Panda Penalty Recovery?
-
My site: www.stephita.com, is based in Toronto, Canada.
It used to rank top 3 in local and national searches for "wedding invitations" and "wedding invitations toronto". I've now been placed on the dreaded page 2 ;|
I didn't keep up with the times and news, and wasn't aware of Google Panda Penalty until earlier this year
So, I've cleaned up most of my site with what I suspect what caused me to drop:
a) Cloaking pages - I had PHP script generate about 1000 pages of "cloaked" pages. This has been removed, and I've used Google webmaster tools to "remove" the directory as well.
b) Duplicate Content pages - (not cloaked, but I've done content writing on the majority of my product pages)
The 2 items above is what I "assume" caused a Google Penalty... I started this cleanup endeavour late January, and with the content writing to remove what MOZ tools notices as duplicate pages.
I've read online that Panda is now part of the search algorithm. So does that mean, ideally, I should start seeing "better" ranking results now? Or is there a process I should be following and submitting my site for "reconsideration"?
Thanks all!
-
If it is Panda then cleaning up the site to make it more useful is your best bet.
- Make sure the design is clean.
- Make sure the writing is answering the user's question, and that it's well written.
- Make sure that the function of the page matches the search query.
Fixing these things should result in an eventual improvement in rankings.
If you were cloaking, that could be a penalty all by itself. Make sure to fix anything shady, and consider whether non-standard implementations or architecture could have confused Googlebot or made it look like you were trying to manipulate rankings. Check Webmaster tools for any warnings or manual penalties for sure.
You can also cross-reference drops in traffic to what others have seen on similar dates to make sure it was Panda.
-
There may be other technical issues or algorithm updates in play here. If you haven't done so already, you should check your Analytics against the dates of any algorithm updates using one of the links below.
If you're confident that it's a Panda issue, one of the best guides I've seen is http://www.thesempost.com/understanding-google-panda-definitive-algo-guide-for-seos/.
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
-
Panda Cleanup - Removing Old Blog Posts, Let Them 404 or 301 to Main Blog Page?
tl;dr... Removing old blog posts that may be affected by Panda, should we let them 404 or 301 to the Blog? We have been managing a corporate blog since 2011. The content is OK but we've recently hired a new blogger who is doing an outstanding job, creating content that is very useful to site visitors and is just on a higher level than what we've had previously. The old posts mostly have no comments and don't get much user engagement. I know Google recommends creating great new content rather than removing old content due to Panda concerns but I'm confident we're doing the former and I still want to purge the old stuff that's not doing anyone any good. So let's just pretend we're being dinged by Panda for having a large amount of content that doesn't get much user engagement (not sure if that's actually the case, rankings remain good though we have been passed on a couple key rankings recently). I've gone through Analytics and noted any blog posts that have generated at least 1 lead or had at least 20 unique visits all time. I think that's a pretty low barrier and everything else really can be safely removed. So for the remaining posts (I'm guessing there are hundreds of them but haven't compiled the specific list yet), should we just let them 404 or do we 301 redirect them to the main blog page? The underlying question is, if our primary purpose is cleaning things up for Panda specifically, does placing a 301 make sense or would Google see those "low quality" pages being redirected to a new place and pass on some of that "low quality" signal to the new page? Is it better for that content just to go away completely (404)?
Technical SEO | | eBoost-Consulting0 -
Recovery After A Hack - No Manual Action Notice
Hi Guys, I am helping out an agency who have had a couple of site hacked on their server. I can confirm by correlating increase in not found errors and drop in rankings, that the drop was definitely hack based although the site had no manual action notice from Google. The site looks to have been fixed i.e all not found pages look to have been sorted. Obviously there are some dodgy backlinks to now non existant pages but it looks like two months on no sign of a recovery. Is this normal?, Could the site still be hacked and the web designer is claming it has been cleaned up? I am used to dealing with hacked sites when there has been a manual action listed and then it's quite easy to complete the clean up work, submit a reconsideration and then get the manual action revoked but when you don't receieve a manual notification and the site doesn't recover, what do you do? Kind Regards Neil
Technical SEO | | nezona0 -
301 Redirect domain with penalty
Wondering if I could get a few views on this please... I have added an affiliate store to a domain I own, however I forgot to noindex the product pages which were duplicate content of the merchants. Despite a good deal of backlink building the site will not do much in the engines at all, doesn't even come up on the first few pages for it's own name! This suggests to me that I have a duplicate content penalty. Try as I may I cannot get it removed so am thinking of cloning the domain to a new domain, however, I do not want to lose the links I collected so I am planning on 301ing them. While I will not get all the link power moved over, I should at least get credit for some of them which will kick start the new domain. Can anyone forsee any potential issues with doing this? Is there a danger of 301ing a site with a penalty that the penalty would be carried over? I know there is no penalty on the links, no WMT warnings etc, it is the content causing the issue. Thanks, Carl
Technical SEO | | Grumpy_Carl0 -
Looking for live website examples of google adsense since panda update
Hi, i am looking for some live websites that use google adsense who have changed their layout since the panda update If anyone can please point me in the right direction so i can see good examples of how sites have now changed their google adsense layout so we can learn from this, then that would be great regards
Technical SEO | | ClaireH-1848860 -
Panda: Are our ads duplicate content or just structural and not even considered?
We have hundreds and hundreds of pages with similar ads on. We are getting content written for these pages right now and we're removing some pages, but we're wondering how Panda might see the ads which we have across the site? The ads consist of the name of a company and a description and a few other bits. The description is the same on all pages that a company's ad is listed on - and that can be hundreds of pages. You can see some examples here: http://www.agencycentral.co.uk/agencysearch/accounting/skills/indandcomm/financialanalyst.htm http://www.agencycentral.co.uk/agencysearch/accounting/skills/indandcomm/financialaccountant.htm http://www.agencycentral.co.uk/agencysearch/accounting/skills/indandcomm/assistantaccountant.htm What we're wondering is whether Google Panda might be seeing the description of the company as internal duplicate content or just structural and not even considered as part of the Panda algorithm? Or something else? Or wouldn't it be clear in this case? Clearly Panda wouldn't hit duplicate content in nav bards, sidebars etc... but this is in the content area of the page so it did make us wonder. This could make a difference to how we proceed so we appreciate your thoughts. Regards, Phil
Technical SEO | | agencycentral0 -
Delayed Penalty...
I received the 7/23/12 Unnatural inbound links warning but nothing changed, if anything my traffic and rankings improved well over the next 2 - 3 months. But last week a couple of the better (maybe slightly over) optimized pages suddenly dropped out of the rankings completely, is it possible that these two events are related but three months apart? A change I made close to the time of the rankings dropping was completely overhauling the homepage. I realized this would impact the internal "link juice" flow but never expected the kind of drop in rankings I received. I have restored the homepage to its former glory but it hasn't helped get my slightly over optimized pages ranking again. Any ideas? Suggestions? Exact date of drop in rankings is 18 - 19 October (site has lost roughly 50% of its organic search traffic)
Technical SEO | | Stan_C0 -
Single Keyword Penalty?
Hi guys, I recently taken over SEO for strikebowling.com.au and I'm stumped to what has happened with the keyword 'Bowling' for the home page. Historically they have been ranking 5-6 for the year and they do come up in the local results. Start of September, bang they drop out of the top 100 for Bowling. No other words seem to be effected. However the keyword 'Bowling Alley' did improve around the same time for an internal page. What could have happened? A single keyword penalty? No messages in Webmaster tools No dodgy link building Look forward to some theories. Regards, Corey
Technical SEO | | LoudClear0 -
Dealing with manual penalty...
I'm in the back-and-forth with Google's Quality Search team at the moment. We discovered a manual penalty on our website and have been trying to get it removed as of late. Problem is, tons of spammy incoming links. We did not ask for or purchase any of these links, it just so happens that spammy websites are linking to our site. Regardless, I've done my best to remove quite a few links in the past week or so, responding to the Quality Search team with a spreadsheet of the links in question and the action taken on each link. No luck so far. I've heard that if I send an email to a website asking for a link removal, I should share that with Google as well. I may try that. Some of the links are posted on websites with no contact info. A WhoIs search brings up a hidden registrant. Removing these links is far from easy. My question is, what are some techniques that are proven to be effective when working your way through the removal of a manual penalty? I know Google isn't going to tell me all of the offending links (they've offered a few examples, we've had those removed - still penalized) so what's the best way for me to find them myself? And, when I have a link removed, it may stay in Webmaster Tools as an active link for a while even though it no longer exists. Does the Quality Search team use Webmaster Tools to check or do they use something else? It's an open-ended question, really. Any help dealing with a manual penalty and what you have done to get that penalty removed is of great help to me. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | ccorlando0