Questions created by VisualSense
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What to do next with my site gamblingsites.co
So I have this site gamblingsites.co, which I launched about a year ago (I think.) This used to be internetgamblingsites.net (a domain I bought, but never managed to get in the index, and it appeared to violate the T/Cs after asking in GWMT) and before that the site used to be casinowarehouse.eu. After moving to gamblingsites.co, the pages were indexed almost instantly. I kept a 301 in place until today as I had some links pointing to internetgamblingsites.net. Now, until a few weeks ago, everything was fine. The site was ranking top 10 for gambling sites (8-10) and I had some traffic everyday. This site wasn't my top priority, so besides adding new unique content, I didn't do much with it. In each case no shady link building or what-so-ever. On February first of this year, however, it lost all of its rankings, and I have no idea why. Much worse site appear in the top 50, where a sub page of my site appears somewhere on the 9th SERP for keyword 'gambling sites.' Last week I started contacting some people and asked them to update my links. I also used my own sites (all on unique hosting accounts) to build some branded links, i.e. 'GamblingSites.co' and similar terms to down tune the exact match. I also decreased the instances of the exact match on the homepage, to avoid over optimization. Finally, I removed the 301 from internetgamblingsites.net, since the better links have been changed (or are about to get changed soon.) Now, couple of days later... no changes, but it's probably to early to judge. My question to you: "What would you do next, to try to save the site and at least get some traffic to it?" Thank you for your help, Giorgio PS: Feel free to ask for more information.
Technical SEO | | VisualSense0 -
Need some urgent Panda advice. Open discussion about recovering from the Panda algorithm.
I have a site that has been affected by Panda, and I think I have finally found the problem. When I created this site in the year 2006, I bought content without checking it. Recently, when I went through the site I found out that this content had many duplicates around the web. Not 100% exact, but close to. The first thing I did is ask my best writer to rewrite these topics, as they are a must on my site. This is a very experienced writer, and she will make the categories and subpages outstanding. Second thing I did was putting a NOINDEX, FOLLOW robots meta in place for the pages I determined being bad. They haven't been de-indexed yet. Another thing I recently did is separate other languages and move these over to other domains (with 301's redirecting the old locations to the new.) This means that the site now has a /en/ directory in the URL which is no longer used. With this in mind I was thinking to relocate the NEW content, and 301 the old (to preserve the juice for a while.) For example: http://www.mysite.com/en/this-is-a-pandalized-page/ 301 to http://www.mysite.com/this-is-the-rewritten-page/ The benefits of doing this are: decreasing the amounts of directories in the URL getting rid of pages that are possibly causing trouble getting fresh pages added to the site Now, the advice I am looking for is basically this: Do you agree with the above? Or don't you agree? If you don't, please be so kind to include a reason with your answer. If you do, and have any additional information, or would like to discuss, please go ahead 🙂 Thanks, Giorgio PS: Is it proven that Panda is now a running update? Or is it still periodically executed?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | VisualSense1 -
How to compete with spammers
I have a few sites that are outranked by competitors having hundreds of directory links and links from unrelated sites. Obviously I'am doing everything I can; on page optimization is superb, building good links as much as I can, but not huge amounts, taking care of fresh content whcih is of better quality than the competitors, ect. etc. But for one specific site I just can't get higher than #3 while my competitor ranks #1 and #2. I have been fairly succesful making sites rank well in somewhat competitive niches, but this is one of the things that keep bugging me. Sometimes I even feel like buying these type of links myself... But I keep telling myself that Google will catch up one day. Any advice is kore than welcome. Thanks
Link Building | | VisualSense1 -
I have a penalized site and don't know what the cause is
I have a site which appears to have a Google indexation penalty. According to Google because its violating the T/Cs. Here are some background details about the site: The site is a online poker + deposit methods related site on a .co.uk TLD. It has 30+ uniquely written pages, and no advertising at the moment. In June of 2010, June 10 to be precisely, I bought this site from a fellow webmaster/affiliate. After the site 's ownership changed I tried accessing the server, but I couldn't log into it . I noticed that this host had serious problems and the IP was unreachable. After trying for some time the previous owner got me all the content in Word files and I created a new hosting account and re-launched the site on June 28. Between a couple of days after June 10 and June 28, the site was unreachable, and completely de-indexed from Google. When I re-launched the site, I used the default Wordpress Template Twenty Ten, and created new pages with the Word files I received from the previous owner. I waited a bit, but noticed the site didn't get re-indexed. So on August 18th I moved the content of domain xxx.com to yyy.co.uk/xxx/ and 301-ed all the former locations, hoping that this might help yyy.co.uk get indexed..... but nothing. On October 28 of 2010 I submitted my first reconsideration request, which was processed on November 17th without any change. At that time Google didn't say if anything was wrong like now, so I just waited... and waited... and waited some more. At some point I was ready to let this one go, as I didn't/don't see any problems with it. In fact, it used to be indexed before. By now, I removed all links pointing to it that I had control off, and there are hardly any left over. The site as well doesn't have any outgoing links left, so that can't be it either. I also removed a kind-a duplicate keyword heavy menu from the sidebar, as well as the widgets from the footer. Finally I also fixed a problem caused by Yoast Wordpress SEO Plugin, but I only installed this plugin recently, so that could not be the problem that caused the penalty. So after another reconsideration request Google again let me know this site still has issues, but I really have no clue which, or how to find out. I don't feel like doing any work on this site, as there is no guarantee that it will ever lose its penalty. What should I do now?
Technical SEO | | VisualSense0 -
My site went from #3 to #2 to #1 to #10 in Google.nl
I have a site which has been #3 in Google.nl for a certain long tail phrase for pretty long. After I optimized my site some more for this specific phrase I went to #2 and eventually some weeks later to #1. But when I finally became #1, the celebration was short, as two weeks thereafter I dropped to #10 where I have been stuck for several weeks now... Can this be some sort of over optimization penalty? I personally don't think so as I hardly created links with the anchor, or a variation of it. On page also seems pretty much in order to me. Also, the site is on a exact match domain and used to rank for it, but doesn't even rank in the top #100 anymore. Any advice? PS: I rather don't publish the URL, but if anyone can help out I have no problem sending it in a private message, including the phrase in question.
Technical SEO | | VisualSense0 -
How to fight the Panda/Farmer update?
I have been suffering majorly from the Google algo change, as I lost more than 50% of my traffic of my largest site. Since then I have been focusing on rewriting pages, and adding new ones. New pages are all of high quality up to 2,000 words each, and the improved pages used to be thin content pages, rewritten to about 1,000 words. All content is 100% unique. I have noticed Google still has the old pages cached, dated to more than a month back, despite new pages (linking to some of the old) being indexed. Anyway, I am pretty much desperate by now, and coul really use some advice how to fight this. FYI, I got some budget available and a writer stand-by. Thanks, Giorgio
Content Development | | VisualSense0