Penguin impact - October 2014

[laboiteimmo]

Thanks.

Just before Penguin update on October 2014, 170 000 pages of my website were in the Google index. After this update, i lost step by step these pages to end with only 25 000 pages :-(. Since May 2015, another Penguin update, the number of my pages in the index grows up... but really slowly. Today, nearly 75 000 pages are indexed.

I made some changes in my linking strategy, internal/external... but nothing changed... Do you think that I just have to wait ? It's been 11 month...

Thanks a lot. I'm becoming crazy

it's been

[ClaytonJ]

No one can really give you a "definitive" answer and that is the reason why you are "sweating".

A few websites simply never recover.  On some we simply bit the bullet and rebuilt. I think it is a good sign you got so many pages back, so it sounds like it is worth waiting.  You have to rely on your intuition.  You know your website better than anyone in the world.

But most importantly it is critical you sleep well at night knowing that your site is "white hat optimized to perfection".  If it is not, then you should keep sweating until it is perfect...

Not sure if that helps, but hope it assists.

[MarieHaynes]

It sounds like the issues that you are talking about are actually due to the Panda algorithm rather than Penguin. There were refreshes of each in October:

October 17 - Penguin refresh

October 24 - Unannounced Panda refresh

Can you pinpoint your traffic loss to one of these dates?

Penguin is about the quality of your backlinks. But if you are talking about removing duplicate and thin content, these are Panda issues.

In each case, however, in order to see recovery, we need to wait for another update or refresh of the algorithm that hit you. There has not been another Penguin refresh since October 2014. Google announced a Panda refresh on July 17, 2015, saying that it would take a few months to roll out. However, it's an odd refresh because so far, I'd say that 95% of sites that are awaiting Panda recovery have seen no movement. It almost feels like Panda did not refresh at all.

As such, if it was an algorithm that hit you, you may need to keep waiting until either of those algorithms re-run in order to see improvement.

[laboiteimmo]

Thanks... I have a dream

[laboiteimmo]

Thanks for your answer.

You can see in these images the evolution of my pages on Google index and the change of my ranking since October 2014 : http://imgur.com/a/FoNuM

I think it was a Penguin sanction and not a panda sanction... but maybe you 've reason.

[MarieHaynes]

Neither Penguin or Panda will affect the number of pages that you have indexed. It's possible that perhaps there is a technical issue with your site.

Do you have Google Analytics set up? Can you see exactly what date the traffic drop happened?

Have you done much link building to the site? Penguin was designed to affect sites that have a large number of unnatural (i.e. self made) links pointing to them and has very little or almost nothing to do with thin content.

[laboiteimmo]

Yes, you have it here : http://imgur.com/tDmDUcJ

And you have reaseon for sure ! My change was arrived the 24, October 2014... Panda is my ennemy

[MarieHaynes]

Very timely. I am speaking at Pubcon Vegas next week on the topic of "Do you need a link audit?" In my presentation I speak about how many businesses are doing everything they can to escape Penguin and spending lots of money on backlink audits when really, their problem is something else.

So, Panda has many components. If you have found and removed a lot of thin content, then this is the first step. In some cases, this could be all that you need to do in order to see recovery. But it's also possible that there are other issues. Anything that affects on-site quality can impact a site in the eyes of Panda. It may be worthwhile to have someone experienced in Panda issues do a full site quality audit for you.

And then unfortunately you need to wait. As mentioned previously, even though Google said they updated Panda in July, most site owners have seen no impact of this refresh. I anticipate that any time now we'll be hearing stories of recoveries.

[laboiteimmo]

I dont removed my content... even if i think it's not good contents.

Juste before the 24 October, a lot of my content were indexed on antoher website, nearly 1500 pages. (my website is a part of a website network) and a configuration bug change all... i repare this immediatly but na change in SERPs. You think thaht its possibly the source of evil ?

Thanks

[MarieHaynes]

It's hard to say. Panda is rarely because of just one thing. I usually have to dig in for several days to find potential reasons for a site to decline because of Panda.

Having your own content indexed on another website usually shouldn't affect your site unless Google sees the other site as the primary owner. But again, it's hard to say with certainty if this is the issue without digging in further.