Warning! Wordpress Auto Tagging Plugins and Duplicate Content!

Khemal · 03-23-2011, 11:56 AM

Hi all,

Just wanted to share a personal (horror!) story about one of my sites that just got G Slapped last week

(why am I smiling??)

I've had the site for about 6 months now and it's an EMD which was on the first page of Google for a 2 word hot keyword. The content is 100% original and I had 20 original posts on it. I've used the same organic (don't laugh) link building process that I've used on all of my other blogs that are doing well on Google's page 1. The only difference is that I tried out a plugin called Web Ninja Auto Tagging WordPress › Web Ninja Auto Tagging System « WordPress Plugins which was recommended to my by a friend who swore by it. Going against my better judgement I installed it and ran it against all my 20 posts. The plugin created about 15-20 tags for each post automatically and at the time it looked harmless.

Fast forward 2 weeks and my site dropped out of google! And I mean site:mysite and info:mysite brought back 0 results. Not good! So I looked into my google webmaster tools and found out that there were a lot of "pages" (250 or so) that seem to be active on my site that I didn't remember adding. Upon close inspection I found that every tag basically generated a page in the form of site.com/tags/tagname and that the majority of these "pages" had the same excerpt from my posts. This means that I had a large number of "pages" in google's eyes that had the exact same content (duplicate content!). So that was the #1 culprit for my site to be kicked out of Google (as far as I can tell).

I've since deleted the tags and the plugin and requested reconsideration of my site which takes a few weeks. We'll see how it goes but the moral of this story is, don't go overboard with auto tagging on your wordpress blogs or else you might get the business end of Google's 5 finger slap!

OK that's my rant for today!
Khemal

besterz · 03-23-2011, 12:01 PM

Google has removed the site assessment by tag
you should not worry because this

Khemal · 03-23-2011, 12:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by besterz

Google has removed the site assessment by tag
you should not worry because this

Well I certainly hope they did. I couldn't find anything else wrong On Site. That's not to say that perhaps Google crawled a few of the backlinks and that raised some red flags. Wish there was a way that Google simply told you why they gave you the boot.

mrdeleted · 03-26-2011, 11:54 PM

Hey I have a few of these sites too, and got banned too, however it seems now that China is hammering me with traffic, my one site did over 60G bandwidth last month even without Google. And the one site is now making around 10.00 a day from adsense from this Chinese traffic.

Mattymar · 03-27-2011, 12:33 AM

I actually recently started nofollowing my tags pages. This might help in such a situation, no?

mrdeleted · 03-27-2011, 12:51 AM

I have no idea, however Google had a lot of pages indexed (I think like 30,000 pages) before they banned the site,and in that time they had a lot of traffic. I just left the sites alone, and they just got picked up by a few Chinese search engines, and have been sending me a lot of traffic.

mitz · 03-27-2011, 05:31 AM

Thanks for letting us know about the plugin.

I have also had sites de-googled by using wp-robot and a couple of others...They are not worth it.

I still use certain plugins like SEOpresser and have had no problems...

webboss · 03-27-2011, 05:43 AM

thank you for discussing this problem i had a same problem the content is coming along but also the originality is going down.

AtaArticles · 10-15-2011, 10:31 AM

I found this thread on Google trying to find out about auto tags plugin. It seems i lost most of my traffic and not sure if i should just delete all tags or embed a 'noindex' tags in htaccess.

It seems autoblogs, wp-robot and the like don't work anymore after Panda update...and sites which always had unique content will continue to dominate.

03-23-2011, 11:56 AM	#1
Khemal Senior Warrior Member War Room Member Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: , , USA. Posts: 1,338 Thanks: 7 Thanked 64 Times in 38 Posts	Warning! Wordpress Auto Tagging Plugins and Duplicate Content! Hi all, Just wanted to share a personal (horror!) story about one of my sites that just got G Slapped last week (why am I smiling??) I've had the site for about 6 months now and it's an EMD which was on the first page of Google for a 2 word hot keyword. The content is 100% original and I had 20 original posts on it. I've used the same organic (don't laugh) link building process that I've used on all of my other blogs that are doing well on Google's page 1. The only difference is that I tried out a plugin called Web Ninja Auto Tagging WordPress › Web Ninja Auto Tagging System « WordPress Plugins which was recommended to my by a friend who swore by it. Going against my better judgement I installed it and ran it against all my 20 posts. The plugin created about 15-20 tags for each post automatically and at the time it looked harmless. Fast forward 2 weeks and my site dropped out of google! And I mean site:mysite and info:mysite brought back 0 results. Not good! So I looked into my google webmaster tools and found out that there were a lot of "pages" (250 or so) that seem to be active on my site that I didn't remember adding. Upon close inspection I found that every tag basically generated a page in the form of site.com/tags/tagname and that the majority of these "pages" had the same excerpt from my posts. This means that I had a large number of "pages" in google's eyes that had the exact same content (duplicate content!). So that was the #1 culprit for my site to be kicked out of Google (as far as I can tell). I've since deleted the tags and the plugin and requested reconsideration of my site which takes a few weeks. We'll see how it goes but the moral of this story is, don't go overboard with auto tagging on your wordpress blogs or else you might get the business end of Google's 5 finger slap! OK that's my rant for today! Khemal
	"Sorry I didn't get your PM/Email" - Never Again! Click to buzz me anytime! Want customers to be able to contact you simply, securely, instantly & intelligently and get notifications via Email, iPhone or Android Apps based on rules YOU set? -> www.BuzzTie.com

03-23-2011, 12:01 PM	#2
besterz Warrior Member Join Date: Mar 2010 Posts: 5 Thanks: 2 Thanked 1 Time in 1 Post Social Networking	Re: Warning! Wordpress Auto Tagging Plugins and Duplicate Content! Google has removed the site assessment by tag you should not worry because this

03-26-2011, 11:54 PM	#4
mrdeleted Warrior Member Join Date: Mar 2011 Posts: 2 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts Social Networking	Re: Warning! Wordpress Auto Tagging Plugins and Duplicate Content! Hey I have a few of these sites too, and got banned too, however it seems now that China is hammering me with traffic, my one site did over 60G bandwidth last month even without Google. And the one site is now making around 10.00 a day from adsense from this Chinese traffic.
	Facebook Machine coming soon

03-27-2011, 12:33 AM	#5
Mattymar Warrior Member Join Date: Feb 2011 Posts: 5 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	Re: Warning! Wordpress Auto Tagging Plugins and Duplicate Content! I actually recently started nofollowing my tags pages. This might help in such a situation, no?

03-27-2011, 12:51 AM	#6
mrdeleted Warrior Member Join Date: Mar 2011 Posts: 2 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts Social Networking	Re: Warning! Wordpress Auto Tagging Plugins and Duplicate Content! I have no idea, however Google had a lot of pages indexed (I think like 30,000 pages) before they banned the site,and in that time they had a lot of traffic. I just left the sites alone, and they just got picked up by a few Chinese search engines, and have been sending me a lot of traffic.
	Facebook Machine coming soon

03-27-2011, 05:31 AM	#7
mitz Active Warrior War Room Member Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Australia Posts: 33 Thanks: 1 Thanked 21 Times in 4 Posts Social Networking Contact Info	Re: Warning! Wordpress Auto Tagging Plugins and Duplicate Content! Thanks for letting us know about the plugin. I have also had sites de-googled by using wp-robot and a couple of others...They are not worth it. I still use certain plugins like SEOpresser and have had no problems...
	Have a great day! Computer Tips Making money online by building one Wordpress Website at a time.

03-27-2011, 05:43 AM	#8
webboss Active Warrior Join Date: May 2010 Posts: 73 Thanks: 4 Thanked 5 Times in 5 Posts	Re: Warning! Wordpress Auto Tagging Plugins and Duplicate Content! thank you for discussing this problem i had a same problem the content is coming along but also the originality is going down.
	Software development laptops pakistan Affordable Seo services Pakistani music Dc limousines

10-15-2011, 10:31 AM	#9
AtaArticles AtaArticles Join Date: Dec 2009 Posts: 21 Thanks: 16 Thanked 1 Time in 1 Post	Re: Warning! Wordpress Auto Tagging Plugins and Duplicate Content! I found this thread on Google trying to find out about auto tags plugin. It seems i lost most of my traffic and not sure if i should just delete all tags or embed a 'noindex' tags in htaccess. It seems autoblogs, wp-robot and the like don't work anymore after Panda update...and sites which always had unique content will continue to dominate.
	Asbestos Mesothelioma