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Panda Recovery Question Regarding Tags & Image URL's

by Catgirl07
8 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Hi everyone,

My local website was hit by the recent panda update and I'm in the process of cleaning up the site to hopefully regain rankings. It's our main source of income and we have severely slipped in the rankings resulting in no traffic and no income. I did have affiliate links on the site which have since been removed, I believe this is the main reason for the panda slap.

Amyway in the process of cleaning up the site I have come across two things that I'm hoping some of you can clear up.

1) My site has a lot of images which when loaded by default included an image url to link to the media file. These links are indexed in Google so if I go through each image and delete the links will it result in any 404 errors. I just want to know if it's safe to just delete the url, update the image and carry on?

2) Tags - Is it advisable to use tags in posts? I have Categories but also use tags and find that I was ranking and being found for my tags. I've heard some people say not to use tags as it looks spammy and produces too many links.

Any help would be much appreciated,
Thanks,
Catherine
#image #image links #image url's #panda #panda recovery #question #recovery #tags #url
  • Profile picture of the author LuckyIMer
    Originally Posted by Catgirl07 View Post


    1) My site has a lot of images which when loaded by default included an image url to link to the media file. These links are indexed in Google so if I go through each image and delete the links will it result in any 404 errors. I just want to know if it's safe to just delete the url, update the image and carry on?

    2) Tags - Is it advisable to use tags in posts? I have Categories but also use tags and find that I was ranking and being found for my tags. I've heard some people say not to use tags as it looks spammy and produces too many links.
    1) Yes, you will lose some traffic and get 404 errors, this article/tips can be helpful for you: Best Image SEO Practice while deleting old image files

    2) I personally do not recommend indexing tags, some will disagree, but I would either not use them or deindex them using robots.txt.
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    • Profile picture of the author Catgirl07
      Hi LuckIMer,

      Thanks for the reply!
      I don't actually want to remove the images, just remove the link url going to my media files because someone advised me to do that so Google wouldn't see too many links on my site.
      I don't see how unlinking them could negatively affect anything at all. The images are still present on the posts/pages. They can still be found online. No 404 errors? Is that right.

      Catherine
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  • Profile picture of the author TotalWebsiteControl
    Changing anything on your site could alter your rankings on the search engine.
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  • Profile picture of the author Icematikx
    If you've been hit by Panda, then removing links to images ain't gunna help.

    Tag pages could be responsible, but it's a case of how many tags. If you have hundreds/thousands of tags, then yes. Either get rid of them all or make them noindex/nofollow with Yoast SEO.

    I'd be more concerned about your content and how it's written. Are you using spun content? All hand-written, unique and engaging?

    If it's a Panda slap, you're not recovering until the next Panda update (could be months). I'd go and look at your biggest competitors and compare your site to theirs, and see why they haven't been slapped. Go and improve your resource, increase word counts, add images, videos, improve the user value and engagement factor.

    Get rid of any on-site duplicate content - tag pages cause this. If you HAVE to have pages with duplicate content, then use rel=canonical.

    This is a long and lengthy process, and it's mostly guess work.
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    • Profile picture of the author Catgirl07
      Thank yo so much for your reply!

      I'm self taught so it's very difficult to run a business and keep up with Google changes and seo practices, although thanks to my lack of knowledge I no longer have a business.

      I have 240 tags spread out over 42 posts on average 6 tags per post.
      My content is 100% hand-written and completely unique.
      Each one of my posts has around 800 - 1100 words and lots of images which is needed in our industry.

      We did have amazing traffic daily for a small business website and have always been in the top two spots on the first page for 22 keywords. We are now lucky to rank on the first page at the bottom for a couple , some we are dropped to the second page but most are way back or not even there. We havn't received an email or call for the last two weeks.

      I still think it was the affiliate links as I did have at least 6 on each page and they were all follow links just to make things worse. Non of my competitors have affiliate links.
      I've since found out how detrimental this can be but didn't understand at the time.

      I'm cleaning up the site myself as much as I can as I can't afford the $2500 plus price tag I've been quoted for local seo company's to help.

      I've been working on it non stop for days and getting very little sleep, hoping that when I get it cleaned up I can submit it to Google fetch for a recrawl and cross my fingers but after hearing the next Panda is months away is devastating!

      Anyway back to the tags issue, does completely deleting them result in any 404 errors because that's the last thing I need. I am indexed for my tags so I'm not sure what to do.
      The reason why I ask is because at this point I'm so exhausted that the thought of using YOAST even scares me, I just feel like deleting them.

      Thanks again for your reply,
      I really do appreciate people taking their own time to offer advise.
      Catherine
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      • Profile picture of the author Icematikx
        Catherine,

        Sit down and relax.

        If your keywords have dropped from #1 and #2 to #10, then it is not the Panda algorithm. It is most likely an internal algorithm putting you where Google thinks you should be.

        Chances are, you may of been at #1 and #2 when you didn't deserve to be there (due to lack of links etcetc).

        So, let's take actionable steps here.

        1) Nofollow all of those affiliate links. Some of my pages have 6-10 affiliate links and are fine - but you need to get them nofollowed.
        2) Delete all of those tag pages and don't worry about 404 errors. Only the posts will link to the tag pages, but since you're deleting the tags, the posts won't link to them. Tag pages do more harm than good.

        Again, it's hard to actually give you some real advice without seeing your URL. Feel free to PM me your website.
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  • Profile picture of the author altonroot
    You should clear few things. You have said, you are penalized due to some affiliate links, but that is not panda penalty so make it clear what is the reason behind penalty. You can use this one. Website Penalty Indicator - FE International . Then after work to resolve the issue.
    As far as your two queries, i don't 404 image pages as image search drives the traffic and i use tags as tags are considered well in ranking. So i do keep both things.
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  • Profile picture of the author rohitrgddf
    Actually, google panda is related with site content, multiple same pages and useless content. you check yous site content. if your site content is copied, you should remove it. delete multiple same pages, if it found.
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