Lost 50% google traffic in one day - panic?
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Hi girls + guys,
a site of us were hit by a google update or a google penalty. We have lost 50% google traffic in one day (25th april, 2012). (Total visitors in average per day: 6k, yesterday: 3k)
It's a german website, so I think google.de (germany) was updated. Our rankings in google.at (austria) are also affected, but it's not that bad as in google.de.
We have not done any specific on page seo activities in the last two months. GWT doesn't have any message for us (no critical errors).
After my first analyse I can say this:
- google has indexed 17k pages (thats fine)
- we are on 1st place with our domain name
- the last three days, the google traffic went up (+20%), but yesterday it was 50% below average (so -70%)
- last week we had a very good day, we had twice the traffic than normal, but this calmed down the following days
- we have lost number no. 1 places at two high traffic keywords. We had these no 1 rankings for years. We have been outranked by two of our competitors, but they have not done any onpage changes.
- We have lost a lot of positions at a lot of keywords. But there are also keywords which moved up.
- We have good content, useres are visiting 5 pages in average.
- No virus, no hacker (no hidden cloaking page)
- it's an old domain (2002)
- Lot of (good) inbound links
- Lot's of likes, g+. Good twitter activty.
So, all in all I think it's more likely a ranking algo change than a penalty (a penalty for what reason?)
My specific question(s): Is there any "check list" which could help me to find out the reason for this mess?
What is the best strategy to regain the positions? New HTML code? New On page seo? (seomoz grades most of our important pages an A)
Any idea would be appreciated!
Best wishes,
Georg. -
Hi Georg,
Looks like a penalty. We have experienced similar things yesterday on a number of websites which we've been adopting overly-aggressive link building tactics and it is a result of a recent google update:
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2012/04/another-step-to-reward-high-quality.html
It is not a result of your onsite SEO. There might be different reasons for it but I do consider it as a result of article spinning which might have been taking part of your link building activities. Especially if the keywords that you lost rankings for have been targeted by such links - spinned content on private or public blog networks.
Have you had some kind of drop in rankings about a month ago for those particular keywords?
Kind regards,
Ivo
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If you have built backlinks from websites that have been hit by the update then basically those backlinks which are helping you to rank have gone and therefore your rankings drop.
When you say 'lots of (good) inbound links' what we talking about directory submissions, guest posts, paid links?
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Hi Georg,
I have had the same problem. It is because of the latest update by Google around 'over-optimisation'.
Don't worry though, all is not lost! There are a few things that you need to change:
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Make sure that your webpage titles are not over-optimised (i.e. 'Free Shoes, New Shoes, Sports Shoes - Shoe Company'). Make sure that they read properly and don't look spammy. Try not to repeat any of the keywords more than once, if at all.
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Check that all of the links on the page are not suspicious. For example, having loads of anchor text linking to the same page.
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See what your keyword density is on your webpage and see if you have maybe be keyword stuffing (Google is being a lot harsher and stricter on this now).
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Go through your img alt attributes and check they are all relevant and not just blatanet attempts to fit in long-tail keywords.
Once you have done this, resubmit the pages to the Google index and hopefully, after a few weeks, you should start regaining some ground. Unfortunately its a bit of a waiting game now, but make sure you do everything you can to show to Google that you are not over-optimising and you should be OK.
Also, take a look at Rand's recent whiteboard Friday which goes over this.
Good luck!
Matt.
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Hi Ivo,
thanks for your fast answer and the link to article! We have not done any article spinning (I didn't know about article spinning till last week...). We have not done any link building for the high traffic keywords, but we have done link building for other keywords (which are not affected).
No, we had no break down a month ago, I've attached our analytics...
So, if it's a penalty - what to do?
Best wishes,
Georg.
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we need a new sub forum to deal with all this and have all answers and questions in one place.
Peoples business's are being ruined, we need to all come together in one place and learn from each other to get over this as quickly and painlessly as possible.
Please like this and I will email SEOmoz to see will they do it. Thanks
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Hi Matt,
thank you for your advices! I will have a look at Rands whiteboard. So your suggestion is to reformat / restructure the html code to get out of this?
Best wishes,
Georg.
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No, we have no paid links. We have written several articles which were sent to press agencies over the years. Blogs, newspapers, other sites etc. are linking our content.
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The best thing you can do right now is nothing. Sit tight for about a week orso, keep an eye on your traffic and serps.Give Google some time to sort itself out and have a look when the dust settles. Don't go into panic mode and start changing all sorts of things - worst thing you can do right now.
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Yes, that's what I would advise.
I think a lot of us have been hit with this. Just try and comply with Google as much as possible, and I think the first port of call is all the on-page SEO.
Matt.
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I don't see why this is getting downvoted. Traditionally Google does make corrections after a significant update. The website in question is still receiving traffic and isn't completely out of the index, and could very well see the rankings go back in a week or two.
If you panic and start making site changes immediately, you may not know what the cause of the problem was. If you go and change title tags, remove some spammy looking links, change the anchor text and a handful of other things you would not know which was effective and which wasn't.
It's like pulling your goalie in hockey after going down 2-0 in the first 5 minutes. Let the updates play themselves out for a week or two and go from there.
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The reason is probably -
Giving someone blanket advice that is only partially helpful is not good...
So he waits a week, and has done no research into what may have caused this, what then? Panic?
I would fully agree that panicing is the wrong idea, but so is sitting around doing nothing, as an agency - it is very easy for a person to say - just wait it out, but as a consumer what does that mean - sit around and do nothing, or proactivlely begin researching the possible causes?
So I would think a more correct answer IMHO to someone who is new to the game, would be...
Don't panic, but don't be complacent - Begin researching your tactics over the past years, your link profile your on page seo ect.. so in a few weeks IF it does not "Magically" clear itseld you can have a clear actionable plan to begin responding - two weeks of no money coming in could mean death for a business.... So why would you not begin researching while "wating"
I also do not think the "dust" will settle, this is an ongoing battle, and will be for some time to come - so waiting a few weeks on a site that = livelyhood is not a smart decision either
IMHO of course
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Hi,
thanks for all responses so far!
I've looked in our access stats... Today we will have less visitors than yesterday, so the nitemare is still not over...
I don't think it's a good idea to wait some days and do nothing. There must be a reason for this - a penalty or a ranking algo change. And the only way around is to remove the "thing" which caused the mess.
Possibly reasons:
- Over optimized on page (could be) - restructure site and recode html
- Bad links (can't be removed easily) which are punished by google
I can't restructure / recode the site within days but within 1-2 weeks. If we get back the top positions meanwhile, I will also apply the new code to be fit for the future.
Have I overseen a thing?
Best wishes,
Georg.
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The so-called "over-optimization" penalty definitely hit hard, sometime between 4/24-4/25. It is possible to see Google make a correction, but it doesn't appear that there were major changes between 4/25-4/26. Of course, this just happened, so we don't have much data.
Given the large scale of the drop and that this is a confirmed algorithm change, I think you have to start there. This is the official post from Google and I see that someone has already linked to Rand's post:
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2012/04/another-step-to-reward-high-quality.html
Look specifically at the terms that dropped. Are you aggressively targeting those terms (with keyword stuff, inbound anchor text, etc.)? I think the "Don't Panic" advice has some merit - if you over-optimize to reverse over-optimize, you've just made even more of a mess. I'm not saying to sit on your hands, but dig deep into the analysis and put together a reasonable plan of attack - don't just start changing things at random.
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I wonder if anyone noticed this update http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com.au/2012/04/another-step-to-reward-high-quality.html
should be hitting now
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already mentioned on the post Alan
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Yes just noticed, i thought we were all talking of the last over-op update
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Your websiteis not de-indexed from google , it simply fell down in SERP as you still show for your branded keywords..
Did You recieve any sort of notice in Google Webmasters Tools ?
Regards ,
Yan Desjardins
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"simply fell down in the SERP"
you say it like it means nothing....
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Dear Dean, i know it mean a lot and its a pain in the A**, i hope my comment didnt offended you.
However , u might want to take advantage of that time to review your linking neighboor , your on-site optimisation and all your website agnosic features.
It happenned to me too , but after some long hours , i was able to get back where i was before the BOOM. Good luck , im sure you can do it too !
A little wink wink that i can give , is that on my side , i moved away from html 4 to html 5 to better segment my website with
<header>,
<footer>,
<hgroup>and so on.
Best regards,
Yan Desjardins
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