Trying to figure out why Penguin has completely buggered us up, and what to do about it
-
Hola All,
This is a update of http://www.seomoz.org/q/gah-unfaorly-hit-by-massive-google-penalty
Updated because:
-
Google webmaster has gotten back to us that there have been no manual actions taken against us
-
Results haven't improved one jot
-
We're completely flummoxed as to why this is happenin
Quick summary:
We run the larest WordPress news site on the web, WPMU.org
We're completely legit, a team of 4-5 great writers, amazing original content, massive fanbase on twitter and facebook, a 60k email list etc, established for years and years.
We're absolutely not and haven't done anything gray or black, the worst we've done is including links in the footers of some themes we've distributed
Since the 24th April our google referrals are down from an 8.5k daily peak to 1.5 - see the attached.
Articles which have consistently attracted several hundred referrals per day have disappeared from the rankings to be replaced by republications or just links to the, for example, here's one on the dangers of searching for free WP themes, decimated:
http://wpmu.org/why-you-should-never-search-for-free-wordpress-themes-in-google-or-anywhere-else/
Check out how legit we are!
http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/links?site=wpmu.org
And the problem:
How to get our google traffic back?
We're completely stuck
We can't find issues within the site content, or even particularly within the backlinks (we've removed all links from Edublogs)
We haven't been manually whacked, so we can't get that changed.
Absolutely nothing within the penguin update should have hit us... in fact by their reckoning we should have had a massive improvement over all the trash that competes with us in the WordPress space.
Help / Ideas / Feedback / Criticism / Anything desperately sought.
Thanks for your time,
James
-
-
Thanks again for the feedback.
I see what you;re saying but to be honest I cannot fathom as to why they would be of any significant importance, and so them being taken away shouldn't count a jot really.
Our content is v popular (just check out facebook.com/wpmudev where's it's reposted plus other stuff, we've got stunning social metrics as well as a vast array of quality, genuine, interested organic links.
And we never went about it in any serious way, and stopped in 2009 or so when we were picking up 300 visits per day rather than the 20k we were prior to the 24th
-
Hi Me again!
You wrote:
"the worst we've done is including links in the footers of some themes we've distributed"
So, perhaps you should start with the worst and see if that is it?
I have a feeling that these Client Footer Links used to provide rankings and now don't because of adjustments to the algorithm. I think that rather than view it as a penalty, you may be best to view it as a previous gift that is now gone. I am formulating theories as to why, and I am currently somewhere beyond my original hunch (which was that they look like paid links), and not yet to my actual theory (which is much broader, but I haven't fully formulated, so I will keep to myself for a bit).
Anyway, I have figured out how it would be quite easy for search engines to devalue Client Footer Links, along with the blog networks and paid links they have been taking down, by using some available metrics. So, when my theory comes together, if the search engines are not using it, they will be forced to sometime in the next few years. (Stroking my own genious ego here, I know).
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
-
Penguin hit | Immediate?
Last year we fell off google rankings fairly quickly (mid-2013), out of the blue. We thought it was Penguin; but after looking at Analytic data of organic google visits; there seems to be no drastic loss of traffic at any time. Our site's loss of traffic is a gradual decline, not immediately noticeable, as in this video (~33:00 minutes in ). If there is no drop in organic google traffic that's noticeable, can I safely assume our drop in rankings wasn't due to an algorithm update?
Algorithm Updates | | godreamvacations0 -
We have a terrible, severe loss in our Keywords rankings this week, can you please help us what would happen in only 7 days ?
On the date 3rd of October we had almost 55 Keywords up and 44 almost down, Today after 7 days there is a severe drop 90 keyword is down, 7 only are up, and that's one website. My other website had 57 words up and 175 down. Our strategy in building backlinks: Directory submissions, article submissions and some blog commenting, we keep into consideration to choose only websites with high page rank (Page Rank 2 and higher). Also we had an updated on one of our websites since 1st of June a new URL structure, content, new pages and sitemap. Both websites has tons of keywords that we worked on increasing its rank and some we haven't touch them and its ranks was decreased. Does the new Google "hummingbird" have something to do with that? is there anything wrong with our strategy? Please provide us with your feedback ASAP.
Algorithm Updates | | ali8810 -
Have I been Hit by a Penguin? No Warning in Webmaster / Some Pages still Rank
Hi all, I have recently signed up to MOZ as I have seen a large drop in the turnover of a site I work with as well as a slump in visitors. I know part of this slump is the transition from google product search from being free to paid and chewing through our adwords budget quicker. The other part though seems a little more tricky, I have always been under the impression from reading online that an algorithm update would see a site destroyed for most terms and a notification generated in webmaster tools, however the site still seems to still rank for some terms, others however it has fallen off the face of the earth for. As you can see in the attachment webmaster tools is showing much decreased visibility, and MOZ agrees with this. Key terms that have lost rank have done so by around 4-10 positions. The content on the site has all been hand written by myself, however some of the pages are a little "stale" so I am currently running through re-writing every product page on the site (1000 products or so) all my product pages grade a minimum B with 99% A on the Moz page grader. I am keeping my fingers crossed that fresh content should assist in getting google interested again? However my real questions is, Is this Penguin? or is this just stale content? dmDdMr5.jpg pYkzck0.jpg 9f4mgM9.jpg
Algorithm Updates | | speedingorange1 -
18 years later, Page Rank 6 Drops to 0, All +1s disappear, Scrapers outrank us
18 years ago I put up our first website at http://oz.vc/6 Traffic grew and our forums reached hundreds of thousands of posts, our website had a page rank of 6 and our forums and other content areas ranked 5-6, the others usually 4-6. Panda 2.2 came along and whacked it. No measures recommended by SEO experts and the Matt Cutts videos even made a dent, including some pretty severe measures that were supposed to make a difference. Bing and Yahoo traffic both grew since Panda 2.2 and only Google kept dropping every few updates without recovery. Several few weeks ago Google provides the ultimate whack. It seems every page other than the home page has either a PR of 0 or not generating any PR at all. Every +1 disappeared off of the site. Now three pages have +1 back and the entire guide section (hundreds of articles) are still missing all +1s. I discovered two scrapers, one of which was copying all of our forum posts and ranking a PR 2 for it (while we have a zero. They were taken down but I still can't imagine how this result could happen. I am going to have an RSS feed aggregator taken down that is ranking a 2 and knows we can't prevent them from taking our Wordress feeds and storing them (we use them for areas on the site.) How can Google provide us with a zero page rank and give obvious scrapers page rank? What should have been years worth of awesome rich added content and new features was wasted chasing Google ghosts. I've had two SEO people look at the site and none could point to any major issue that would explain what we've seen, especially the latest page rank death penalty. We haven't sold paid links. We have received no warnings from Google (nor should we have.) The large "thin" area you may see in a directory were removed entirely from Google (and made no difference and a drop in Google doing the "right" thing!) Most think we have been stuck for a very long time in the rare Google glitch. Would be interested in your insights.
Algorithm Updates | | seoagnostic0 -
Any Google Panda/Penguin, etc updates late October 2012?
Not sure why my website traffic is dropping down late Oct 12. It showed a boost with the last Panda update in early Oct. Anyone know of a current update?
Algorithm Updates | | ChrisTS0 -
How could Penguin kill my top ten rank and promote this garbage page to a #5 spot
Hey, Before penguin, I had a #9 rank for the term "yoga poses". So as many of us are doing, I started looking at my link profile... and yes, there were around 300 links from an old yoga news website (anchor: yoga poses)... that lead to the page on my site optimized for this term. The problem is they took the site down, but not properly... I.E. they generate a "not available" message for browsers, but underneath, I guess the bots can still index all the pages... so I guess they were interpreting these links as coming from a cloaked site. So, I was able to get them to remove the links... webmaster tools reports half of them gone now. What I don't get though... is how Google can give this garbage page a #5 spot for a competitive term like "yoga poses"... Check out http://www.ebmyoga.com/beginyoga.html and compare it to my page... http://www.yogaclassplan.com/yoga-poses/ This page leads to highly quality 100% unique yoga pose articles... in my mind we deliver so much more value than the site with a #5 rank. I don't understand. Any insight? Thanks,
Algorithm Updates | | biomat0 -
Hit hard by Penguin
We've been hit hard by the Penguin update. To start - we have never paid for a link or participated in any link scheme. Never. I'm sure you've heard that - but in this case it's true. Our site - www.annuity.com - has been in existence since 2004. Because of our name, we've always been ranked on page 1 of Google for the search term "annuity". Now we aren't even on page 50. We got the dreaded letter about links, but we've never bought, exchanged, paid, etc. or participated in any link scheme. We have not needed too. We are referenced by sites such as Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Bankrate.com, etc. Our content is original and our own. We've spent years writing it. Because of our sites name - Annuity.com - we get a lot of web spam. Looking at some of our inbound links - companies are linking to us because of our name (keyword - looks like a auto link generation or something like that) or our reputation. Any suggestions or advice on how to get our ranking back without becoming the Web Police? We don't buy, purchase, spam, or need links that are not earned by the quality of our content. I'm at a loss.
Algorithm Updates | | galis421 -
Will google punish us for using formulaic keyword-rich content on different pages on our site?
We have 100 to 150 words of SEO text per page on www.storitz.com. Our challenge is that we are a storage property aggregator with hundreds of metros. We have to distinguish each city with relevant and umique text. If we use a modular approach where we mix and match pre-written (by us) content, demographic and location oriented text in an attempt to create relevant and unique text for multiple (hundreds) of pages on our site, will we be devalued by Google?
Algorithm Updates | | Storitz0