Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
We have a 1-year old price comparison site that was a very small site - it was just a search box in several languages for one year. We have been running basic promotional activities for the site and it was ranking for some keywords. The site has a few hundred natural backlinks earned via press releases, conference attendance and media coverage ("natural") and just a few directory links - I do not think there are more than 30 directory links to it.
During that last year we have been working on the full version of the site with navigation including category and product pages. Since the site is a price comparison site it features duplicate product descriptions with some extra stuff that we were able to add on automation basis. The content is not very unique as you can imagine.
About 3 weeks ago we have launched the full version of the site and allowed Google to crawl it and index. We have launched a huge number of pages in several languages and Google has already indexed 30,000 pages. The site began to rank fine and things were great for 6 days. After that, all rankings were gone to anywhere from -50 to -950 depending on a searched phrase. The site ranks #1 for [websitename] without TLD.
What I find interesting is the fact that not only new rankings are gone, but the old (legitimate? they were there for a long time) ones are gone, too. I understand a duplicate page does not rank, so our product pages should not rank, but previously ranking pages should not dive.
This leads me to thinking that we must have made a mistake somewhere.
My first thought was - duplicate product descriptions... BUT most of the sites ranking for our keywords have the same duplicate descriptions!
And these old pages losing the rankings make me even more confused.
Anyone had a similar situation while re-launching a site?
Should this be considered a penalty?
All input appreciated. We have been re-launching a couple our sites before and never had problems. I am trying to understand the reasons for this one.
Thanks in advance.
About 3 weeks ago we have launched the full version of the site
That says it all. It's way too soon to jump to any conclusions about the effect of duplicate content. Keep improving the site, and have it offer your visitors value and functionality that stands out from the crowd. As you do that, make your product descriptions unique, as best you can. Also, beware of over-using the same keywords in internal anchor text - that can trigger a 950 style drop.
It may sound strange to say this in a Google Search forum, but you may be better off to have a lot less attention on Google and more on your visitors. Trying too hard to send Google "all the right signals" can end up sending the WRONG signals. Working to please your visitors has that effect a lot less often.
Many thanks for replying to me.
Sure I understand your points regarding improving the site and that is the path we are following.
Sure I understand that a site requires time and work to rank well for medium and big keywords.
As far as "signals to Google" are concerned we have built a natural site. There is no keyword stuffing in internal links, no links cloud in footer or anywhere else. We are into natural site building and the site is just about pleasing the visitor.
I am worried because of the penalty-like syndroms that are visible, especially the fact that previously ranked pages are now -950 (last page of the results).
As tedester said sit it out as I don't feel it is duplicate content unless there is more than one url for the same product page.
Just to let you know that the things started to look well again. The site is still being indexed by Google and it begins to rank for certain keywords as we work on promoting it.
Thanks for your help Tedster and Bwnbwn.
