E-commerce site hit by the latest Panda, please help
-
Hello mates,
Our site is an e-comerce site http://goo.gl/4QBVjR has been hit hard by the latest
Panda on the last weekend as many other sites such as Retailmenot etc.
We were working hard from one year til now:1. Rewrite all the pages with pour content (less than 100 words), and non-original content.2. The pages where was impossible rewrite the content were 410 gone.3. About the link profile, we were removing all the unnatural links by contacting thewebmaster and finally updating a DISAVOW file at monthly basis.All these tasks were performed and we see some improvements close to the original traffic before 2012Now from the last weekend our traffic down again, so we need to know if we can do anythingor there are something hidden from our eyes.Thank youClaudio
-
Thank you for your response
-
Hi Claudio
I was not using any tools, or even saying the text exactly matches. I was saying the general look, feel, setup, etc of that site is similar to yours (and many others in this genre). I am also saying you need to think of a way to differentiate your site, not just by having unique text, but by anything like: helpful content targeted at your audience, building a community, developing an audience that follows you and comes back for repeat visits. Something that makes you stand out from the rest of the shareware download sites.
-
Dear Dan,
I agree with you 100%, so which tool are you using to detect duplication with other sites for example pages on our site duplicated with tucows.
There are any massive or batch way to detect it.
We feel this is the major issue with our site.
Waiting for your response
Thank you
Claudio
-
I think trust (or lack of trust signals) is a huge factor here.
- For example, the only contact information is a contact form: http://www.freesharewaredepot.com/contact.asp - no phone number, email address, or physical address. This is something heavily mentioned in Google's Quality Raters Guidelines. I've actually happened upon it here: http://www.freesharewaredepot.com/about.asp - but users might want more easily accessible ways to contact you.
- The site also does not show any indicate of who is behind the site - no people's names, and barely pictures etc. This is bad for trust too.
- In general, as a normal user, I have no way of knowing I can trust the editor reviews, or other information - was it actually all created by an expert? is a question that pops into my head.
- Bill's right too - the site is very duplicative of other sites out there in the space, such as - http://www.tucows.com/downloads
The issues above I've addressed only have to to with Panda. Few more thoughts.
- The other thing that strikes me is the imbalance of links to social shares. I don't think Google uses social shares as a direct ranking signal, but I could see them looking for weird differences in numbers as one flag. In other words - the site needs to be promoted and liked holistically - through links, social shares, mentions, etc.
- The site also gets zero brand searches - by this, I mean no one is going to Google and typing "free shareware depot" - which signals to Google, maybe people don't think the site is all that important or memorable. This is why some branding and differentiation is so important.
-Dan
-
It's not really eCommerce - you're only facilitating transactions elsewhere, either through a downloaded app or another site. You're more of a portal.
With that said - and I mean this without any tone - your site model is really, really common. I had a client in your market for a short time, and they looked very similar to you as well. In doing competitive research I saw many others with giant collections of pages, regurgitated "descriptions" and no real expertise, differentiation or personality.
The recommendation I made for them, which they didn't take, is prove to Google you're not a quickly pulled together collection of advertisements. Instead, use your words to show why you should be Top 5 in your market. So I would recommend you change focus and start doing something new. The whole affiliate space might have something to be concerned with here.
(not to mention, you seem to have some clunky content on some of the pages I saw, similar to stuff I see from cheap content houses)
-
Hello Kevin,
No manual Actions, all I can see from my eyes is fine with the site, I need to know if I'm missing something
Please take a look, all the suggestions will be welcome
Thank you
Claudio
-
Hi Claudio,
I feel your pain. Nearly every time Google updates their algorithm my site takes a hit, but it recovers a week or two later. At some point you're going to have to direct resources to other forms of promotion to Goolge-proof your business. At the end of the day, it's about making money, not getting a number from Google.
I would monitor your WMT account to see if you get any manual actions taken and keep an eye on Moz. I won't make any drastic moves so soon after this hit, but do keep up with the original content and healthy activities.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
SEO for a Domain which contains Multiple individual sites
My website structure www.example.com (wordpress installation number 1)
On-Page Optimization | | kevinbp
www.example.com/forum/ (vbulletin installtion)
www.example.com/shop/ (wordpress installation number 2) Each of these individual pages contains a fresh wordpress/vbulletin installation with their individual admin control panel. Am i doing this website entirely wrong? Is my website considered as a single website or does Google classify it as 3 different websites? My Ranking page is, www.example.com, and by blog post is www.example.com/forum/blog. When i do a link within my blog entry to my main ranking page, does it count as external or internal link?0 -
Should I "No Index" Certain Pages On My Site?
I have some pages on my site that don't really have any content other than some iframes that are embedded from another site. I thought it would be best to tag the page with a no-index so that search engines would leave the page alone since it has no content as far as the search engine can tell (but does provide value to my site visitors). Is this the proper approach or does it do more harm than good?
On-Page Optimization | | Kyle Eaves0 -
Site Wide Title Tag Discussion
Do you think it's good to have an instance of your primary keyword occur on most of your site's title tags throughout your site? Or do you think having the keyword occur in most title tags throughout the site will dilute the ranking ability for the home page? I haven't read much about this in "best practices" for title tags. hmmmm...
On-Page Optimization | | Joes_Ideas0 -
Help with Appropriate Use of Rel Canonical
Whenever i enable Canonical URL through the 3DCart Control panel I get this Critical Factor error when running the on page report card: Appropriate Use of Rel Canonical Moderate fix <dl> <dt>Canonical URL</dt> <dd>"http://rcnitroshop.com/Nitro-Monster-Truck"</dd> <dt>Explanation</dt> <dd>If the canonical tag is pointing to a different URL, engines will not count this page as the reference resource and thus, it won't have an opportunity to rank. Make sure you're targeting the right page (if this isn't it, you can reset the target above) and then change the canonical tag to reference that URL.</dd> <dt>Recommendation</dt> <dd>We check to make sure that IF you use canonical URL tags, it points to the right page. If the canonical tag points to a different URL, engines will not count this page as the reference resource and thus, it won't have an opportunity to rank. If you've not made this page the rel=canonical target, change the reference to this URL. NOTE: For pages not employing canonical URL tags, this factor does not apply.</dd> </dl> Now if I disable Canonical URL then run the on page report card again the critical error goes away but I get this Optional Factor error instead: Canonical URL Tag Usage Moderate fix <dl> <dt>Number of Canonical tags</dt> <dd>0</dd> <dt>Explanation</dt> <dd>Although the canonical URL tag is generally thought of as a way to solve duplicate content problems, it can be extremely wise to use it on every (unique) page of a site to help prevent any query strings, session IDs, scraped versions, licensing deals or future developments to potentially create a secondary version and pull link juice or other metrics away from the original. We believe the canonical URL tag is a best practice to help prevent future problems, even if nothing is specifically duplicate/problematic today.</dd> <dt>Recommendation</dt> <dd>Add a canonical URL tag referencing this URL to the header of the page.</dd> </dl> So basically I disabled it because obviously a Critical error is much worse then an optional error. Is there a way I can get rid of both errors?
On-Page Optimization | | bilsonx0 -
Add Rel Canonical to all pages on my site (Magento)
Can anyone guide me as to how to add the REL CANONICAL feature to every page on my website (Magento shopping cart) Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | lacx.com0 -
Is it necessary to optimize every page of a site
I recently took over the SEO work for a website that has a limited budget. I'd like to use the resources to get as much as I can for a few pages on the site (keyword research, on-page optimization). Are there pitfalls to not optimizing every page on a site? If so, what are they?
On-Page Optimization | | EricVallee340 -
Is Google Places appropriate for an ecommerce site and blogs
I'm working with a client that has an ecommerce site. He has e physical addresses where they work, however, neither would want customers to go to their office. Is it inappropriate to create a Google Places listing in this situation? I'm working with another client who runs a blog for his PR agency. Is it OK to create a Google Places listing for a blog? He would welcome people to visit his agency.
On-Page Optimization | | EricVallee340 -
What to do with old content in light of the Panda update?
Let's say you operate a laptop review website. After several years, the individual product review URL's (like site.com/dell/xp1234-review/) aren't receiving much traffic, they may have a few links here and there. In general and considering the panda update, would the best option be to 301 the old URL's back to the category page (site.com/dell/)or just keep them where they are? Any potential issues like having excessive 301's which could slow down the site or appear fishy to search engines?
On-Page Optimization | | BryanPhelps-BigLeapWeb0