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@cooper-12 Hi Gregory, thanks for taking the time to look. So the part that concerns me is about the https://www.stephita.com line, it shows stephita.com again, when I compare other SERP they show the title tag, or something different. I'm just wondering what part does Google parse to populate that part? So this is next to my FAV ICON graphic

When doing a google search for "Wedding Invitations Toronto", you will find my site www.stephita.com shows up in top 5 results.

I'm trying the figure out why the TITLE of the page no longer shows up in the SERP. Only the domain shows up above the link to the page. So you basically see www.stephita.com twice, when the first instance should be the "title" drawing from the HTML code.

I did implement the JSON code to provide proper site data structure as well. Could someone check my source, and tell me if I'm missing something, or if I put TOO MUCH stuff there?

Thank You!!!!

So I used the Google PageSpeed Insights to get a better idea:

I'm somewhat technically saavy, but I can't seem to wrap my brain on HOW TO Enable Compression fix???

Do you happen to have a "simple example" of what needs to be done?  I understand the concept of having a compressed file will save on bandwidth etc...  But am I literally "gzipping" the files like "jquery.js"... but how does the HTML code work etc..   Any straight forward example you could possibly show me?

Same with ENABLING CACHE...   My site is done w/ PHP, so i thought sending a simple HEADER command like so:

header("Cache-Control: max-age=2592000");

would suffice... but the pagespeed insight still says,the following elements: which are jpgs, css files, js files that my "www.stephita.com" index file references...  Am I doing the Cache statement correct, by putting it on the INDEX.PHP page?  Or do I somehow have to literally have to reference each jpg/css/js file that the PageSpeed insight is saying needs something done?  Again, examples?

I appreciate any help on this matter

When googling on www.google.ca for "wedding invitations" and in my own geo location market of Toronto, my site - www.stephita.com, will show up differently on SERP on desktop (Chrome & IE) vs. mobile (iPad, iPhone, android, etc.).

On desktop SERP, I will show up 6/7 position...  (which is relatively a new position, the past 3 weeks - I was previously on page 2)  (After a bunch of SEO fixes, I've managed to propel my site back to page 1!)

On mobile SERP, I only show up on 1/2 position on PAGE 2

As I mentioned above, I did a bunch of SEO fixes that I think were related to Panda/Penguin algos.  So I'm wondering why my MOBILE SERP has NOT improved along the way?  What should I be looking at to fix this 5-6 position differential?

Thanks all!

I don't know how that .js subpage is looping in the address bar.  I'm just using the foundation.zurb.com code to develop my site as mobile friendly.

I do have an idea why the articles page might be spinning out of control.  It's a dynamic page that pulls my articles content, and it's dependent on the URL, so technically I could have an infinite number of pages spawning.  I will correct the script to realize this error, and have it redirect to a base page.

As for the other previous cloaking pages, I'm assuming if I do a 301 redirect to the homepage, that would be better than to DELETE the page entirely which would return a 404.

Thank for helping out with the site audit!  I truly appreciate it.

How did you detect the loop in the link structure?

Regarding the page count, the current count I thought was < 1000 based on MOZ Site Crawl tool.

** Prior to January of this year (2016), I had a cloaking page that was running that basically generated pages with a different city reference.  So my site came up for searches like "Wedding invitations Banff, W I Timbuktuu, W I any city".  Obviously this was a black-hat tactic, which I figured out a few months ago is a NO-NO with the PANDA update.  So I unreferenced the link from my link structure, and I also requested that the directory structure be removed from the Google Webmaster Tools.  I just realized I didn't take that script offline, or have it re-direct - i.e. www.stephita.com/wedding/type_anything_here is still live.  But there is no LINK from my site that would go there anymore.  ** I'm thinking I should probably do a 301 redirect to my homepage instead now.

So I'm curious as to how Screaming Frog is seeing these pages, if it is indeed these pages.  www.stephita.com/wedding/____________________

Thanks!

Oh..  I was hoping it was a 'penalty' b/c at least there is hope that fixing those issues would make Google smile at my site again  I've basically started this 'clean-up' process the past 3 months, where I've used the MOZ tools to identify "high/medium priorities".

I've put in the effort to remove all "duplicate pages" which were marked as HIGH, and I've adjusted the META TITLES which were marked as MEDIUM.  According to MOZ crawl report, I'm down to a few issues vs. 900 or so when I first ran the report a few months ago.

As for the Penguin fixes, I only discovered this 3 days ago, and submitted my first DISAVOW list yesterday which contained 900+ urls and about 210 domains.

** If the 10 placement drop wasn't a penalty, I can only hope this 'clean-up' attempt can only help?  But the big question is timeframe...  Is it possible Google would have only assessed my site a MINOR penalty?  Or is it either nothing or SEVERE?

You are soooo right about the scouring the internet till I'm cross-eyed! hahaah

I read this article: http://www.brafton.com/news/seo-1/penguin-to-join-googles-core-algorithm-what-you-need-to-know/   That 'expert' says Penguin has already been put into the core algorithm.  ** I can't seem to find anything that "Google" has said, do you know?

Here's a quick rundown, my site www.stephita.com, used to rank on near the top of page 1 for google.ca on search term "wedding invitations", some time ago (I haven't been keeping track, but I believe maybe 1-2 years ago probably) my site has dropped to page middle of page 2.  So I'm thinking my site got dropped about 10 spaces.  If I was hit with any penalties b/c of Panda & Penguin, does a 10 place drop seem reasonable, or would it have been more?  A few facts:

• I never got a manual action

• I believe Panda penalty b/c I had some 'black-hat seo' pages, like a cloaking page, and also some relatively THIN content.

• I believe Penguin b/c I just did a backlink audit, and felt I had about 200 spammy domains linking to me which amounted to about 900 urls.

So with those 3 points, does 10 place drop seem reasonable, or does my site just suck hahaha

Thanks for the input!

What's your understanding of how sites recover from penalties now?  I've seen a posting about how Panda and Penguin are now 'baked in' the search algorithm.  Where as in the past, sites would have to wait till Google rolled out a Panda/Penguin update for sites to show any 'recovery'.   So, if it is 'baked in', if I submitted my 'disavow' list a few hours ago, should I hopefully see immediate results now?

Thanks!

1. When submitting a disavow list, should I put a COMMENT on each one?  Does someone at Google read it?

2. If I send 10 at a time, when I send the second batch, should I re-include the first batch with it?  So basically just upload the same file over and over with new additions.

Thanks for your feedback!

Yes, I agree, I feel that my page 1 placement was more due to my searches based on my geographic location.  That is my biggest concern at the moment, that other customers in my area are not finding my site anymore.

I'll definitely remove those footer links that serve very little purpose other than to direct users to content that they can get from the main navigation.

To get a better idea of how Panda works, or Google Search Algo in general...  does it look at my site as a "whole" when it scores the value of sending users to my index page?

For pages on my site that obviously are only meant as a "product" with simple photo, sku and price.  Does that mean it would see it as very thin content, and penalize my site as a whole?

@cooper-12 Hi Gregory, thanks for taking the time to look. So the part that concerns me is about the https://www.stephita.com line, it shows stephita.com again, when I compare other SERP they show the title tag, or something different. I'm just wondering what part does Google parse to populate that part? So this is next to my FAV ICON graphic

Thanks for giving me a better understanding of how Panda works.

I agree, I'm targeting my local market, but I noticed when using "google.ca" (vs. .com)  Searching for the keywords "wedding invitations" (without Toronto), does yield a few of my local competitors (along with the big boys like vistaprint) that have leapfrogged me this past year....

So if my site had, hypothetically speaking, 1000s of product pages, but with a simple one line description, along with photo and price to be simple.  Would Google penalize me for having THIN content then?

Lastly, does PageRank matter anymore?  My site was a PR3 - does that matter when the other local competitors that have leapfrogged me are all PR1s?

I'll make an effort to improve the THIN content pages.  Assuming I've "fixed" all issues that the Panda Algo doesn't like - how "soon/long" would it take to be "out of demotion".  Is it re-calculated daily, or only when there are Panda updates (how often?)?

Is there anyway to flag a "product page" so that Panda wouldn't look at it?  I'm just thinking in the case where I create 1000 product display pages, does that mean I would really need to write 1000 content HEAVY pages?  --  Sorry, I just realized there is the META NOINDEX method...

If my site is built 80% product pages, and I suddenly add the NOINDEX meta tag, will that negatively impact the result?  Or would that benefit me in this situation?  It was never my intention for any searchers to land on any direct product page.  My main focus for any searchers is to reach my main index page.

Is there a "magic number" of number of words to make it a suitable content page?  (i.e. NOT-THIN)

I really appreciate you helping me out with this!

As always, I appreciate your knowledgeable feedback on these issues.

I'm cleaning up my site, and removing some of the 'black-hat' SEO techniques that I had thought worked 5 years ago...  I had created a script to generate "doorway" pages on my site.

i.e., if you searched "wedding invitations" + random city, like "wedding invitations thornhill, wedding invitations richmond hill, wedding invitations brampton, etc...

http://www.stephita.com/wedding/invitations/thornhill

http://www.stephita.com/wedding/invitations/richmond+hill

http://www.stephita.com/wedding/invitations/brampton

My site is listed on the first page for most of these "wedding invitation city" type searches.

Assuming my site has already been "Panda Demoted", does it make sense that these links are still on the first page for those "long tail searches"?  Is it because of these specific pages that my site's index page (www.stephita.com) has been demoted in SERP when searching for the broader "wedding invitations" locally?  ** I hope I am making sense here **

I used to have links in the footer and sitemap that would lead crawlers to these "doorway pages", but I have removed all traces of it from the site now.  How long will the pre-existing indexed pages live in their results?  Should I take steps to pro-actively remove them?