Penalised for duplicate content, time to fix?

[Grumpy_Carl]

Ok, I accept this one is my fault but wondering on time scales to fix...

I have a website and I put an affiliate store on it, using merchant datafeeds in a bid to get revenue from the site. This was all good, however, I forgot to put noindex on the datafeed/duplicate content pages and over a period of a couple of weeks the traffic to the site died.

I have since nofollowed or removed the products but some 3 months later my site still will not rank for the keywords it was ranking for previously. It will not even rank if I type in the sites' name (bright tights). I have searched for the name using bright tights, "bright tights" and brighttights but none of them return the site anywhere.

I am guessing that I have been hit with a drop x place penalty by Google for the duplicate content. What is the easiest way around this? I have no warning about bad links or the such. Is it worth battling on trying to get the domain back or should I write off the domain, buy a new one and start again but minus the duplicate content?

The goal of having the duplicate content store on the site was to be able to rank the category pages in the store which had unique content on so there were no problems with that which I could foresee. Like Amazon et al, the categories would have lists of products (amongst other content) and you would click through to the individual product description - the duplicate page.

Thanks for reading

[AlanMosley]

first do not no-follow links or deindex them, link juice flows around your site thought links, if they point to a non indexced page, or if the link is no-follow, the link juice is wasted, it goes up in smoke.

you dont get a penalty for duplicate content, but only one version will rank.

Having a site that is mainly thin content, is another thing. if the majority of your pages can be found elsewhere on the web or they differ only by a small amount then you may be seen as a junk site. make sure you pages are vastly different to other affilates

[Grumpy_Carl]

Alan

Thanks for the reply. The non store parts of the site were of good quality (in my opinion). They were unique articles, videos and the such. I fear that by Google seeing the store it may have classified the site, as you say, 'thin'. The products in the affiliate store out numbered the posts massively, about 11,000 products and a couple of hundred posts.

So you feel that I shouldn't no index the store pages now? Won't removing these pages from the SERPS have a positive impact on the other 'quality' pages

[AlanMosley]

Woooh those numbers are big, i would be worried about thin content, no-indexing will mean a lose of page rank, but its the leser of 2 evils i supose.

but i would try to

1. make the pages unique, ok its a lot of pages and you may not be able to do that.

2. i woukld makethe catagory pages unique, and put a no-index,follow tag in the product pages. This means they will not be indexed, but the links willbe followed so that link juice cna return to your other pages.

[Grumpy_Carl]

Thanks Alan. I will go for the unique categories and blocked product pages. This was the original plan but I forgot to put the no index tag on the product pages. ooops. Nothing better than experience to teach you the errors of your ways I guess hehe

Hopefully it doesn't take google too long to decide that the domain is no longer thin and it starts ranking again

[AlanMosley]

but remeber thats notyy a on-index tag, its a no-index,follow tag, you want the links followed, but the pages not indexed.