Welcome to the Q&A Forum
Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.
You might be better off starting over with a new domain. Getting the penalty lifted can be a long road and if you have little invested in keeping the domain,(links etc) I'd move on. Maybe the ".org" version of your name, assuming the penalized one was a ".com"
Best,
I have been postponing the switch on my Wordpress site anticipating grief!
Did you use the WP Enging "sandbox" to build the new site? I'm probably going to use my offline test box (WAMP) since my host doesn't provide a test area.
Best,
Hey Patrick not sure if this is an issue or not but I notice if I enter http and your urls, your site serves the http version. Clicking on any menu item goes to https, but I would think the http should be re-directed to https?
Thomas,
Can this be implemented on a Wordpress site?
Apologize for hijacking!
From your WP dashboard go to Appearance>Menus and you'll see the navigation structure. It can be a bit challenging to get the hang of so go slow. You might be better in the Wordpress.org forums looking for help on this. Cool site! I want a nanotube.
Thanks Patrick and EGOL. I will be trashing them.
Still curious about why the tactic when it is a nofollow. The clients appear very reputable but have no clue what the SEO is doing, no doubt. Feel bad for them.
Recently I noticed a couple of comments on our blog that seemed nice and relevant so I approved them. The site is wordpress and comments are configured nofollow. We don't get many comments so I thought "why not?". Today I got one and noticed they are all coming from the same IP. They all include urls to sites in the same industry as us, relevant sites and all different. Looks like an SEO is doing it for various clients.
My question is what is the value of these nofollow links for the poster? Are these seen as "mentions" and add value to Google?
And am I better off trashing them so my site is not associated?
Thanks
Beyond my expertise to answer this and it is going to be based on your connection to the domain in question.
You might want to ask Marie Haynes for help here as this is what she does. http://www.hiswebmarketing.com/
Also a Moz contributor and some great blog posts about this very subject on Search Engine Watch http://searchenginewatch.com/sew/how-to/2401261/help-my-penalty-was-lifted-but-traffic-has-not-increased
Trick question! We did after the disavow and a refresh. That took about 8 months. I think every situation is going to be different and in some cases, it may be better to start fresh with a new domain. One advantage we had was catching what the "SEO" company was doing and getting them to remove as many links as they could.
You didn't mention if you have a Manual Action or suspect a penalty. We definitely had a Penguin penalty and knew we had bad links. We used Link Detox as an aide in the process but manually reviewed each link - Good/Bad. Beware of just going with what the tool says. Do your own evaluation.
I agree with Moosa here. When we went through this we used Link Detox to help identify the links we wanted to remove/disavow and RMOOV to send an automated email campaign. The response rate was less than 5%as I recall and usually took multiple emails if there was to be a response.
This is the nice thing about the tools as they track success for you. It's also a really good idea to use a "throw away"email address,as many of these may be reported by the recipients as spam and get your email account added to spam filters.
I think the personal touch thing is more for outreach. Not worth the effort here.
Best!
Can't really compare as I haven't used the other tools, but I used RMOOV and it was very good. Various price levels depending on number of domains to contact. The $99/month did it for us. Very good support (by phone) as well.
Good Luck!
Thanks EGOL, I'll take a look.
One of the articles I read said the Trusted Store reviews were only related to service, not actual products which is also very limited.
Mainly I was thinking the badge would be a plus for consumer confidence.
Thanks again!
Hi EGOL,
Wondering what you decided on this as we are also looking at it?
Doesn't seem to have a downside other than the setup and some additional tracking data sent to Google.
Best,
Hi Kelly,
I didn't see Yoast on your site and not sure if you are using another plugin to help manage SEO issues. Yoast is pretty well respected and the plugin can help manage some of the duplicate content issues in Word Press. (tags, categories)
https://yoast.com/wordpress/plugins/seo/
Also some good reads on the Yoast site on optimizing a Word Press site. HTML5 and Schema should also be considered. There are some Word Press Gurus around here and hopefully they will chime in.
Best!
In my experience it takes a couple of days to show up. And generic keyword search will "trigger" (you'll see the rich snippet)
Best
As Richard says you can use OSE right here! Also you can see links in GWMT. Ahrefs and Majestic are also great resources. Tools like Link Detox or Link Risk are also available and claim to help you determine if the link is bad. Although the best resource for that is you. Because you will know if this was a "manipulated" link. These automated tools may have false positives for links that might actually be helping your site. But again, you will be the best judge of that.
You can't really delete a link but can request it be removed through the webmaster or disavow it in GWMT. I think Richard gives great advice however when he points out that if you haven't had a penalty in the past, you may be better off not worrying about using the disavow tool. If you are in the group of us who have been penalized in the past, you might consider proactive disavow with Google.
Best!
Very likely you are just redirecting the penalty to the new domain. This article recently written by Marie Haynes may help.
And to you as well! Sorry if I was blunt and no disrespect intended.
If you decide to keep the url then you will need to build new quality links. Even after disavowing the bad links you will not rank if you don't get good links going forward. Check out these guides http://moz.com/blog/the-noob-guide-to-link-building http://pointblankseo.com/link-building-strategies http://www.makemoneyninja.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-link-building/
The good news is you can save the url but it will be more time consuming.
Good luck!