Site Surged with Panda Now Dropped In SERPs

[learnseo81]

I've a website which has been dropped in the SERPs on 12 May. My traffic surged a lot in Panda 1 and Panda 2 both updates.

My whole website is built on only unique content and gradual link building. I've many #1 positions which are now all lost. My daily traffic has dropped from 5000 visitors a day to 200 visitors a day.

Some things :

1. My site is a Wordpress site and had tags and duplicate subpages (like abc.com/page/2). I've gotten rid of them and blocked google from accessing them.

2. I'm checking whole site for duplicate content and replacing any duplicate content with fresh one.

3. I'm adding new content and fresh backlinks to the site like I've always been doing. None of my posts are short than 1000 unique words.

4. I'm doing everything to make sure that there is no duplicate content across my site and even If a scrapper site has copied my content, I'm replacing mine with new one and turning off RSS feed so that scrappers can't crawl me that easily and quickly.

I'm not afraid of Panda in anyway because I'm not doing anything wrong. This is something I believe. If you've more suggestions to improve my approach, I'll be happy to take honest advise from you.

What I'm thinking about the dramatically fallen SERPs ? Here is my take on this :-

1. First of all, I believe my site has not been hit by panda. Its something else.

2. None of my backlinks have gone anywhere and I'm viewing this incident just as google dance and believe things will come back.

3. Google WMT is not showing any backlinks for my website.

4. My site serps are bouncing like crazy. From #70 to #40. Then to #65. Then to #56 and this is making me mad. Feels like Google is updating their index or re-assessing my website and/or its backlinks?

Finally, duplicate content can't hurt us because there are lots of variables involved in high SERPs ranking. This is from Google's website about duplicate content (Google posted this after the Farmer Update)

If you find that another site is duplicating your content by scraping (misappropriating and republishing) it, it's unlikely that this will negatively impact your site's ranking in Google search results pages. If you do spot a case that's particularly frustrating, you are welcome to file a DMCA request to claim ownership of the content and request removal of the other site from Google's index.

I would love to hear what you think about my situation. Do you think I've been penalized? Although I've been in the biz for quite some time but learning never ends.

Let me know what you think guys and thanks for reading this long post.

[pageoneresults]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld learnseo81!

My site serps are bouncing like crazy. From #70 to #40. Then to #65. Then to #56 and this is making me mad. Feels like Google is updating their index or re-assessing my website and/or its backlinks?

How do you know this? Are you running some sort of rank checking software?

I'm adding new content and fresh backlinks to the site like I've always been doing. None of my posts are short than 1000 unique words.

How do you add fresh backlinks? Do you have them in the fridge or something? ;)

[tedster]

Welcome to the forums, learnseo81. I think you are wise not to over-react and to give Google some time to work this out. No, it doesn't sound like Panda.

My one concern was the casual way in which you mentioned adding fresh backlinks like you've "always been doing." It is very possible that Google is re-evaluating backlinks, and they particularly like to devalue backlinks that are under the site owner's control.

Google prefers backlinks that are freely, editorially given from a site that has no association with the link's targeet. For many years, Google has been improving their algorithm to identify other kinds of backlinks that the site owner can create at will - and then to give them less power.

[CRedou]

That sounds like a -50, -60 penalty to me, my network was hit on March 10th, its due to many factors, among these: backlinks, adsense etc

All people that were hit by this penalty talk about a 3 months duration, I suggest you wait and see, in the meantime if you can improve your website for the visitors good, then go ahead...

Red

[learnseo81]

@pageoneresults

I check that manually. Search for a term four times a day and find it bouncing a lot. I've read that other fellow webmasters had the same issue and got old positions back in 4-10 days.

When I say fresh backlinks, I'm creating links gradually from relevant sources as everybody else is doing.

[learnseo81]

@tedster, thanks for the welcome.

I'm getting backlinks from relevant content from relevant websites. I know Google likes to devalue links but I've tested which backlinks makes impact and I believe I was doing something right.

My competitors and doing the same strategy and still on the top. Lots of sites with #*$!ty profile links on the top. Most of my links are in-content links from high PR sites, high PR pages, relevant sites, social bookmarking etc..

I've been at #1 for 17 terms for last 1 year and never dropped. I've been like cemented there. I don't know what caused this blip but I hope its temporary thing.

[learnseo81]

@CRedou

I believe there are no penalties like -50, -60. I'm not saying you are wrong. There are several google filters but I believe I didn't trip any of those filters.

I'm not targeting anchor texts but getting links from lots of variations. I don't monetize the sites with adsense at all! In fact, none of my sites have adsense so that can't be the reason.

If backlinks will hurt a site, It will be very easy to sabotage your competitors. Backlinks can either help you or can't help you at all, that's it! Backlinks will do harm doesn't sound good.

Now If you get thousands of backlinks in a very short period of time, that's will trigger some sort of google filter and you may remain filtered for quite some while. It is VERY easy for google to detect anchor text patterns and If you domain doesn't have trust or authority, then filter it out.

May I ask, when your network got hit with this penalty, how old your sites were and how much backlinks you pushed to them?

[kd454]

I believe there are no penalties like -50, -60.

This is what it sounds like to me as well, usually due to backlinks and a manual review.

Put http:// site.com into Goog search and if you only see your index page at #1 and no other URLS from your site below it you probably have this penalty.

[learnseo81]

@ kd454

I see only my index page at #1 and no urls from my site below it but this test doesn't make any sense :)

type [download.com...] and it won't show other pages from the site. Do you think It is penalized?

P.S. Several of my results are at like #18 #22 #25 as well but those terms get way way less traffic. So in a -50 penalty all of my site results will move down beyond 50, this is not the case.

[kd454]

Sounds like you took a hit. Not fun did not happen to me for years then all of the sudden several over the course of a week did, then Panda came along soon after ohh what fun :)

If it just happend give it time and they will all get pushed back to -50 or futher, if you have other sites on the same i.p address or Adsense on site you might take hits on more of your sites, just an FYI.

[pageoneresults]

And it won't show other pages from the site. Do you think it is penalized?

What type of search did you perform? I show about 4,780 results for site:download.com and about 3,690,000 results for the target it redirects to.

[learnseo81]

@kd454

No site on same IP. I don't use adsense at all. Time will tell where the SERPS end. Will keep this thread updated.

[learnseo81]

@ pageoneresults

I just put http www download dot com in the search box. If I use site parameter all of my site pages are showing up nicely.

[pageoneresults]

I just put http www download dot com in the search box.

You need to surround that with quote marks to get accurate results. Without the quote marks, it is searching "http" and "download" and ignoring the www. and .com.
.

[edited by: pageoneresults at 4:02 pm (utc) on May 16, 2011]

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 4:03 am (utc) on Nov 12, 2012]
[edit reason] accidentally went into wrong thread [/edit]

[indyank]

When I do a search for a "site" as http://site.com I get some good pages getting listed below the home page but still this site is "pandalized".
.

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 4:02 am (utc) on Nov 12, 2012]
[edit reason] Disabled auto-link to make sample url display [/edit]

[Planet13]

Has there been a major turnover for the other top sites for those keywords? Or is it just your site pages that have dropped?

When I say fresh backlinks, I'm creating links gradually from relevant sources as everybody else is doing.

Can you define "gradual" please? How many links per month?

Most of my links are in-content links from high PR sites, high PR pages...

Maybe the PR is TOO high? Are you buying these links? If not, could it APPEAR to google that you are buying these links?

Maybe if the top ranking sites have poor links, google EXPECTS sites in that niche to have poor links, and would be suspicious if one site had a monopoly of high PR links?

Have you looked at ALL the backlinks to your site to see if a competitor has possibly placed thousands of links to your site without your knowledge?

As for penalties, I haven't experienced any myself (knock on wood), but many of the people who I have spoken with - and who have YEARS of experience with this - are convinced that manual penalties are very real.

[CRedou]

The sites were 2 years old and no i was building like 1500 backlinks per site...

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

1. My site is a Wordpress site and had tags and duplicate subpages (like abc.com/page/2). I've gotten rid of them and blocked google from accessing them.

I found the opposite works.

Index - the first 200 words of the latest articles, many regulars don't click around.
Category - the first 200 words of the latest articles in that category, desc order. many visitors want articles from one subject.
Archive - the first 200 words of each article broken down by month, asc order. Usefull to find older content without clicking through vast amounts of pagination.
+ The article itself which is where Google sends most first timers.

No canonical, Google indexes the article itself for the keywords and OFTEN gives the site multiple results from those other pages. If duplicate was an issue I'd be smacked silly on that site. It makes sense for visitors so I don't care what G thinks, thankfully they didn't maul me with a bear yet.

[AlyssaS]

I see only my index page at #1 and no urls from my site below it but this test doesn't make any sense :)

type [download.com...] and it won't show other pages from the site. Do you think It is penalized?

P.S. Several of my results are at like #18 #22 #25 as well but those terms get way way less traffic. So in a -50 penalty all of my site results will move down beyond 50, this is not the case.

I apologise if I'm being dense here, but is download.com really your site? Because it redirects to download.cnet.com, and is most certainly not a wordpress site. Or were you just using that as a sort of example?

[MrFlex2600]

My daily traffic has dropped from 5000 visitors a day to 200 visitors a day.

Sounds like a Google penalty of some kind. I had exactly same problem with one of my sites in February 2007.
The sites was growing very fast and it went from 0 to over 3000 unique visitors/day in 10 months, and then suddenly my traffic dropped to about 300 uniques/day OVERNIGHT!
EXACTLY 4 months later Google lifted the penalty and my traffic went up from 300 to 2000 uniques overnight.
Since then the site never went back to 3000 uniques/day. Last month the site was pandalized and now I'm at about 1200 uniquies/day.

That's why NEVER put your energy into one site. NEVER!
Instead of building one large site, just create 5 smaller sites. If one of them get penalized/pandalized/googlized/whateverlized... you'll have 4 more.

[learnseo81]

The thing is, I gained lots of SERPs in Panda updates as the site is built around unique content only. I'm not linking to anyone and there must be a reason for the penalty.

Please note that 12th is the date when several website of fellow webmasters took a hit and a few of them are back in the SERPs. I'm waiting and watching as there is nothing I can do about the situation.

[tedster]

When I say fresh backlinks, I'm creating links gradually from relevant sources as everybody else is doing.

That answer is a bit too casual for me. "Everybody else" is doing a bajillion different things, and the most common reason for a penalty is something in the backlink profile that Google see as an attempt at manipulation. It even looks like too much use of the same keyword in the anchor text can trigger a penalty.

-----

Another common reason for a drop in rankings is a hacked website that now hosts parasite links. Some hackers are also quite devious these days about cloaking the parasite content, so I'd encourage you to make a through investigation here, and use "Fetch as googlebot", not just your own browser.

[learnseo81]

@tedster

Yeah, too much use of a keyword can trigger a penalty but I'm varying anchor text and creating backlinks for the target page for tightly relevant/related terms. I'm not attacking anchor text. You know what I mean :) I'm not trying backlinks manipulation in anyway.

Now the another point. If your theory is correct the backlink profile manipulation of any website is very very easy.

I can do sabotage any of my competitors by sending them thousands of spammy links, everyday? It is my theory that whether a backlinks count or it doesn't and It is not possible to sabotage your competitors with spammy links in long term. You've much more experience on this topic and I would appreciate If you could enlighten me.

I've fetched the site as googlebot and It just gets crawled fine. I've checked the source code carefully and nothing is wrong. I would be look into any other suggestions you might have. Thanks a lot for helping me and sharing your knowledge with me.

I'm always very eager to learn from experienced fellows :)

[learnseo81]

Sorry for the typos in my earlier post. One more thing I want to mention. Right now If you search for term "backlinks" there are several crap sites on the first page.

I'm watching backlinksforum dot com SERPs for term "backlinks". Three days ago they were #6. Then two days ago #34 and today #11. I think It is not the usual dance. Doesn't feel like strange?

[Planet13]

HI again, learnseo81:

When I say fresh backlinks, I'm creating links gradually from relevant sources as everybody else is doing.

Would you mind letting us know how many backlinks you build in a month? I think this is VERY important.

Are they all to the same page? Or different pages?

I'm not linking to anyone and there must be a reason for the penalty.

Purely a guess here, but I think the fact that you AREN'T linking out to anyone might be a problem. I am sure there are probably SOME sites that don't link out to anyone and are fine. But maybe a combination of rapid backlink acquisition, narrowly focused anchor text, narrowly focused target page, and lack of outbound links MIGHT make google think there is page rank manipulation going on.

But please do let us know some metrics; how many links were you getting, to how many different pages were the links pointing to, and how many anchor text variations were you using?

[learnseo81]

@Planet13

Creating backlinks is not such a big problem. Everybody in the SERPs is creating backlinks for themselves. If backlink sabotage will be this easy, I'll take all my competitors down. I see thin websites on the top of SERPs since years and they are still there.

The backlinks I create to are different pages. Like 20 backlinks to a page every week from relevant sites and unique content.

I do link to wikipedia, microsoft, youtube where ever necessary but It seems total pointless that If I don't link to anyone, google will think that manipulation is going on

Anchor text is not narrowly focused!

I'm linking to like 10 pages in the site. Though all pages have inbound like and COMPLETELY legitimate links but all pages have been tanked in the serps like never before.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

[learnseo81]

One more think I don't understand. Why the SERPs are bouncing a lot? I'm seeing my pages everywhere. My pages are moving like +25, -30, + 37 in the SERPs and not getting stabilized!

[defanjos]

Like 20 backlinks to a page every week from relevant sites and unique content.

I'm linking to like 10 pages in the site.

So, you are getting 200 links per week, 800 per month. Do you actually think this is natural?

I guess if you are Wikipedia, it is, but you are not.

Getting these many links this quickly is a sure way to burn your site to the ground.

I'm not trying backlinks manipulation in anyway.

Really?

[learnseo81]

@defanjos

If getting backlinks quickly is a sure way to burn the site, please let me know your website address. My website has about 70 #1 rankings and they all dropped to Page 4, 5 Overnight. It took me 2 years to get those rankings.

I'm sorry but backlinking doesn't harm as you are telling me. People are still throwing 2000 links everyday to their sites and dominating SERPs. I know quite a few such guys.

[centipede]

@learnseo81 If you didn't want advice, don't ask for it. If you do want advice, hush and take the advice. It totally sounds like you are manipulating links to your site. Smart people are telling you that's probably the cause of your problems. Maybe you should listen to them.

I have 100ish web sites. Most do pretty great in the Google rankings. I don't build backlinks in any way. I might ask a few colleagues to link to my new sites, but really I consider a new link a day as plenty. For most sites, getting hundreds of links a week has got to look like manipulation to the Google. Because it is.