Over Optimisation Penalty

[seo-wanna-bs]

It seems, some of my pages are being hit by over optimisation penalties. Now to figure out how to tone it down.

The website is for downloading widgets. It's got many great ranks. The pages are dynamic and so titles, h1 are done via variables.

At present the title + H1 are 100% match for the keyword. In addition breadcrumbs home > widgets > big widgets > big blue widgets. All of which being pretty much 100% match for target keyword.

Also, in a gallery, say you're viewing "big blue widgets" there are tabs that link to "small blue widgets" and "medium blue widgets". Again using 100% match anchor text.

None of this was done really for SEO. More for usability. But it appears it's recently negatively effecting SEO. After having a couple of pages, that were ranked number 1, now way at the back of the top 1,000, with un-targeted pages ranking in their place, though to a lesser rank.

I am going to mix up the

tag so that it doesn't match the <title>. I am going to remove the 100% match anchors in the tabs and make them just "small", "medium" and "large". <br /><br />I don't really want to touch the breadcrumbs, because Google uses those in the results and they make perfect logical sense how they're setup. <br /><br />What other changes would you suggest, to help prevent these pages being filtered? <br /><br />Thanks a lot  </p></title>

[gfiorelli1]

My suggestion: try to diversify the kw focus using also semantically related words. That way your page LDA will not be affected (the contrary). Anyway, are you sure it a question of over optimization? Just guessing, because I can't see the pages you talk about; but if you used the kw correctly and not have also flooded the content of the page with the kw overly present in body, sidebar text and footer, then I would also check other factors, as the link hierarchy of the page (what is it's PA?) and if the competence is not performing better on SEO or on other ranking signals (I.e. Social signals) than your pages.

[irvingw]

Without looking at the actual site it's hard to make a determination, but simply matching up H1 tags, breadcrumbs, title tags etc is not enough to trigger a penalty, so don't un-optimize your site or you'll have an unoptimized and penalized site. Try to look at places where you have over done it, like too many instances in the content and tone it down a bit.

That is assuming this is why you got a penalty though, there are so many different factors that could trigger a penalty, how are you coming to the conclusion that it is over optimization?

[gfiorelli1]

I first suggest to check if the site has been really penalized... Too many times we go for the penalization solution, when maybe it isn't

[RyanKent]

Paul,

I've seen this type of question asked many times before. Without the URL and the ability to look at the site it is unlikely we can offer proper feedback. We are left to make wild guesses and while it may generate some ideas, it likely wont solve the problem. Any chance you can share a URL?

[seo-wanna-bs]

There was no active link building to the page. But it's still 100% the authority page on the site, for the term. The page that is ranking instead, has no links to it.

The page was number 1 on .co.uk and .com for the target term and it's now on some page I cannot even find but it is in the top 1,000. Maybe 900th?

It's definitely a penalty and I'm 99% sure it's OOP. But I maybe wrong. But there is a reason this page randomly and suddenly went from number 1 to nothing. And looking at the page, which is low in text, due to it being a gallery, there was a large number of instances of the word(s) on the page.

If we're talking about %'s probably about 30% of the entire words on the page, were the target keyword.

It's never been an issue until recently.

[seo-wanna-bs]

Hi Ryan, this might sound ridiculous, but I don't ever post urls to my site on any SEO forums. Competitors and all that.

Is there a PM system on here?

I just revisited the top 10. And it appears that much of the top 10, have differing

and <title>tags. Which is interesting.</p></title>

[RyanKent]

Yes, SEOmoz has a private messaging system.

I would also suggest the Q&A setup works quite nice for those hesitant to share URLs. Your main Q&A post is indexed almost immediately so I would not suggest sharing a URL in your initial question. One your question is submitted, you can add a reply with the URL. The reply can only be seen by PRO members and a few frequent participants, but not to the general public. You can share the URL, often your question will be resolved in a matter of hours, then you can edit out the URL.

EDIT: 2 weeks after the Q&A has been posted it become visible to everyone. Thanks Keri for pointing this out.

This method offers the best balance between getting your issue resolved and a need for discretion. Of course, there can always be a greater need for privacy in which case PMs are the next best option.

[seo-wanna-bs]

Wow I posted a post, along with my URL and it disappeared? Anyway thanks for the info, I didn't know only Pro members can see the replies.

[redacted by staff] is the URL.

Keyword "Nokia N8 Themes". After 12 months with top spots, it's gone.

As you'll see, I've updated the

tag already to differ slightly from the title.

Looking at competitors sites, you'll see they are all similar in format, although most have a differing

to <title></p> <p>Thanks :)</p></title>

[RyanKent]

Regarding the disappearing post, please send an e-mail to help@seomoz.org and share the details including your browser name and version. A few of us have been working to have this issue resolved as it is quite frustrating.

For your issue, when was the last time you noticed your site ranked for "nokia n8 themes" and what was it's position?

While your site is not on page 1 for the phrase, another page from your site is ranked #17 in Google.com for the phrase "nokia n8 themes": [redacted by staff] news/top-10-nokia-n8-themes

This result leads me to believe there is a cannibalization issue on your site. I took a look and you do an excellent job of using anchor text on the ranked page for the term "nokia n8 themes" linking it back to the proper page.

Your page title is "Free Nokia N8 Themes" and header is "Free Themes for your Nokia N8 Phone". Both support the target phrase. Adding a bit of variation between the two is a nice way to include word variations. I would suggest researching the most popular keywords associated with the phrase. Based on a quick AdWords review, I would suggest "Free Nokia N8 Phone Themes" as a slightly better header.

As a note, I tried a site search for "nokia n8 themes" and it returned no results. I was trying to determine if there was an signs of cannibalization elsewhere on your site.

Your backlink profiles for each page look good although there is a page titled "nokia n8 themes" which offers a link to the Top 10 page.

The biggest issue I see is despite your title tag and header, the target phrase is not even used a single time in content on the page. That is a major concern. My suggestion is to add the phrase at least once on the page, preferably as early as possible on the page. That change plus the other changes you have made should lead to the page ranking ahead of, or instead of, the other page from your site.

[seo-wanna-bs]

Hey Ryan. Some good points.

I believe the page was number 1. But I wasn't monitoring it much for a while, until I noticed it had disappeared.

I actually removed the instance of "nokia n8 themes" on the page, because of the concern of too many instances on the page. But you're right, it should likely appear once.

Once the rank disappeared. The top 10 Nokia N8 Themes page, then started to rank on page 2.

The search on the site, only searches keywords, rather than brands or models etc.

Just did a quick google site search for the term and it's just started to show the correct page, first. But searching the term alone, it's still a gonna. http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=nokia+n8+themes+site:[redacted by staff] &ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

Then search Nokia n8 Themes [redacted] and the correct page ranks. http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=nokia+n8+themes+site:[redacted by staff]&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8#sclient=psy-ab&hl=en&safe=off&client=safari&rls=en&source=hp&q=nokia+n8+themes+tehkseven&pbx=1&oq=nokia+n8+themes+[redacted]&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=330687l331806l0l331849l9l3l0l0l0l0l178l321l0.2l2l0&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.,cf.osb&fp=5b3846bb372396b3&biw=1210&bih=561

So it appears to effect only the direct match "nokia n8 themes". Which is interesting.

Thanks for the responses. I am actually half expecting the page to come back, now that I've removed some of the instances of the KW and diluted the instances of the anchors etc.

[KeriMorgret]

A correction to that Ryan. After two weeks, non-members can see the answers, but cannot reply. Only pro members and those with a certain threshold of mozpoints can answer after the two weeks. (I believe it is still two weeks, that's what it was initially at least).

[seo-wanna-bs]

can Google see the responses too?

Can somebody please do me a fav and remove the url, pls

[RyanKent]

At the top of each reply you make it shows your name. To the right you should see "EDIT" as an option. You can edit your own replies.

Google crawlers cannot access anything beyond your original question for two weeks.

Although....Matt Cutts is registered on SEOmoz

[KeriMorgret]

Just went through and redacted the URL and site name.

I'm not involved with the technical setup of this forum, but as a user not logged in, right now one can only see the question.

[seo-wanna-bs]

Thanks a lot guys still new to the whole SEOMoz Q&A!

[KeriMorgret]

Hi Paul,

I'm going through and seeing if questions are ready to be closed out. It's a little hard to tell in this case. Is your question answered, or should I leave it open?

[seo-wanna-bs]

Sorry missed this, it's ok to close now. Thanks a lot.