Google Algo - Webmaster Tools

[cc976a]

After the recent EMD / Penguin algo change, has anyone seen any message or warnings in the Webmaster tool pointing at reasons for any downgrade or loss in traffic?

I'm noticing my inner pages are going up in the SERPS. After 27th September they were around 11th and 12th pages - now they are 5th and 6th pages. My index page though is still nowhere to be seen (was in 2nd spot for a good keyword).

I'm guessing this is a penalty or sandbox (rather than an EMD drop) due to Penguin but I was strictly whitehat with everything I did.

Other than webmaster tools, anyone know of anywhere I can check my site over for potential issues (harmful inbound links, bad internal structure etc....)?

 

[Aiden Roberts]

After the recent EMD / Penguin algo change, has anyone seen any message or warnings in the Webmaster tool pointing at reasons for any downgrade or loss in traffic?

I'm noticing my inner pages are going up in the SERPS. After 27th September they were around 11th and 12th pages - now they are 5th and 6th pages. My index page though is still nowhere to be seen (was in 2nd spot for a good keyword).

I'm guessing this is a penalty or sandbox (rather than an EMD drop) due to Penguin but I was strictly whitehat with everything I did.

Other than webmaster tools, anyone know of anywhere I can check my site over for potential issues (harmful inbound links, bad internal structure etc....)?

I had a similar situation, my index page sat in top 5 for a year then on the 29th went to position 98, after a week 70 something and in the last week it's at 48 the only thing I have done is changed some of the em keyword titles in the posts. Other search terms that I wasn't targeting are now in position 1-3 but with very few searches!

I use seocentro.com but apart from that just webmaster tools.

I have stopped worrying and after all of the advice I have been given stopped getting down about it, I am writing and building for the audience if I do it properly the search engines, social media and marketing activities will do their job.

 

[zehrila]

After the recent EMD / Penguin algo change, has anyone seen any message or warnings in the Webmaster tool pointing at reasons for any downgrade or loss in traffic?

I'm noticing my inner pages are going up in the SERPS. After 27th September they were around 11th and 12th pages - now they are 5th and 6th pages. My index page though is still nowhere to be seen (was in 2nd spot for a good keyword).

I'm guessing this is a penalty or sandbox (rather than an EMD drop) due to Penguin but I was strictly whitehat with everything I did.

Other than webmaster tools, anyone know of anywhere I can check my site over for potential issues (harmful inbound links, bad internal structure etc....)?

There is always more than one update going on, they mentioned about 4 updates, 27th 28th it was panda and emds, then around 3 to 6 there was penguin and above the fold updates. All these updates are major ones, the potential reason why you are jumping around the serps could be that Google is still playing around with Host Crowding. Jumping from page 11th 12th to page 5th 6th is an improvement. I hardly doubt any sandboxing going on, if the drop was around 27th, then more likely the panda or emd is in action.

 

[cc976a]

There is always more than one update going on, they mentioned about 4 updates, 27th 28th it was panda and emds, then around 3 to 6 there was penguin and above the fold updates. All these updates are major ones, the potential reason why you are jumping around the serps could be that Google is still playing around with Host Crowding. Jumping from page 11th 12th to page 5th 6th is an improvement. I hardly doubt any sandboxing going on, if the drop was around 27th, then more likely the panda or emd is in action.

It's the index page that plummeted (and think it did drop back to around page 23).

The site was targeting the major keyword in it's niche with around 5,000 exacts. The index was sitting in 2nd place for months, then dropped on the 27th.

The inner pages (which won't really drive visitors - e.g. Privacy page, T&C page etc...) were sitting on 11th page after update (don't know where they were before) and now on 5th-6th page.

If this was the index page I'd be happy, but it isn't. The sites above me now in the SERPs are quite useless crap where mine has good quality (relevant, topical, humorous) - the blog won an independent award recently - has Twitter followers, Pinterest page, Facebook with likes etc... Lots of effort went in - plus never link spammed anything.

Due to all this I believe there is a penalty here, just don't know how to try and prove it or show it....

.....Webmaster tools not showing any concerns either?????

 

[AuthorityDomain]

Well if your traffic dropped on or around the 27th September then its most likely the EMD or Panda updates that happened that has affected your sites ranking.

If you use Webmaster tools and didn't notice anything that is expected as these updates are algorithmic.

So I would use the usual tools (majestic seo, opensiteexplore.org and ahrefs) to download a full list of the links to your site, including the anchor texts. Then work out from those links to your site any that appear spammy, unnatural as well as work out as a percentage how many are using the emd keywords. I presume your domain is an EMD?

I can advise more, but that will cost you

 

[cc976a]

Well if your traffic dropped on or around the 27th September then its most likely the EMD or Panda updates that happened that has affected your sites ranking.

If you use Webmaster tools and didn't notice anything that is expected as these updates are algorithmic.

So I would use the usual tools (majestic seo, opensiteexplore.org and ahrefs) to download a full list of the links to your site, including the anchor texts. Then work out from those links to your site any that appear spammy, unnatural as well as work out as a percentage how many are using the emd keywords. I presume your domain is an EMD?

I can advise more, but that will cost you

Thanks for the reply. No the main keyword isn't an EMD. For the EMD I'm still number 1 (as I have been all year). The EMD has a local exact of mid xxx - it's the main keyword with mid x,xxx exacts that I've plummeted for. This is why I think this is a Panda penalty.

I didn't build any unnatural links to the site. There isn't a huge number of backlinks (but then site at number 1 only has high xx - and nothing majorly authoritative either). Mine has around low to mid xx with about

1. 50% backlinks for the main keyword (which is part of the URL and would make sense to have a backlink for this)

2. 30% for the EMD

3. 20% for other keywords - including inner pages

I have used opensiteexplorer but just can't see anything linking to me that I'd class spammy. Everything looks quite natural (which all are). No duplicate content, and spent a lot of time and effort with the content itself .

I just didn't know if there were any tool which helped you see any sites where them adding a link to your site may be causing you harm??

If you are knowledgable in the area and help kick the penalty in to touch and get me back to page 1 - I'd pay

 

[bermuda]

The reason why your homepage is not found on Google can be a sign of Sandbox but I would not worry about penalty because your good internal pages positions have already indirectly announced that your site is doing nice. If you have created lots of quick links, all with the same anchors, that could cause some temporary problems. Believe it or not, sometimes doing nothing will tell you where the catch lies. Stop promoting your site for a while, forget about links to see what happens.

 

[cc976a]

The homepage is there but has now dropped to page 56. From 2nd to 556th!

All the inner pages have now also dropped to pages 55 and 56 too. Interestingly a subdomain on the sane URL isn't ranking too bad - but guess that's because G is treating as a different 'site' (?)

I haven't built any links. All links and anchor text were added by other webmasters. It's damn natural, which is more of a frustration than if I had set up to artificially try and rank.

I wouldn't mind but a competitor ( who is now back up to 4th place ) is there because he has spammed. Had hoped things would just settle down, but after 2 months and no improvements I'm now unsure.

There have been a few articles I've read which try to help you spot if you have a penalty where Webmaster tools draw a blank. No help there either....

....hence my original post.