Lost 50% google traffic in one day - panic?
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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
</hgroup>
</footer>
</header>
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Damn, it's the penguin update...
http://searchengineland.com/the-penguin-update-googles-webspam-algorithm-gets-official-name-119623
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Google provides a form where you can them that your site was hit by error: http://searchengineland.com/penguin-update-peck-your-site-by-mistake-googles-got-a-form-for-that-119698
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After a very hard night and a lot of thinking, I've an idea.
We are using a lot of "keyword links" on our site.
It's - by the way - http://www.schicksal.com - an astrology site. We have lost 72% visibility - according to figures of sistrix.com.
So, we are doing this:
Zodiacs
Description of Zodiacs
Now a list with zodiacs
Aries (longer, descriptive title
short description of aries
In that case the "aries" keyword in the description is getting the link to the article.
I think, google doesn't like this after pengiun.
So, what is better:
a)
Aries
description
b)
Aries
description ... read more
What do you think?
Best wishes,
Georg.
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i dont think what you have is wrong at all. nor do i think the google example affects you.
Do not use read more, as you want to pass relevant link text to the page.
I think Bobs advice is need edhere, dont panic.
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I wouldn't be surprised Alan looking at his website that a lot of links were built naturally by people linking to his site as it looks like a good resource.
I've got a website were I built some links to gain a good position and left it, over a few months that exposure built tons of new links without me knowing from all over the web.
Now if those little sites have been hit, lets say a fair amount had been wiped out then I can see how rankings could be lost.
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