that costs always seem to be increasing in an unanticipated way.
An initial SEO audit cost $4,995, Link removal $2,500, content audit to create keyword grid for 22 pages $2,500, Content Optimization Review $3,150. Now I am faced with optimization of 51 pages for about $6,200 plus development of internal link structure (whatever that costs!!!) plus local SEO at $1,500.
So I would have spent $20,000 before any link building even begins!!! Maybe they have a good strategy, without a high level of technical expertise it is hard for an amateur like myself to say. But I think you are 100% correct, they are breaking down each process to its smallest component and that maybe be resulting in inflated costs.
Thanks for your input!! Alan