I am going to create a seperate thread for this, please only add if you can addd more info that helps the analysis:
We have lots of sites and lots of tools so here goes. This is data we are analysing for pages/sites that went up and down, plus we massively compare against our competitors.
March 2012 - link warnings went out and offered link reinclusion
April 17th - loads of sites hit for certain pages ( google said this was a parked page problem...but not what we believe)
April 19th - another Panda update
April 25th - Penguin hit, no reinclusion
So what happened with the link warning and reinclusion? My personal view this was a bit of a mess internally within Google with miscommunication. Eventually they decide the story is Penguin only. Or did Google just wanted everyone to tell them what they had been doing that was dirty so they confirmed the dirty link networks.
So Penguin:
several penalties going on at once?:
this is a page penalty only and not a site wide penalty...unless you been really nasty with those links
keyword density has definitely been tuned down massively ( use seobook tool - http://tools.seobook.com/general/keyword-density/ )
if more than 3% on page for ANY 2 or 3 word term that is not a keyword in your url you get a penalty for that page ( this is for ALL content on page inc links)
Solution - Adjust content ( maybe change anchor text links as seen below)
Internal anchor text links massive bashing especially for anchor text overdoing
we do not yet have any decent numbers on this to see
Solution - Reduce internal linking ( good video here http://www.seomoz.org/blog/6-change...r-optimization-penalty-hits-whiteboard-friday)
External linking MORE AND MORE WE ARE THINKING THIS
Initially we could not believe so many pages on so many sites could be hit, so thought it must be on page.....we are now more and more thinking there is a big external link penalty
Assuming you have a profile that is similar to how it should be...we use Tesco's and see what mix is and try to come as close as possible to them....then we are are seeing no issues. I just cant see anything to convince me it's external links as I am tracking pages with almost identical link profiles on different competitor sites, A and B, and A is thriving and B is dead. Then I look at other pages on same sites and site B wins and site A is dead. UPDATED We have now found pages on sites that are very clean on site and have been whacked..........this we believe is completely dirty links. UPDATED2 Seeing best page on a site that has dirty links is now gone, secondary page on the same site is now ranking in top 10
Solution - get rid of all the dirty links you can and hope you come back....ask then for a reinclusion of no joy
Country Location base searches....more weight being given to local country domains
The above things seem to all apply if a page has been downgraded, but to add to the confusion their are pages out their that have all of these and still ranking....our initial thought is these pages have some sort of get out of jail card, maybe due to domain power.
Passing juice internal - I am am also thinking that maybe once a page is hit it becomes incapable of passing link juice, thus reducing the effectiveness of the rest of the site. I know people who on one day lost some pages and then watched their site slowly die.
Quick fix look at who has become the dominate player in the space and try to do a test on part of your site and match their keyword density plus internal linking structure. Watch for movements just on those pages...if it works replicate across more of the site. As a page comes back live it may be able to pass more juice to other pages.
We have started doing adjustments and are waiting to see. I believe that once you fix the content and internal linking issues you will see the real damage, if any.
IDEAS
if a page is dead then recreate it with a new name and see if the new page ranks
301 old page to new page
This is an over optimisation penalty and everyone is doing dirty link building and ranking, so I don't see how it can be off page unless you are being really bad stuff, but there are examples of negative seo that do work, but they seem to take some grunt and you need to be targeted..
Hope that helps. Please note this is only our guessing from what we have analysed so far.
Anyones else's thoughts please
Doug
AMMENDED 1-5-2012
We have seen so much stuff hit on loads of sites that we thought it had to be an on page penalty, but our thoughts are changing.
We are now thinking:
its a page penalty but only for the ones that have been over anchor text hit
mostly driven by external dirty links
the warning emails were to confirm that google had found all the dirty networks
they nuked all link selling sites
they nuked all pages that had dirty links from these sites......but what was the ratio of good/bad?
we are still seeing some pages that had dirty links living, so this is either due to domain power or there is a link ratio that dictates the penalty.
SOLUTIONS
As mentioned above we still believe you should amend your site to make the keyword density lower and the internal anchor text not as aggressive.
Remove every external dirty link you can find
Change the anchor text of good links or get more good links with different anchor text .... do this after removing bad ones
MAYBE'S
Create new pages for the pages that have been hit......but if you had lots of good links into the old page then you have an issue.... issue on the front page obviously.
Try to 301 the old page to a new page
Push a pile of quality links into dead pages, see if you can change the ratios
301 a good page that does not rank and was not hit into a dead page to see if you can change the ratio's.....but you may pass on the dirty penalty
I will keep updating as we learn more.
Doug
We have lots of sites and lots of tools so here goes. This is data we are analysing for pages/sites that went up and down, plus we massively compare against our competitors.
March 2012 - link warnings went out and offered link reinclusion
April 17th - loads of sites hit for certain pages ( google said this was a parked page problem...but not what we believe)
April 19th - another Panda update
April 25th - Penguin hit, no reinclusion
So what happened with the link warning and reinclusion? My personal view this was a bit of a mess internally within Google with miscommunication. Eventually they decide the story is Penguin only. Or did Google just wanted everyone to tell them what they had been doing that was dirty so they confirmed the dirty link networks.
So Penguin:
several penalties going on at once?:
this is a page penalty only and not a site wide penalty...unless you been really nasty with those links
keyword density has definitely been tuned down massively ( use seobook tool - http://tools.seobook.com/general/keyword-density/ )
if more than 3% on page for ANY 2 or 3 word term that is not a keyword in your url you get a penalty for that page ( this is for ALL content on page inc links)
Solution - Adjust content ( maybe change anchor text links as seen below)
Internal anchor text links massive bashing especially for anchor text overdoing
we do not yet have any decent numbers on this to see
Solution - Reduce internal linking ( good video here http://www.seomoz.org/blog/6-change...r-optimization-penalty-hits-whiteboard-friday)
External linking MORE AND MORE WE ARE THINKING THIS
Initially we could not believe so many pages on so many sites could be hit, so thought it must be on page.....we are now more and more thinking there is a big external link penalty
Assuming you have a profile that is similar to how it should be...we use Tesco's and see what mix is and try to come as close as possible to them....then we are are seeing no issues. I just cant see anything to convince me it's external links as I am tracking pages with almost identical link profiles on different competitor sites, A and B, and A is thriving and B is dead. Then I look at other pages on same sites and site B wins and site A is dead. UPDATED We have now found pages on sites that are very clean on site and have been whacked..........this we believe is completely dirty links. UPDATED2 Seeing best page on a site that has dirty links is now gone, secondary page on the same site is now ranking in top 10
Solution - get rid of all the dirty links you can and hope you come back....ask then for a reinclusion of no joy
Country Location base searches....more weight being given to local country domains
The above things seem to all apply if a page has been downgraded, but to add to the confusion their are pages out their that have all of these and still ranking....our initial thought is these pages have some sort of get out of jail card, maybe due to domain power.
Passing juice internal - I am am also thinking that maybe once a page is hit it becomes incapable of passing link juice, thus reducing the effectiveness of the rest of the site. I know people who on one day lost some pages and then watched their site slowly die.
Quick fix look at who has become the dominate player in the space and try to do a test on part of your site and match their keyword density plus internal linking structure. Watch for movements just on those pages...if it works replicate across more of the site. As a page comes back live it may be able to pass more juice to other pages.
We have started doing adjustments and are waiting to see. I believe that once you fix the content and internal linking issues you will see the real damage, if any.
IDEAS
if a page is dead then recreate it with a new name and see if the new page ranks
301 old page to new page
This is an over optimisation penalty and everyone is doing dirty link building and ranking, so I don't see how it can be off page unless you are being really bad stuff, but there are examples of negative seo that do work, but they seem to take some grunt and you need to be targeted..
Hope that helps. Please note this is only our guessing from what we have analysed so far.
Anyones else's thoughts please
Doug
AMMENDED 1-5-2012
We have seen so much stuff hit on loads of sites that we thought it had to be an on page penalty, but our thoughts are changing.
We are now thinking:
its a page penalty but only for the ones that have been over anchor text hit
mostly driven by external dirty links
the warning emails were to confirm that google had found all the dirty networks
they nuked all link selling sites
they nuked all pages that had dirty links from these sites......but what was the ratio of good/bad?
we are still seeing some pages that had dirty links living, so this is either due to domain power or there is a link ratio that dictates the penalty.
SOLUTIONS
As mentioned above we still believe you should amend your site to make the keyword density lower and the internal anchor text not as aggressive.
Remove every external dirty link you can find
Change the anchor text of good links or get more good links with different anchor text .... do this after removing bad ones
MAYBE'S
Create new pages for the pages that have been hit......but if you had lots of good links into the old page then you have an issue.... issue on the front page obviously.
Try to 301 the old page to a new page
Push a pile of quality links into dead pages, see if you can change the ratios
301 a good page that does not rank and was not hit into a dead page to see if you can change the ratio's.....but you may pass on the dirty penalty
I will keep updating as we learn more.
Doug
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