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Strong Travel Site Crashed Despite Good Backlinks, SM

by shipwrecked
12 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Hello,

I am managing an older travel site, which has crashed this year (prolly Panda caused it, but I'm still skeptical)...

This travel site is a destination guide that even has WikiTravel, Wikipedia, TripAdvisor, About.com, many related niche links (related to this subject), therefore tons of backlinks obtained naturally...

Social media bookmarking and Facebook page seem to work as well.

BUT!

1.Google crashed the site: visitors dropped 50-70% early this year
2.not even in the top 100 now for leading keywords - despite the fact that it was 2nd on Google - 2nd only to Wikipedia!
3.used to be PageRank 5, now it crashed to PageRank 3!
4.Alexa Rank crashed tremendously - indicator got multiplied by 10x

Yes, I did sell "do follow" ads on it - ethically, just a few ads... I don't see why that would be a problem... would it?

There are tons of outbound links that are "do follow" to related sites - not sold links, just "resources" links.

Indeed, I used keyword-based SEO techniques that were fashionable back 4-5 years ago - pre Panda and Penguin times... Doesn't look "over SEO-ed", so I thought I'll just leave it like this.

Because it was evolving so well naturally, I didn't add a single link to it in about 3 years!

Because it was... (yeah)... evolving so well naturally, I only added 2-3 articles to it per year.
Reason: this is a travel destination, not much new to say about it except for new tour/trip/travel service offers...

PPC doesn't make much sense, it's not that kind of site and I don't want paid traffic now.
Basically it generates leads to other sites and sells ad space...

What could have caused the problems?
What do you think I should do?

I am ready to redesign and I personally thought I'd...
-refresh the articles a bit
-redesign the layout
-speed up loading time
-add some more exciting stuff to reduce bounce rates, increase avg. pageviews
-use 301 redirects (which I omitted at the time)... it wasn't a problem back then, though...
-reduce the keyword juice a bit and add more text compatible with LSI
-buy a few relevant links to it
-make the outbound links all "nofollow"

But I'm afraid not to "wreck" it more...
#backlinks #crashed #good #site #strong #travel
  • Profile picture of the author Morphius
    Originally Posted by shipwrecked View Post

    Hello,

    I am managing an older travel site, which has crashed this year (prolly Panda caused it, but I'm still skeptical)...

    This travel site is a destination guide that even has WikiTravel, Wikipedia, TripAdvisor, About.com, many related niche links (related to this subject), therefore tons of backlinks obtained naturally...

    Social media bookmarking and Facebook page seem to work as well.

    BUT!

    1.Google crashed the site: visitors dropped 50-70% early this year
    2.not even in the top 100 now for leading keywords - despite the fact that it was 2nd on Google - 2nd only to Wikipedia!
    3.used to be PageRank 5, now it crashed to PageRank 3!
    4.Alexa Rank crashed tremendously - indicator got multiplied by 10x

    Yes, I did sell "do follow" ads on it - ethically, just a few ads... I don't see why that would be a problem... would it?

    There are tons of outbound links that are "do follow" to related sites - not sold links, just "resources" links.

    Indeed, I used keyword-based SEO techniques that were fashionable back 4-5 years ago - pre Panda and Penguin times... Doesn't look "over SEO-ed", so I thought I'll just leave it like this.

    Because it was evolving so well naturally, I didn't add a single link to it in about 3 years!

    Because it was... (yeah)... evolving so well naturally, I only added 2-3 articles to it per year.
    Reason: this is a travel destination, not much new to say about it except for new tour/trip/travel service offers...

    PPC doesn't make much sense, it's not that kind of site and I don't want paid traffic now.
    Basically it generates leads to other sites and sells ad space...

    What could have caused the problems?
    What do you think I should do?

    I am ready to redesign and I personally thought I'd...
    -refresh the articles a bit
    -redesign the layout
    -speed up loading time
    -add some more exciting stuff to reduce bounce rates, increase avg. pageviews
    -use 301 redirects (which I omitted at the time)... it wasn't a problem back then, though...
    -reduce the keyword juice a bit and add more text compatible with LSI
    -buy a few relevant links to it
    -make the outbound links all "nofollow"

    But I'm afraid not to "wreck" it more...
    Everything you planning to do sounds good except buying links. Stay away from it. Also, don't just change the content a little. Add a lot of fresh content to the site. Google loves content. Make sure this is not some spin crap content, but original.
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    • Profile picture of the author shipwrecked
      Originally Posted by Morphius View Post

      Everything you planning to do sounds good except buying links. Stay away from it. Also, don't just change the content a little. Add a lot of fresh content to the site. Google loves content. Make sure this is not some spin crap content, but original.
      Thanks for the advice, Dr.Evil.
      I was thinking of purchasing 100 % quality related ads, but I guess I'll give that one up.

      Yes, yes, 100 % natural real content, I never spin it...
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  • Profile picture of the author hadtic
    get fresh content on the site and remember reviews are classed as content. Looks like you also need to reduce keyword stuffing and check you have all the relevant pages on the site such as disclosure, disclaimer terms of service etc
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  • Profile picture of the author Matt.Lake
    Originally Posted by shipwrecked View Post

    Yes, I did sell "do follow" ads on it - ethically, just a few ads... I don't see why that would be a problem... would it?
    I believe this could be one of your problems, if Google became aware of it. Especially if your pagerank dropped from 5 to 3 without any significant link loss.
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  • Profile picture of the author UMS
    If your PR dropped, it means that you lost some good backlinks.

    Check your site on Majestic SEO : Backlink Checker & Site Explorer and switch between the fresh index and historic index to get an idea of how many of your backlinks have been dropped.
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  • Profile picture of the author jfambrini
    Try getting some links from high authority domains. This alone could lift your domain's fortunes. One of my site got 1 link from a PR-7 site and in a month's time it was propelled from PR0 to PR4 and spiked in SERPs as well. Another of my site was a 10 year old site but perennially on page 2, it got a link from a PR6 site and it started rising up in SERPs and started gaining traffic as well. Sometimes a handful of quality links can make all the difference. Fresh content won't hurt. You have such a topic that you can never run out of content to write about.
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  • Profile picture of the author retsek
    Originally Posted by shipwrecked View Post

    3.used to be PageRank 5, now it crashed to PageRank 3!
    .............................

    Yes, I did sell "do follow" ads on it - ethically, just a few ads... I don't see why that would be a problem... would it?
    This is most likely your problem. Links that seem like paid ads are not good thing if you depend on traffic from Google. I bet you had a bunch of anchor text in there as well, as these "advertisers" / buyers would have likely requested.

    You were probably reported, or you were manually inspected. If people buy links from you, they buy from elsewhere too. Easy for a webspam employee to identify once they start following the trail of a careless link buyer.

    ...the usual reason why a site’s PageRank drops by 30-50% like this is because the site violates our quality guidelines by selling links that pass PageRank.
    Further reading: “Why did our PageRank go down?”

    1. Switch the ads to nofollow OR better yet use an adserver to display them.
    2. File a reconsideration request to explain the change, and that you did not realize it was against their guidelines.

    At least do that, before doing all those other changes ...thereby forever wrecking your site.
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  • Profile picture of the author Sheila Ross
    If your site had PR 5 and now it has came down to PR 3, I think it was because of broken links within the pages. Many people ignore this problem. Check if there is any broken link within your webpages.
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  • Profile picture of the author jfambrini
    I agree with Retsek's recommendation with the exception of reconsideration request. It is admission of guilt and if G has not spotted you before you are needlessly in spotlight so I would opt for it as a last recourse.
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    • Profile picture of the author retsek
      Originally Posted by jfambrini View Post

      I agree with Retsek's recommendation with the exception of reconsideration request. It is admission of guilt and if G has not spotted you before you are needlessly in spotlight so I would opt for it as a last recourse.
      In his case, I think he's already been caught ..already been under the spotlight. No sense in trying to hide when the reconsideration request is his only hope.

      On the other hand, If I am wrong (Big IF) ...the reconsideration request will receive an automated reply saying there are "no manual spam actions" on the site. That won't bring any unwanted attention to the site ..if that's what you're trying to avoid.
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  • Profile picture of the author linkmetro
    This way very hard to give you an answer...maybe your competitors got Better...could be lot's of factors. Have to know your site.
    I know my site don't have any effect of google changes...regardless I'm using emd, site PR1 and have 4 backlinks with No sitemap...and Not touched site over 2 years..
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  • Profile picture of the author brettb
    Check that nobody's stolen your content, I'm convinced duplicate content is a big factor in Panda. If somebody has stolen your content (or spun it) and put it on TripAdvisor or WikiTravel then this would probably sink your rankings.

    Other than that, linkmetro is right, maybe your competitors got better. I think this sank me, although the duplicate content thing was probably a major factor.
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