1st Ecommerce site got penalized, can we start a 2nd one?
-
Hello,
A client's first site got penalized by Goolge Penguin. It has recovered through cleaning up backlinks, but not to where it was before. It is 2nd and 3rd for several money keywords, but is far less successful than before penalization.
We are starting a second site. Here's the important steps to mention
The new site shows up first for it's domain name, and it has 30 pages indexed. It shows up NOWHERE for our leading search term. Out other site has a blog post that is 3rd for that search term.
We are using new categories and new organization.
We are using a different cart solution
We are adding all unique content
The home pages and some of the product pages are very thorough. We are adding comprehensive products like nothing else in the industry (10X)
We plan on adding a very comprehensive blog, but haven't started yet.
We've added the top 100 products so far. Our other store has 500.
There's a lot of spam in the industry, so sites are slow to rank.
Our category descriptions are 500 words
Again, all unique content. No major errors in Moz Campaign tools
Just a few categories so far, we're going to add many more.
Same Google Analytics account as our other site
It looks like we should eventually be on page 3 for our major search term. Again, we're nowhere for anything right now.
...
Have you seen that Google will not rank a second site because it's from the same company and Google Analytics account, or does Google let you rank 2 sites in the same industry? We are hoping it's just slow to rank.
If you can rank 2 sites, what are your best recommendations to help show up?
Thanks.
-
If you launch a duplicate site, Google will sniff it out and neither site will rank because they will treat them as one site with duplicate content. I had an issue like this for 2 legitimate sites with the same content and different brands. When we went with cross domain canonicals, we started ranking in a big way.
Without improving Backlinks, Content Quality and UX, your site will not achieve it's old rankings. The site was getting ranked because of link spam, and when those links spammy links go bye-bye your rankings go with them.
With the new "kinder & gentler" penguin, stick to 1 site and focus on making the current site awesome and acquiring high quality backlinks.
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
-
Competitor has same site with multiple languages
Hey Moz, I am working with a dating review website and we have noticed one of our competitors is basically making duplicated of their site with .com, .de, .co.uk, etc. My first thought is this is basically a way to game the system but I could be wrong. They are tapping into googles geo results by including major cities in each state, i.e. "dating in texas" "dating in atlanta" however the content itself doesn't really change. I can't figure out exactly why they are ranking so much higher. For example using some other SEO tools they have a traffic estimate of $500,000 monthly, where as we are sitting around $2000. So, either the traffic estimates are grossly misrepresenting traffic volume, OR they really are crushing it. TLDR: Is geo locating/translating sites a valid way to create backlinks? It's seems a lot like a PBN.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | HashtagHustler0 -
Google is giving one of my competitors a quasi page 1 monopoly, how can I complain?
Hi, When you search for "business plan software" on google.co.uk, 7 of the 11 first results are results from 1 company selling 2 products, see below: #1. Government site (related to "business plan" but not to "business plan software")
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | tbps
#2. Product 1 from Palo Alto Software (livePlan)
#3. bplan.co.uk: content site of Palo Alto Software (relevant to "business plan" but only relevant to "business plan software" because it is featuring and linking to their Product 1 and Product 2 sites)
#4. Same site as #3 but different url
#5. Palo Alto Software Product 2 (Business Plan Pro) page on Palo Alto Software .co.uk corporate site
#6. Same result as #5 but different url (the features page)
#7. Palo Alto Software Product 2 (Business Plan Pro) local site
#8, #9 and #10 are ok
#11. Same as #3 but the .com version instead of the .co.uk This seems wrong to me as it creates an illusion of choice for the customer (especially because they use different sites) whereas in reality the results are showcasing only 2 products. Only 1 of Palo Alto Software's competitors is present on page 1 of the search results (the rest of them are on page 2 and page 3). Did some of you experience a similar issue in a different sector? What would be the best way to point it out to Google? Thanks in advance Guillaume0 -
Cross-Site Links with different Country Code Domains
I have a question with the penguin update. I know they are really cracking down on "spam" links. I know that they are wanting you to shift from linking keywords to the brand name, unless it makes sense in a sentence. We have five sites for one company in the header they have little flag images, that link to different country domains. These domains all have relatively the same domain name besides the country code. My question is, linking these sites back and fourth to each other in this way, does it hurt you in penguin? I know they are wanting you to push your identity but does this cross-site scheme hurt you? In the header of these sites we have something like this. I am assuming the best strategy would probably be to treat them like separate entities. Or, just focus on one domain. They also have some sites that have links in the footer but they are set up like:
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | AlliedComputer
For product visit Domain.com Should nofollows be added on these footer links as well? I am not sure if penguin finds them spammy too.0 -
Redirect n domain to one
What happen when I redirect301 10 domain to one? I have 10 domain with ave Page Authority=45 and Domain Authority 60 and want to increase my new domain by redirect them. is it right or wrong?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | vahidafshari450 -
How can I tell if my site was penalized from the most recent penguin update?
Hey all, I want to be able to see if my website was penalized from the most recent penguin update because we have several hundred websites built and at the bottom of each on it says something along the lines Website by, Web Design by, Hosting by and links back to our homepage. Could this possibly be penalizing us since these links have similar anchor text and on sites that have nothing to do with our services? Thanks, Ryan
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | MonsterWeb280 -
Big loss in Google traffic recently, but can't work out what the problem is
Since about May 17 my site - http://lowcostmarketingstrategies.com - has suffered a big drop in traffic from Google, presumed from the dreaded Penguin update. I am at a loss why I have been hit when I don't engage in any black hat SEO tactics or do any link building. The site is high quality, provides a good experience for the user and I make sure that all of the content is unique and not published elsewhere. The common checklist of potential problems from Penguin (such as keyword stuffing, web spam and over optimisation in general) don't seem relevant to my site. I'm wondering if someone could take a quick look at my site to see any obvious things that need to be removed to get back in Google's good books. I was receiving around 200 - 250 hits per day, but that has now dropped down to 50 - 100 and I fee that I have been penalised incorrectly. Any input would be fantastic Thanks 🙂
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | ScottDudley0 -
EMD with 3.3million broad match searches got hit hard by Panda/Penguin
k, so I run an ecommerce website with a kick ass domain name. 1 keyword (plural)
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | SwissNinja
3.3 million broad match searches (local monthly)
3.2 million phrase match
100k exact match beginning of march I got a warning in GWT about unnatural links. I feel pretty certain its a result of an ex-employee using an ALN listing service to drip spun article links on splogs. This was done also for another site of mine, which received the same warning, except bounced back much sooner (from #3 for EMD w/ 100k broad, 60k phrase and 12k exact, singular keyword phrase) I did file reinclusion on the 2nd (smaller) domain. Received unnatural warning on 4/13 and sent reconsideration on 5/1 (tune of letter is "I have no clue what is up, I paid someone $50 and now Im banned) As of this morning, I am not ranking for any of my terms (had boucned back on main keyword to spot #30 after being pushed down from #4) now back to the interesting site....
this other domain was bouncing between 8-12 for main keyword (EMD) before we used ALN.
Once we got warning, we did nothing. Once rankings started to fall,we filed reinclusion request...rankings fell more, and filed another more robustly written request (got denials within 1 week after each request)until about 20 days ago when we fell off of the face of the earth. 1- should I take this as some sort of sandbox? We are still indexed, and are #1 for a search on our domain name. Also still #1 in bing (big deal) 2- I've done a detailed analysis of every link they provide in GWT. reached out to whatever splog people I could get in touch with asking them to remove articles. I was going to file another request if I didn't reappear after 31 days after I fell off completely. Am I wasting my time? there is no doubt that sabatoge could be committed by competition by blasting them with spam links (previously I believed these would just be ignored by google to prevent sabatoge from becoming part of the job for most SEOs) Laugh at me, gasp in horror with me, or offer some advice... I'm open to chat and would love someone to tell me about a legit solution to this prob if they got one thanks!0 -
Thinking of redirecting *all* mobile traffic to another site (via an advertiser) - safe to do?
Hi, I am thinking of redirecting all mobile (iphone, cell phone, etc) to an advertiser (so completely different content than my site). Is there any risk of getting banned from google (etc) for doing this? (this is for an adult site)
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | dmn020