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Onpage SEO - Just something I experienced

by nik0 Banned
20 replies
  • SEO
    • |
So I had this site build by someone, he used Azonbuilder or some other crap so it automatically pulled the affiliate links, content all written (no scraping).

The site ranked insane poor for the post titles, not even in top 500 most of the time, despite link building. My "best..." and ".... reviews" keywords ranked way better, often at page one, but the post titles nowhere to be seen.

This is how the posts were setup, in the correct order from top to bottom:

- Image that hyperlinked to Amazon
- 300 words of content
- Image that hyperlinked to Amazon
- Buy now button that hyperlinked to Amazon
- Amazon reviews in an iFrame
- Product image gallery with many images that linked like this:
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/sample-image.jpg

When you click on that link you don't end up on Amazon but the image enlarged in some sort of popup screen.

This whole theme/setup started to annoy me BIG TIME.

So here's what I did, one step at a time with 1-2 weeks in between each time

- Removed the link from the 1st image as that's the first thing Google crawled on the page, which doesn't seem to smart to me. Result: Nothing happened

- Disabled the reviews that were pulled from Amazon (iframe stuff). Result: Nothing happened

- Installed a cloaking script that hides the affiliate links for Google based on user-agent but does show them to the visitor: Result: Again nothing happened

So by now the page looked like this:

- image
- 300 word article
- image (removed hyper link there as well)
- buy now button
- product image gallery with tons of those exc-images-amazon links (not sure if the cloaking script covered those btw)

Maybe 1 or 2 pages did pop up in top 100, but nothing huge really, as most still not in top 500.

I tried to get remove the product image gallery but no matter what I did or how deep I went into the php files and such, my whole theme got stuck and site showed a white screen, I just couldn't get rid of it.

So I said screw it, I just disable this whole amazon plugin that pulls the data from Amazon

Result: My whole site got messed up and didn't even show the post loop on homepage or category level anymore.

At this point I was completely done with it and removed the theme + plugins + cloaking script + everything, installed a new theme, did a ton of editing to fit my style and optimized it properly for SEO.

Result: ALL of the product pages now rank in the top 30.

I don't know if its the theme or the plugin that messes things up for Google or that the product gallery was the evil part of all of it, but I'm glad I got rid of it and will never ever use Amazon themes / plugin type of things EVER again.

If you plan to build an Amazon site, just pick a nice theme and forget about all those fancy Amazon plugins and whatever, just build a clean site. For Amazon sites I would also get rid of category / homepages that contain those read more snippets. Better keep every page 100% unique and use a static homepage and make the categories static as well. Just works better, some might disagree and that's ok.
#experienced #onpage #seo
  • Profile picture of the author Icematikx
    You've seen my Amazon sites. It's all back to basics for me. Just WordPress, a decent theme and content. Don't need anything else!
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    Just got back from a #BrightonSEO. I was given room 404 in the hotel I stayed at. Couldn’t find it anywhere!

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    • Profile picture of the author nik0
      Banned
      Originally Posted by Icematikx View Post

      You've seen my Amazon sites. It's all back to basics for me. Just WordPress, a decent theme and content. Don't need anything else!
      Exactly, I truly hate all those Amazon scripts / themes / plugins now.

      Just a basic / clean theme does wonders!
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  • Profile picture of the author jesisco
    ah ah test test test!! That's what you did well. Congratulations and thank for lessons brought out there. I have a question: How are you going to monetize your site once it hits top 10? Are you going to use cloaking script / plugin again?

    Thanks
    - Jesisco
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    • Profile picture of the author nik0
      Banned
      Originally Posted by jesisco View Post

      ah ah test test test!! That's whay you did well. Congratulations and thank for lessons brought out there. I have a question: How are you going to monetize your site once it hits top 10? Are you going to use cloaking script / plugin again?

      Thanks
      - Jesisco
      I don't have enough faith in that cloaking script to be honest as it only cloaks based on user-agent and I think Google is smarter then that.

      How I'm gonna monetize it? Not sure yet, time to test test test

      Probably an Amazon link at the bottom of each product review and a couple more affiliate links on homepage / category pages (the pages that are optimized for my main keywords).
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      • Profile picture of the author Icematikx
        Originally Posted by nik0 View Post

        I don't have enough faith in that cloaking script to be honest as it only cloaks based on user-agent and I think Google is smarter then that.

        How I'm gonna monetize it? Not sure yet, time to test test test

        Probably an Amazon link at the bottom of each product review and a couple more affiliate links on homepage / category pages (the pages that are optimized for my main keywords).
        For me, it's just 3 amazon links per review, non-cloaked. I just add the nofollow attribute and leave it at that.

        I think Google's accustomed to Amazon links now, and don't see why they would penalise a post because it has an affiliate link.
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  • Profile picture of the author tofrar
    Originally Posted by nik0 View Post

    and make the categories static as well. Just works better, some might disagree and that's ok.
    Would you be so kind to share how to make categories static ?
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    • Profile picture of the author nik0
      Banned
      Originally Posted by tofrar View Post

      Would you be so kind to share how to make categories static ?
      Remove the loop code from your category.php or archive.php

      Then paste the content in the category description.

      Also install this plugin to make sure you get the WYSIWYG editor as well as normal post format / style: https://wordpress.org/plugins/rich-text-tags/

      You might need to add this code to your functions.php as well:

      Code:
      add_filter( 'widget_text', 'do_shortcode');
add_filter( 'term_description', 'shortcode_unautop');
add_filter( 'term_description', 'do_shortcode' );
      Otherwise it isn't able to handle shortcodes that you might use on your pages.

      I also attached a WP core file that you find in /wp-include/ folder named category-template.php , by replacing this you make sure that the category description doesn't show up in your sidebar if you have a category widget there, as that would result in a ton of duplicate content.

      In case your site crashes after replacing category-template.php it might not be compatible with your Wordpress version so be careful and make backup first. I forgot which WP version I used at the time :s

      There are other ways around this btw, by cloning your category.php and naming it as your category, so if your category is named "widget" then you need to copy your category.php to category-widget.php.

      And add a page in WP named "widget", then when you add your content to that page, it will replace the category if I remember correctly, play around a bit with it I would say.
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      • Profile picture of the author nik0
        Banned
        An even easier solution, noindex your categories with SEO Yoast plugin and use a page and link from there to your posts/pages.

        Then the page simply functions as your category, no techy tweaks needed for that.
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  • Profile picture of the author raitoavi
    I find your theories regarding the amazon integrated sites post panda to be spot on, and we've discussed it a little in a different thread. I'm finding it quite difficult to implement this clean slate as many of my amazon sites are designed to appear as an ecommerce type store, not review sites.

    The only idea I thought could work well was to replace the whole amazon type theme with one that is of of higher quality and integrates well with woocommerce. This will include a static homepage, full article length categories with a few products underneath which contain nothing but unique content and not a massive amazon type theme/plugin huge footprint. This means the woocommerce store page and sub categories will supply that ecommerce feel with doing less harm. Not ideal, but an improvement I think.
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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Originally Posted by raitoavi View Post

      I find your theories regarding the amazon integrated sites post panda to be spot on, and we've discussed it a little in a different thread. I'm finding it quite difficult to implement this clean slate as many of my amazon sites are designed to appear as an ecommerce type store, not review sites.

      The only idea I thought could work well was to replace the whole amazon type theme with one that is of of higher quality and integrates well with woocommerce. This will include a static homepage, full article length categories with a few products underneath which contain nothing but unique content and not a massive amazon type theme/plugin huge footprint. This means the woocommerce store page and sub categories will supply that ecommerce feel with doing less harm. Not ideal, but an improvement I think.
      I like Woocommerce as a checkout but you'll be destroying your sites on-page SEO by depending on Woocommerce for SEO. Matter of fact you would be better off installing Woocommerce as a sub-domain where you didn't care about SEO & install a simple/clean theme on the root domain for ranking pages in the SERPs.

      Example Woocommerce install:
      • shop.domain.com
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      • Profile picture of the author nik0
        Banned
        Originally Posted by yukon View Post

        I like Woocommerce as a checkout but you'll be destroying your sites on-page SEO by depending on Woocommerce for SEO. Matter of fact you would be better off installing Woocommerce as a sub-domain where you didn't care about SEO & install a simple/clean theme on the root domain for ranking pages in the SERPs.

        Example Woocommerce install:
        • shop.domain.com
        Good idea, and if hard to implement it can always be setup as domain.com/shop/ and noindex the /shop/ part.

        I always hate it when I get clients with eCommerce sites, way too much time involved educating clients that it sucks in their current setup and often they don't understand it or don't want to understand it.

        One SEO company outsources a ton to me and he has many clients with eCommerce sites but somehow he never gets the login data from his clients to fix everything himself,

        After all he charges 3 times more then me so he should be able to do it, and you can't expect offline clients to do it their selves really so most of the time the results aren't very positive, which is a shame as it's just burning through money for nothing.
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        • Profile picture of the author raitoavi
          Originally Posted by nik0 View Post

          Good idea, and if hard to implement it can always be setup as domain.com/shop/ and noindex the /shop/ part.

          I always hate it when I get clients with eCommerce sites, way too much time involved educating clients that it sucks in their current setup and often they don't understand it or don't want to understand it.

          One SEO company outsources a ton to me and he has many clients with eCommerce sites but somehow he never gets the login data from his clients to fix everything himself,

          After all he charges 3 times more then me so he should be able to do it, and you can't expect offline clients to do it their selves really so most of the time the results aren't very positive, which is a shame as it's just burning through money for nothing.
          Thanks for the tip. One noticeable issue I have is that I did some crucial link building directly towards some my categories. Implementing the woocommerce system which uses its own permalink structure and basically abandoning the previous category system would put that link juice to waste. Any suggestions?

          Thanks
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          • Profile picture of the author nik0
            Banned
            Originally Posted by raitoavi View Post

            Thanks for the tip. One noticeable issue I have is that I did some crucial link building directly towards some my categories. Implementing the woocommerce system which uses its own permalink structure and basically abandoning the previous category system would put that link juice to waste. Any suggestions?

            Thanks
            301 redirect the old category pages, problem solved!
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  • Profile picture of the author Trollfarie
    I've tried a plugin like that, too. It's crap. It's always much better to go simple. I've found there are no shortcuts when it comes to ranking. Good content and a limited amount of links are key.
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    • Profile picture of the author nik0
      Banned
      Originally Posted by Trollfarie View Post

      I've tried a plugin like that, too. It's crap. It's always much better to go simple. I've found there are no shortcuts when it comes to ranking. Good content and a limited amount of links are key.
      You know what's interesting, lately I saw a site with 40+ Amazon links on his homepage, no cloaking involved btw.

      His site is about 40 pages large, all the other 39 pages had 0 Amazon links.

      He ranks at #1 for his main keyword and banks good.

      So I think it works like this formula:

      (number of affiliate links on site / number of pages on site) = < 1

      When you stick to that you're always good to go.

      Many of my current sites have:

      - 10 review pages = 30 affiliate links
      - 1 comparison page = 5 affiliate links
      - 1 best page = 5 affiliate links
      - 7 informative artices - no aff.
      - image gallery's on review pages due to that theme = 150+ affiliate links combined

      That's almost 200 affiliate links / 20 pages = average 10 aff. links per page and that's why I wanted to get rid of that image gallery so much.

      No wonder the site ranks poor.

      As said after removing that theme the product pages finally started to show up.

      What's interesting is that the informative articles with 0 affiliate links did rank at page one for the page titles, so it's not like over doing it affects the whole site.

      Which has been different in the past, maybe that's part of the softer side of Panda that they talked about?

      My other batch of affilaite sites aren't much better btw so lot of work to do, they use Amazillionaire so that's like:

      - 18 reviews = 18 affiliate links
      - 3 categories = 18 affiliate links
      - 3 best pages = 18 affiliate links
      - 1 homepage + pagination = 18 affiliate links
      - 6 informative articles = no affiliate links

      (72 affiliate links / 30 pages) = >2, also ranks poor.

      For one of those sites I also prepared and modified a clean theme, that got rid of the 54 affiliate links on the categories + homepage + post pages. I now only have affiliate links on the best pages cause the aff.link with Amazillionaire is filled in at a custom field so that got removed when switching theme (imagine the hell to transform 20 domains with sourcing those affiliate links again).

      Results: The site also started to popup for way more phrases in about 1 week after making the changes.

      All those themes might be nice for conversions, but it's a hell if your main source is Google traffic, obvious those developers never think about that as they are all total clueless about SEO.
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  • Profile picture of the author Aehs01
    I use a plugin called Prosociate which creates an Amazon store. I added 10 unique articles and 750+ products and my site ranks #1 for it's target KW and gets tons of long tail traffic, some of those plugins are garbage but Google seems to love my site. It integrates nicely with Yoast's Wordpress SEO.
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  • Profile picture of the author raitoavi
    What do you guys think about the idea of replacing the regular buy now affiliate links with a read more button in shop/category pages. Using woocommerce this basically only leaves one affiliate link per product post, but of course the numerous product titles remain at those pages. Again, this seems less ideal than some of the methods nik0 describes, but some sites don't fit the review type, and only fit a store structure.

    I also wonder, when do you feel like a site is no longer salvagable, as in it's time to move on, or recreate/clone it and start anew.
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    • Profile picture of the author nik0
      Banned
      Originally Posted by raitoavi View Post

      What do you guys think about the idea of replacing the regular buy now affiliate links with a read more button in shop/category pages. Using woocommerce this basically only leaves one affiliate link per product post, but of course the numerous product titles remain at those pages. Again, this seems less ideal than some of the methods nik0 describes, but some sites don't fit the review type, and only fit a store structure.
      WooCommerce deals with a shopping cart function, which means that there are no affiliate links at all on the pages, besides one on the checkout page that's custom generated.

      So with WooCommerce you don't have to worry about any of it.

      Personally I don't like shopping cart systems as it creates an extra step for the potential buyer and thus it converts worse and it kind of misleads visitors as on Amazon they have to go through the shopping cart stuff AGAIN. I would be very annoyed by that.
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      • Profile picture of the author raitoavi
        Hi nik0, there's actually an external affiliate option in woocommerce which then generates a lot of affiliate links, but I replaced those with a read more option which leads to the product post itself, and also removed the cart option. The buy now button doesn't force the visitors through the cart, but directly leads them to amazon.
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  • Profile picture of the author MatthewReece
    Another great Tip i found about on-page SEO
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