Google Indexed amazon links under my domain then I got thin content penalty

23 replies
  • SEO
  • |
I have a website that I've had for a number of years, been doing OK, has lots of comments, original content, etc. It's mostly reviews, people commenting adding to the reviews and then I have some exact match amazon ads on the page to go with review. I'm using phpzon to achieve this.

Few months back I decided to enable "display link to amazon customer reviews" in the options. Basically this added a link in the descriptions of said product to a page on amazon with their customer reviews. A couple months pass and suddenly I'm hit with a Google "thin content" penalty.

Going to investigate I find my indexed pages in Google went from 70, the rough size of my site to almost 200. It's all these links indexed as actual pages under my domain. If you click them in Google search results they just lead to Amazon.

I don't know why these links got indexed as pages on my website. They appear like this in Google: mywebsite.com/product-review_B001QMJ8I6_us.html

Any thoughts as to what is going on or the fastest way to get these pages de-indexed as I don't think they will take my reconsideration request until these pages are gone. I already turned off the plugin option.

Thanks,
Michael
#amazon #content #domain #google #indexed #links #penalty #thin
  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    Are you sure those phpzon automated pages that redirect from Google to Amazon aren't hijacking your affiliate ID? What other purpose would those URLs serve?

    I wouldn't be surprised If phpzon isn't a footprint in your HTML triggering thin content in some Google database. The Google redirect is an obvious footprint, there's probably others. Look at your live webpage source code, there's probably a footprint or two.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[9673034].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author Michael Falk
      Thank you for your response. I just tried to look at the source code on my website. I'm really not sure what I'm looking for though. I do know when the phpzon amazon links to the review pages were displayed I checked them to the ones appearing in the google index and they matched.

      Can you elaborate on how I should go about checking what you say might be going on. I appreciate your help very much.

      Thanks!
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[9673216].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author yukon
        Banned
        Originally Posted by Michael Falk View Post

        Thank you for your response. I just tried to look at the source code on my website. I'm really not sure what I'm looking for though. I do know when the phpzon amazon links to the review pages were displayed I checked them to the ones appearing in the google index and they matched.

        Can you elaborate on how I should go about checking what you say might be going on. I appreciate your help very much.

        Thanks!
        The obvious things to check in your HTML source code would be browser searches on the source code for keywords like:
        • phpzon
        • zon

        That's where I would start.

        [edit]
        Also look at your Google Cache (text version) for obvious signs of phpzon (text or links). Make sure it's the text version of the cache & not the full version.

        Really you need to get those automated pages & redirects under control.
        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[9673395].message }}
        • Profile picture of the author Michael Falk
          Thank you, I did a search and didn't find anything in the source code. Do you not trust phpzon? Like I paid for the plugin, is it bad or something? I've been using it for a while now with no troubles. I thought perhaps it was the way they implemented showing the link to the amazon review page of the specific product your showing.

          Thanks!
          {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[9673465].message }}
          • Profile picture of the author yukon
            Banned
            Originally Posted by Michael Falk View Post

            Thank you, I did a search and didn't find anything in the source code. Do you not trust phpzon? Like I paid for the plugin, is it bad or something? I've been using it for a while now with no troubles. I thought perhaps it was the way they implemented showing the link to the amazon review page of the specific product your showing.

            Thanks!
            I don't personally have anything against phpzon but I wouldn't trust anything that automatically built pages/links in the background that redirected from Google SERPs to another domain, especially an affiliate domain.
            {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[9673481].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author nik0
    Banned
    Originally Posted by Michael Falk View Post

    I have a website that I've had for a number of years, been doing OK, has lots of comments, original content, etc. It's mostly reviews, people commenting adding to the reviews and then I have some exact match amazon ads on the page to go with review. I'm using phpzon to achieve this.

    Few months back I decided to enable "display link to amazon customer reviews" in the options. Basically this added a link in the descriptions of said product to a page on amazon with their customer reviews. A couple months pass and suddenly I'm hit with a Google "thin content" penalty.

    Going to investigate I find my indexed pages in Google went from 70, the rough size of my site to almost 200. It's all these links indexed as actual pages under my domain. If you click them in Google search results they just lead to Amazon.

    I don't know why these links got indexed as pages on my website. They appear like this in Google: mywebsite.com/product-review_B001QMJ8I6_us.html

    Any thoughts as to what is going on or the fastest way to get these pages de-indexed as I don't think they will take my reconsideration request until these pages are gone. I already turned off the plugin option.

    Thanks,
    Michael
    Is this the same plugin/theme setup that shows a gallery of images at the bottom of your posts?

    If so get rid of that plugin immidiately, it heavily over monetizes your pages, and it does some other odd stuff that stops you from ranking well.

    When I removed it all my sites instantly improved, it's the worse product in the market.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[9673480].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Michael Falk
    OK, thanks for all the input. I don't know what to do. The plugin was like 70 dollars and I've been using it without trouble for years except for this now. It don't display a gallery or anything. I just have it set up to display 2 products at the end of my posts. You enter keywords for each post so they are very specific items relative to my post. It's not a plugin/theme combo setup or anything. Would it help at all to give you guys my website name, is that allowed on here?
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[9673684].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author SEO Power
    I've had the same issue, not with the same plugin, but with the pretty links plugin. All my redirects to Amazon were indexed in the SERPs and once clicked they redirected to the Amazon product pages of the products I'm promoting. They didn't get my site penalised though.

    Did you use any PBN links to promote your site? If yes, that could be the culprit.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[9673819].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Michael Falk
    Thanks for your input, how did you get these links de-indexed? I did not use any PBN links to promote the site. I really think its these links as it's a thin content penalty and the only thing I can think is that google is looking at my site as a majority of these pages are redirects to amazon.

    Thanks!
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[9673834].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author SEO-Dave
    Got an old throwaway domain I was using for testing autoblogging on and it sounds like the same issue.

    Do this search in Google-

    site:world-religion.info

    The domain has 2,000 pages indexed, but many go direct to Amazon products via a redirect. Is that what you see when you view the same search for your domain?

    I guess like my test site you have a fair number of redirected affiliate links to Amazon products.

    If it's the same issue you could add a disallow in your robots.txt file.

    If I cared about my test site I'd add this:

    Code:
    User-agent: *
    Disallow: /go/
    This would prevent Google etc... following the cloaked affiliate links to Amazon with format

    domain.tld/go/****

    David
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[9674050].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author Michael Falk
      SEO_DAVE, I think this is very close to what is happening. I'm going to try what you suggested. I also just turned off all the SEO options in the plugin to create any redirects or or use mod_rewrite on amazon images. I think all this SEO stuff trying to cover up that you are including amazon links is not really a good idea. I think if you just keep it relative with fresh unique content and 1 or 2 amazon links it shouldn't be anything to look down upon... I hope. Thanks so much
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[9674102].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author yukon
        Banned
        Originally Posted by Michael Falk View Post

        SEO_DAVE, I think this is very close to what is happening. I'm going to try what you suggested. I also just turned off all the SEO options in the plugin to create any redirects or or use mod_rewrite on amazon images. I think all this SEO stuff trying to cover up that you are including amazon links is not really a good idea. I think if you just keep it relative with fresh unique content and 1 or 2 amazon links it shouldn't be anything to look down upon... I hope. Thanks so much
        Obviously the plugin is causing havoc on your site, bandaids probably won't fix everything. Example, have you looked at your xml sitemap to see If those same redirect URL/pages are listed on the xml sitemap?

        If those redirect pages/URLs exist anywhere on your domain, Google will find them, even If they have to use a backdoor (ex: xml sitemap).

        You might also scan your live site with Screaming Frog.
        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[9674148].message }}
        • Profile picture of the author Michael Falk
          Thanks, just checked the sitemap and everything is OK there, these links didn't make it on the sitemap. You are right, I may just have to disable this plugin and try something different. If Google still don't like my domain after this might just have to start over again. I wasn't getting rich over here but i was making a little bit to help pay the bills......sigh.

          Thanks!
          {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[9674171].message }}
          • Profile picture of the author yukon
            Banned
            Originally Posted by Michael Falk View Post

            Thanks, just checked the sitemap and everything is OK there, these links didn't make it on the sitemap. You are right, I may just have to disable this plugin and try something different. If Google still don't like my domain after this might just have to start over again. I wasn't getting rich over here but i was making a little bit to help pay the bills......sigh.

            Thanks!
            This might be a long shot...

            Maybe remove all the problem redirects/URLs from your site, save those same problem URLs in a text file offline & then go back & Fetch as Google inside WMT for each individual URL. Google might see those URLs no longer exist. Try it & see what happens, it's not like you have anything to lose at this point.
            {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[9674193].message }}
            • Profile picture of the author SEO-Dave
              Originally Posted by yukon View Post

              This might be a long shot...

              Maybe remove all the problem redirects/URLs from your site, save those same problem URLs in a text file offline & then go back & Fetch as Google inside WMT for each individual URL. Google might see those URLs no longer exist. Try it & see what happens, it's not like you have anything to lose at this point.
              If he adds the disavow code to the robots.txt file and does what you suggest it will just come out as blocked, so nothing to gain other than speed up the process of Google knowing they are blocked.

              Though I suppose speeding up the next spidering could speed the process along rather than wait for Google to naturally spider the URLs again. If I've read the OP's issue correctly he'll have 130 URLs to submit that way! Google will remove them if you are patient.

              David
              {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[9674226].message }}
              • Profile picture of the author Michael Falk
                Thanks again everyone! OK, so now since I've disabled the plugin from doing any type of redirect stuff all the indexed amazon pages in Google now just land on my site when they are clicked and it says 404 error, page not found. I'm assuming this is good and should help get them de-indexed.

                The main content of my site is good i think, it's all unique content with only two amazon product at the end of each post that is roughly 500 words. Some of the post then have many good comments. Now each amazon product does have a name and image and each have the same link so ultimately I guess there are 4 total amazon links. Should I try to make the images not link?

                I would like to just add the links manually but seems like a ton of work to go through. As of now I just type my search term into a custom field of each post and the items appear at the bottom of my post. Still, might have to sit down one day and try to add these links all manually.

                I tried to do what Yukon said to a few posts, Fetch as Google Bot just to see if I could get them de-indexed faster. It says blocked but I guess that's because I put in that block code in my robots.txt

                I think I'll just wait now and see what happens.

                Thanks again everyone!
                {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[9675321].message }}
                • Profile picture of the author SEO-Dave
                  Originally Posted by Michael Falk View Post

                  Thanks again everyone! OK, so now since I've disabled the plugin from doing any type of redirect stuff all the indexed amazon pages in Google now just land on my site when they are clicked and it says 404 error, page not found. I'm assuming this is good and should help get them de-indexed.

                  The main content of my site is good i think, it's all unique content with only two amazon product at the end of each post that is roughly 500 words. Some of the post then have many good comments. Now each amazon product does have a name and image and each have the same link so ultimately I guess there are 4 total amazon links. Should I try to make the images not link?

                  I would like to just add the links manually but seems like a ton of work to go through. As of now I just type my search term into a custom field of each post and the items appear at the bottom of my post. Still, might have to sit down one day and try to add these links all manually.

                  I tried to do what Yukon said to a few posts, Fetch as Google Bot just to see if I could get them de-indexed faster. It says blocked but I guess that's because I put in that block code in my robots.txt

                  I think I'll just wait now and see what happens.

                  Thanks again everyone!
                  The 404's are fine, as long as no sites link to the URLs that are causing the 404's Google will remove them from the index medium term. Since you've added the disallow robots.txt rules even if there are links, Google will deindex them medium term.

                  Sounds like the reason you have the thin content penalty is because of the Amazon products text and images. If you leave the thin content on the pages you'll be unlikely to have the penalty lifted.

                  As I said the surefire way to have the penalty lifted is remove the automated content and only add links etc... manually.

                  It really does depend what you content is about how much thin content you can add. If you are writing reviews about Amazon products and have added say 500 words of unique content (about the product, you know a review) and just used the Amazon image and technical details about the product from Amazon and linked to Amazon using an affiliate ID that will be fine. More of the thin content you use, more likely of a problem.

                  If you have 500 word posts that have little to do with the Amazon products added at the bottom you are pushing it.

                  What you are doing is adding indexable affiliate ads on unrelated content, more of this content you add more likely you'll have a problem.

                  If this is what you want to do look for ways to prevent Google indexing the ad content, for example Google AdSense ads are generated using javascript, Google doesn't 'see' the content of the ads, they have no impact on the pages SERPs.

                  You could add the ad content on a separate page which is blocked from spidering and add it to your pages in an iFrame. You'll have Amazon ads which Google ignores, no thin content penalty.

                  You could use Amazon's own ad system, create widgets with the products you want to make money from, Amazon's ads are javascript based so safe.

                  David
                  {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[9675422].message }}
                  • Profile picture of the author kindsvater
                    Many webmasters make the mistake of thinking Google doesn't know domain.tld/go/blah is redirecting to amazon.com/affiliate-product.html and wrongly believe a cloaked link is a hidden link
                    Yep. I have no idea why people believe this, but they do, and never figure out why their rankings are bad.

                    If most of your content is unique and the only affiliate content is the links (linking to an affiliate product per se isn't thin content) it shouldn't cause a penalty.
                    Affiliate linking is its own penalty, and Google has repeatedly said regardless of the content affiliate links can create a penalty.

                    With Google associating your site with Amazon content you won't rank. It's duplicate content, and it means your site is also associated with 10,000 scammy affiliate sites scraping Amazon content. It isn't always the duplicate content with Amazon you have to worry about, but the same content on scammy thin sites.

                    Since you've turned off the plugin option I don't believe you need to make a reconsideration request, which brings your site to attention for further review. Rather, ping the new pages, set a 404 to the home page, and see what happens over the next 30 days.

                    If this is phpzon sold through phpBay Pro you want want to post in the phpBay forum. Wade or another user may have an answer for you. I believe the plugin is encrypted and that limits options for addressing the issue here.
                    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[9676215].message }}
              • Profile picture of the author yukon
                Banned
                Originally Posted by SEO-Dave View Post

                Though I suppose speeding up the next spidering could speed the process along rather than wait for Google to naturally spider the URLs again.
                That was my point.

                Anytime a page is updated, fetch it, get Google looking at the page/URL to see the changes that were made.

                As long as there's still an active WMT account Google is still watching what's going on with the account/site.
                {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[9675331].message }}
                • Profile picture of the author SEO-Dave
                  Originally Posted by yukon View Post

                  That was my point.

                  Anytime a page is updated, fetch it, get Google looking at the page/URL to see the changes that were made.

                  As long as there's still an active WMT account Google is still watching what's going on with the account/site.
                  It's a good tip when you want a page indexed ASAP.

                  David
                  {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[9675347].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author SEO-Dave
    The extra pages indexed issue will be due to the cloaked links which are redirects, plugins like these tend to add 302 redirects which are temporary redirects.

    You are telling Google your cloaked affiliate link with format

    domain.tld/go/blah

    Should be temporarily indexed/treated as the URL the redirect goes to. If it goes to an Amazon product (the end URL what you see when you click it) that's the pages content Google considers the page to be indexed.

    Many webmasters make the mistake of thinking Google doesn't know domain.tld/go/blah is redirecting to amazon.com/affiliate-product.html and wrongly believe a cloaked link is a hidden link.

    By adding the disallow code I posted you are telling Google not to index those pages under /go/, although the directory /go/ doesn't exist it can still be indexed and because they are 302 redirected you are saying the page temporarily exists in two locations one under domain.tld/go/ and another at Amazon.com so Google uses the Amazon pages content for the indexed page.

    This alone is unlikely to cause a thin content penalty. My test site deserves a thin content penalty, it's an autoblog with only thin and scraped content.

    If your site has a similar structure, that would be why you have the penalty. If most of your content is unique and the only affiliate content is the links (linking to an affiliate product per se isn't thin content) it shouldn't cause a penalty.

    For example if all you have is I think this Amazon product is awesome and the bold text is an affiliate link it's not a problem.

    On the otherhand if you are using the Phpzon script to add a lot of content that Google can index it will depend upon how much thin content is added. If it's along the lines of half the pages content is generated by Phpzon and Google can index it (so not javascript ads for example), that's a lot of thin content. If you haven't added enough value (product comparison sites add value for example) to the thin content, you can get a penalty long term.

    If this is the issue, to recover you'd remove ALL the Phpzon content and issue a Google reinclusion request. Google should remove the penalty, in future stick to affiliate links you've added manually. A small number of affiliate links per se are not a reason alone to give a site a penalty.

    David
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[9674174].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Michael Falk
    On second thought, should I try to submit a reconsider request now as the links are just 404 errors now that land on my website?
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[9675354].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Originally Posted by Michael Falk View Post

      On second thought, should I try to submit a reconsider request now as the links are just 404 errors now that land on my website?
      The problem pages/URLs are still in the SERPs, right?

      If it was me I'd do a site:domain & cleanup everything that needed cleaned up, including Supplemental SERPs. Remove the problem pages/URLs on your site & do whatever it takes to get Google bot back on those URLs to see they no longer exist & remove them from the SERPs. Then do your resubmit.

      I guess you still have pages indexed.

      [edit]
      Obviously double check your content before the resubmit, no scraped Amazon product pages.
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[9676263].message }}

Trending Topics