Client has no visibility
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Background:
Client was hacked a few months back. Everything was cleaned up, and he maintained rankings for some keywords before completely dropping off. Webmasters Tools was added after the hack, which shows no issues. ahrefs, majestic, and OSE show bad links but not GMT. Disavowed anyway. Not sure what else could be blocking his visibility, main pages have been index but not specific blog posts.
Any suggestions or directions to look?
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I assume you checked the bots haven't been blocked on specific pages did you also try "fetch as Google"?
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1. How long has it been since the site was hacked?
2. Have all linked been resubmitted in GWT (fetch as google) and in sitemap?
3. How long has it been since links were disavowed?
4. Have you tried uploading the site under a new (dedicated) IP address after all the fixes were put in place?
5. Have you checked using site search to make sure pages are indexed, just not ranking?
6. Are there any robots rules in place blocking pages, and are the pages set to index, follow?
7. Was there a manual action made against the site by Google? If so, was a reconsideration request completed?Can you provide the url, so that I can have a closer look?
Lots of questions, but I think this will point you in the right direction of where to start.
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Thank you for your response Chris. I have done a fetch and everything is good
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1. How long has it been since the site was hacked?It has been about 6 months
2. Have all linked been resubmitted in GWT (fetch as google) and in sitemap?Yes, and a fresh sitemap
3. How long has it been since links were disavowed? Disavow 6 weeks
4. Have you tried uploading the site under a new (dedicated) IP address after all the fixes were put in place? No
5. Have you checked using site search to make sure pages are indexed, just not ranking? Site search shows all pages but blog posts
6. Are there any robots rules in place blocking pages, and are the pages set to index, follow? Everything is clear from a robots aspect
7. Was there a manual action made against the site by Google? If so, was a reconsideration request completed?There is no notification of manual action.Site is http://www.drkevinfinn.com
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I don't see a robots file, may want to think about getting one..
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Oh wow, that's a lot of spam. Very sorry to hear your client was a victim of this.
If the site was hit by an algorithmic penalty (which could be very likely given the amount of low quality spam links the hackers built) that might account for the sudden drop. That would also explain why your disavow-ing has had no effect thus far. It can take much longer for the algorithm (the Penguin portion in this case) to update and take into account any disavowed or removed links on that domain, hence why a penalty might still be remaining.
It's pretty much impossible to predict when that might happen - could be tomorrow or another 6 months. This is probably the biggest frustration many businesses have with Google - the sheer ambiguity on algorithmic penalties.
With all of that in mind, as sad as it is I think you might be better off starting on a fresh domain and taking all necessary precautions to prevent hacking. I don't like leaving it to chance on when the Penguin algorithm could update, leaving you with an indefinite period of waiting to see rankings come back. Similarly, we can't even be sure you have an algorithmic penalty, due to Google's vagueness on that matter as well (although I suspect at least one is at play here).
The way I see it, starting on a fresh domain gives you that control back, although I realise that may not be an option.
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The robots is a meta tag in this case
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I was also thinking it could be penguin but the drop did not coincide with an update, and all the spam links are only found in 3rd party explorers and not found in WMT
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Silly me didn't look was being a bit quick when looking sorry!
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Again, it's one of those where we are reliant on Google with providing us with dates of updates, and they have suggested they will stop doing that altogether. Similarly, a Penguin refresh is different than an update and arguably occurs more often.
Only thing I would suggest here is to see whether your drop coincides with any SERP flux in Mozcast or Algoroo. If it does, do a Google search for "[date] google update" and see if anyone else reported any changes on that date. That might be able to tell you more.
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After looking at the site, and hearing you say there was no manual action, I think your troubles lie elsewhere, as in Google just doesnt like the site anymore due to on page/off page issues.
I'm guessing your site wants to rank for "chiropractor in pickering" or "chiropractor pickering"?
Let's get started (cracks knuckles):
The home page currently has 4 versions.
http://www.drkevinfinn.com/
http://www.drkevinfinn.com/index.html
http://drkevinfinn.com/index.html
http://drkevinfinn.com/You have duplicate home pages, and need to process a redirect in cpanel/htaccess to prevent this. Here is the code you need to put in place in htaccess after the # RewriteBase /
force www
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www.drkevinfinn.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.drkevinfinn.com/$1 [R=301,L]remove index.php within the URL
RedirectMatch permanent index.php/(.*) http://www.drkevinfinn.com/$1
remove index.php at the end of the URL and change to /
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^GET\ /./index.(php|html)\ HTTP
RewriteRule (.)index.(php|html)$ /$1 [R=301,L]Remove index.php from root URL
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /index.(php|html) [NC]
RewriteRule ^index.php$ http://www.drkevinfinn.com/ [R=301,L]#end code
Keyword selection:
The keyword selection on the pages is pretty jarbled, and could use a bit of cleaning up. For example on home page:
name="keywords" content="DR. Kevin Finn,Chiropractor Pickering,chiropractor services in Pickering">
could be changed to: (DC is the abbreviation for "doctor of chiropractic", CA stands for both Canada, and for Chiropractic assistant, a double benefit!)
name="keywords" content="chiropractor, chiropractic, care, clinic, service, pickering, CA, Dr Kevin Finn, DC, doctor">Site meta description: Also, the description for the site is not very.....descriptive:
name="description" content="Chiropractic Dr. Kevin Finn offers chiropractor services in Pickering.">
let's elaborate a bit further, based off of your services page:
name="description" content="Dr. Kevin Finn is a chiropractor clinic in Pickering, CA offering chiropractic care and services to clients suffering from back pain or injury.">
On page copy:
On page copy is a bit thin. Your headings list the main keyword and location, but the body copy does not. From the homepage:"Chiropractors are experts in the diagnosis and treatment of injuries or conditions related to your nerves, muscles, bones and joints and how these conditions may impact your overall health and ability to work, perform and enjoy life.
People most often think of visiting a chiropractor for back pain or neck pain and headaches, but chiropractors can help with problems in the shoulders, elbows, wrists, knees, hips even your feet! Research studies have demonstrated that chiropractic treatment provides excellent relief for these conditions."
^^^^^^^ NO LOCATION LISTED!! Also, the phrase "chiropractors" is used often, but not chiropractor, chiropractic, etc etc and anything else you want to rank for. Many pages only have 2 short paragraphs, which limits how often and where you can link to.
No Interlinking of pages in content.
Google hates dead end pages, and users dont spend much time on them. Add in additional copy, and link using anchor text to those related pages as you talk about them.No authorship or markup:
http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets?url=http://drkevinfinn.com/index.htmlClick-through ratio is probably getting hit hard because of this. You have the google+ page linked in the footer, so what is stopping you from creating the markup? Also, does he have any reviews? I'm sure one or more patients would be happy to write some reviews, and them you can add in aggregate review markup and make the indexed links shine. Don't know how? here you go: https://blog.kissmetrics.com/get-started-using-schema/
Start looking objectively at these areas of your site. I dont think you are being affected by the hack, as much as areas of SEO that need more attention to detail. If the hack was a major factor, you most likely would have received a message from GWT saying that malware was on the site.
Best of luck, and let me know if I can help with anything!
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I dont think that registering a new domain is the best plan of action.
Currently, the domain has been registered since October 29, 2012. Starting over means he loses the domain age. Granted it's not been registered that long, but most of the issues on the site seem to be seo/content related.
He stated that he did not get hit with a manual action, and already disavowed the links. I think that with setting up better content and optimisation, new sitemap, moving site to a dedicated IP, (hosted in Provo, Utah so I'm guessing hostgator), and resubmitting all after revisions in GWT as fetch as google and html highlighting, he will be fine. See my post on this page regarding his on/off page issues. It is very likely the site just got slapped with an algorithm update, and that his original presumption of the hack causing ranking loss is not entirely accurate. I think he could gain all the ranking back within a month if all is corrected and submitted properly.
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Thank you David, obviously I was to close to the situation to be able to review it objectively.
Much appreciated. I will do those changes and just post back if there is any change.
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No problem, glad I could help! Sometime it's helpful to have an extra set of eyes looking at a site's seo.
Let me know if you need any additional help, and the results after your changes.
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