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Ecommerce site dived in the serps need advice please

by ShaneMcc
8 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Hi, A friends site has just dived in the serps for all keywords that it was ranking for i.e. for one keyword went from position 3 to page 10. Even for its brand name it has dropped from position 1 to position 3. Other important keywords have dropped about 6 pages. No messages are showing in webmaster tools and the site is a quality ecommerce site. The worry is that some bad backlinking has caused a penalty, perhaps the site was overoptimised in its backlinks. The site hasn't been deindexed or anything like that it still shows a pr of 4. Does this sound like a penalty and if so is the site ruined or is there any way back?

Thanks
#advice #dived #ecommerce #serps #site
  • Profile picture of the author Matt.Lake
    What's your backlink profile like? Are you aware of significant link loss that may have happened recently i.e. you were using a blog network that is now indexed?

    I'm guessing you were hit by Penguin so I suggest you do some research on that.
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  • Profile picture of the author andishm
    It seems to be algorithmic penalty more than a manual penalty by search engine. Were you using any mass submissions for your website or any kind of blog networks?
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    • Profile picture of the author ShaneMcc
      my friend had signed up recently for 200 blogposts with a company called link hero,(they are to be spread over a few months, so i guess it could have been that or over optimisation in general. Should he ask the company that does the blogposts to remove all the links? What other tips are there to regain rankings after being hit with a penalty? Has anyone been hit like this and been able to regain their rankings?
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      • Profile picture of the author Matt.Lake
        Originally Posted by ShaneMcc View Post

        my friend had signed up recently for 200 blogposts with a company called link hero,(they are to be spread over a few months, so i guess it could have been that or over optimisation in general. Should he ask the company that does the blogposts to remove all the links? What other tips are there to regain rankings after being hit with a penalty? Has anyone been hit like this and been able to regain their rankings?
        Personally I wouldn't be too concerned about the blogpost links in terms of removing them. They may well be doing you some good.

        The general consensus about the Penguin update is that it focused largely on over optimization of incoming links. My advice, based on the research and suggestions by people a lot more experienced than me, would be to focus on improving your incoming links and focus a lot more on anchor text variation.

        You want to reduce the amount of highly optimized links as an overal percentage. Focus on building a lot more natural looking links like naked URLs, brand name links, and other generic terms.

        That would be a good place to start.

        It's only been a few weeks since the Penguin update hit so nobody has a definitive answer for recovering, but there's some quite compelling data out there that shows that anchor text over optimization played a bit part. Thus, the above advice would make sense in terms of recovering.

        As for starting a new site, if this is a quality site then it would obviously be worth salvaging it.
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  • Profile picture of the author amyaselia
    Google penguin update is the reason for your droppings! Just start continue link building from high authortity sites
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  • Profile picture of the author seotrafficsearch
    Originally Posted by ShaneMcc View Post

    Hi, A friends site has just dived in the serps for all keywords that it was ranking for i.e. for one keyword went from position 3 to page 10. Even for its brand name it has dropped from position 1 to position 3. Other important keywords have dropped about 6 pages. No messages are showing in webmaster tools and the site is a quality ecommerce site. The worry is that some bad backlinking has caused a penalty, perhaps the site was overoptimised in its backlinks. The site hasn't been deindexed or anything like that it still shows a pr of 4. Does this sound like a penalty and if so is the site ruined or is there any way back?

    Thanks
    I guess you need to check your anchor text and links which connect to your site. The quality of links could have been the problem. And since your site's pages have been deindexed, it seems to me that only links have been the culprit. Now you need check your mailer if you have received any messages from google.
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  • Profile picture of the author ShaneMcc
    thanks for all your answers. Has anyone actually seen a site recover its rankings after being hit in the recent penguin update, i.e. has any sites that have been hit for being over optimised found their rankings recover after building non keyword links and therefore making their link profile less optimised.
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