What would you do? Site hit by update

[max99x]

I have a site that was hit by the recent G update, traffic dropped by around 80-90%

- Site is old and established
- has a lot of content on the site 10'000's of words
- No new links have recently been got etc
- Pagerank 4, has some nice old links

I've recently got a new design built for the site and was planning on moving the new design onto the site and 301 the domain to new domain which is a rebranding but i'm questioning it now.

What would you do?

1. Implement new design on old domain/with current content

2. Implement new design + move content to on new domain, 301 old domain

3. Implement new design on new domain, don't 301 domain or move content, start afresh (would require lot of work doing content)

 

[Murray]

Totally depends what caused it to drop in the first place? without knowing that couldn't give you an answer.

 

[max99x]

I'm presuming it was the recent update... no new links have been got in the last 6-12 months, no dupe content, all unique.

 

[baldidiot]

Can you tie it into a specific update? This could help you identify know what it was hit by (if anything). List here: http://moz.com/google-algorithm-change

Another thing to ask yourself is has it been penalised/had a filter applied or has it just dropped a bit either because of some algo changes or other sites out ranking you? Relatively minor algo updates can have huge affects if the sites are pretty equal.

Depending on the answer to this will affect how you should proceed. If it's the latter there would likely be no penalty and you should power on with the site as is and push it back up.

A site dropping from #1 to #11 for a key term can easily take away 80+% of search traffic, but in that scenario it's just a case of strengthening the site with fresh content and links (assuming the on site seo is already solid).

On the other hand if you've been obliterated from the SERP's then it's a different story.

 

[xstu74]

me i would...

2. Implement new design + move content to on new domain, 301 old domain

Then start building links on the new domain, makes more sense to me.

I would say you havent suffered any penalty, just the usual shuffle of the index as you say you haven't added any new links for sometime

I often leave my sites for a while if they don't recover rankings i always 301 them to a new domain and usually get a long lasting boost.
Stuart

 

[namdas]

I'd agree 100% with baldidiot - you need to dig deeper before you can make any decisions. Check the dates of the falls to see if they match major updates. I'd avoid anything rash like 301s or removing content just yet.

A fall from 1 to 10 can mean a 90% drop in traffic - but is a lot more recoverable than a fall to >200. Also I think more sites were affected by panda in the last month than by penguin 2.0 which I think only really caught particularly dodgy sites this time round (it certainly missed all of my shady ones!)

Check for:
1 - Overly dense anchor text pointing in to your (previously) high traffic pages

2 - Possible flags for a panda penalty - 10,000s of words content could mean 10-20 rich, in depth 1,000 word articles, or 1,000 x 300 word articles that cover a lot of the same topics with slightly different keyword variations. Could you consolidate some of these weaker articles into longer, more authoritative articles?

3 - Also: did you outsource a lot of the content? Worth checking things like keyword density (don't laugh ) as often people paid per word will repeat keywords to pad their word count - you may have keyword stuffed content without realising, sometimes editing and toning down, using synonyms etc can help a page pop back in. Also check if there is a lot of repetition of kws between header tags and title tags - use synonyms and modifiers there too.

4 - There's a lot of talk of bad links - I'd be hesitant to start removing links but do think its likely Google are working harder to devalue links. Often a general drift downwards can be caused by existing links being devalued - it may be that as you haven't been building you're actively losing link value as Google catch more lower quality sources

5 - Don't neglect technical issues such as accidental duplicate content thru dodgy plugins creating extra pages etc, misconfigured parked domains accidentally cloning your site many times over (done that a few times!) or similar problems. Try searching for snippets of pages that have dropped in quotes and seeing what pops up.

Often its a balance between the time/money spent trying to recover a site and launching a new one - but do consider it costs you just £2.50 a year to hang on to a penalised uk site, and there's every chance that with a little bit of work you could pop back out of a penalty next time round. Even if you move your content to a new domain you'll still need the links to rank it -its worth playing a bit and taking a couple of months to see if you can recover the old site first.

 

[GWM]

Similar Issue

Much the same thing has happened to one of my sites. I've gone down the disavow links route, after much deliberation. Does anyone have any experience with the Disavow Links tool and how long it takes? Google has taken about 4 to 5 weeks to remove about 300 links but the request listed about 900 links to remove. Do I need to submit another disavow request?

 

[matty281k]

re

if they did not remove all the ones you asked for then i am pretty sure them links are okay.

for the disavow to work you need to file for a reconsideration or just wait until the nexct update

 

[dashu1]

I've just finished off another disavow links job for another client.

This time got the "no manual spam actions found" message at the reinclusion request stage, but a month after the disavow links file was submitted the rankings have returned.

So it clearly had the right effect.

It's a big ball ache of a job though.

 

[GWM]

Thanks for the replies matty and dashu. I wasn't sure about a reconsideration request as I'd never had any Google notifications about manual penalties or dodgy links. I did it anyway and like dashu1 got the "no manual spam actions found" message. I'll sit tight and wait I guess but there are still many spammy links pointing to the site.

 

[dashu1]

The key, in my experience, with a disavow links file is 2 fold.

1) Make sure that you really do spend a lot of time contacting sites to get links removed, and log it all in the file, where there is no contact form, no reply, etc. You've got to show that you really have worked hard at it, a spammer wouldn't bother, they'd just dump the site, the harder you work, the more legitimate a site you're likely to have.

2) Name and shame the companies that did the damage. Google want to know, so tell them, they can then look at other sites those companies have worked on (if they list them) and see what else they're up to.

Plus of course tell them that you, the innocent party, believed the spiel they gave you about being white hat, etc, and that it won't happen again simply because you'll never use an SEO company ever again.

You need to give them something rather than going cap in hand and asking them to give you something.