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Also does anyone know which is the more accurate data source MajSEO or Ahrefs since im getting wildly conflicting data from both.  MajSEO now showing 845 links added for early July (which would indicate a neg link campaign) but hrefs shows 345 links lost over same time period ! ?

Thanks Irving

do you know if any free versions of linkdetox ?

how will doing a link:(space)www.yourdomain.com search help since results wont highlight site quality will they ?

All Best

Dan

Thats a great answer Robert, i really appreciate you taking the time to comment so helpfully

I should have added that there was a big rise in backlinks beginning of may, that peaked and levelled throughout June to then drop from beginning of July to date (according to ahrefs data). So in an otherwise nice natural looking link growth rate from nov last year to date there is a huge hump or wave in the graph as links rise in may but then drop over july.

So if i was looking into this in June it would, initially at least, look like it could well be a neg campaign, but the ranking drop has only occurred recently, correlating with the drop, not the rise, in links.  If a neg campaign i would have thought the rank drop occur soon after the spike in link growth, not after a drop in links.  Also the link growth period is spread over a month (as is the period of the link drop too), not a few days as article suggest one should look out for in a neg campaign, hence i'm pretty confident that its not (which is why i didnt mention it originally but thought best to now just in case).

When you say look at CTR do you mean purely in regard to traffic from the effected kw in the run up to the rank drop ? What kind of time period do you recommend, a week or more ?

Cheers

Dan

Hi

A friend/clients site has recently dropped 2-3 pages (from an average #2 - #3 position on page 1 over last few months) for a primary target keyword & suspects a Neg SEO campaign hence asked me to look into it.

I checked on Removeem and the KW does not generate a red (or even a pink) result.

I looked at Ahrefs & MajSEO, backlinks and referring domains have dropped over the period the KW dropped hence presume i can be sure its not a neg campaign since this would show an opposite pattern (as per articles like this:  http://moz.com/blog/to-catch-a-spammer-uncovering-negative-seo ) ?  Also site has very few site wide backlinks.

The keyword is a 3 word phrase with 2 of those words being in the domain and brand name hence presume such kw are relatively safe from neg seo campaigns anyway

I would have presumed the backlink/ref-domain drop may well explain the ranking drop but site still in first field of view of page 1 for the other keyphrases which 2 out of the 3 are words are same as effected keyphrase (and also in the domain/brand name) so would have thought these would have dropped too if a neg campaign.  Also many of the anchor texts in the disapeared backlinks are for one of the other partial match variant keyphrases which are still top of page 1.

Anchor text is at 4.35% for the effected kw according to MajSEO

Im pretty confident from the above that i can conclude no negative seo campaign has occurred, nor other type of penalty and probably just a 'wobble' at Google that may well right itself shortly

Would appreciate feedback though from others that im concluding correctly just for confirmation ?

Many Thanks

Dan

Hi Matt

My personal opinion is to consolidate everything on the one domain using subfolders (as you suggest) and set up domain forwarding from the old domains to the new subfolders which are replacing those domains.  Interesting to hear what others think too though ?

All Best

Dan

Not as far as I'm aware

My pleasure !

Let me know when you find out if there were any Google updates at similar time as your ranking/traffic drops (or not) ?

cheers

Dan

as per my above response i agree with you there is opportunity to compete for the long tail derivatives of 'cheap flights' since you have stronger page level metrics, this is supported by you saying that you did once rank well for these long tail keywords so i would be looking at what Google updates occurred at same time to identify (or just rule out the possibility) the cause of the drops

You may not have received any messages and still be penalised, the best way to find out for sure is to look if your rankings/traffic drops occurred at the same time as any Google updates occurred, if nothing else just to rule it out as a possibility.  There are some tools out there to overlay updates on top of your GA to help do this quickly (sorry i cant think of the names offhand but if you search around you should find them).

I have also done a competitive analysis for 1 of your 'cheap flights to....' pages and looks to me like you should be ranking better than you are, i.e. you should be on or very close to page 1 since you have many stronger page level metrics compared to your competitors etc.

As a result i would personally not do anything until identifying if rank/traffic drops correlates with any Google updates

All Best
Dan

Hi Shania

Have you looked to see if your ranking drops correspond with any of the Google updates such as Penguin ?

If you were ranking well and then sudden drops around same time as Google algo updates then this is almost certainly the cause.  So try and identify if thats the case or not before anything else ?

All Best
Dan

Thanks for taking time to respond Egol

Ok great Panda theoretically escapable in a few weeks then

Cheers

Dan

Thanks for taking time to comment Kevin

No - what i'm worried about is if more urls are blocked than indexed doesnt that mean that all site pages are blocked (when at least 50 of them dont want to be blocked since want to be crawled/indexed) ? in addition how can more urls be blocked than those that exist/indexed ?

cheers
Dan

I have a client who after designer added a robots.txt file has experience continual growth of urls blocked by robots,tx but now urls blocked (1700 aprox urls) has surpassed those indexed (1000).  Surely that would mean all current urls are blocked (plus some extra mysterious ones). However pages still listing in Google and traffic being generated from organic search so doesnt look like this is the case apart from the rather alarming webmaster tools report

any ideas whats going on here ?

cheers

dan

Hi,

Is being hit by Panda as hard to get out of as being hit by Penguin ?

Or if you clean up all your content should you get out of it relatively quickly ?

I have a very old (11 years) and established site (but also very neglected site that i'm looking to relaunch) but its on an ancient shopping cart platform which never allowed for Google analytics & GWT integration etc so i cant see any messages in GWT or look at traffic figures to correlate a drop with any Panda updates.

The reason i ask is i want to relaunch the site after bringing up to date with a modern e-commerce platform.  I originally launched the site in early 2002 and was perceived well by Google achieving first field of view SERPS for all targeted keywords however competitive, including 'ipod accessories', 'data storage' etc etc. These top positions (& resulting sales) lasted until about 2007 when it was overtaken by bigger brand competitors with more advanced & Google friendlier ecommerce platforms (& big SEO budgets)

I originally used the manufacturers descriptions editing slightly but probably not enough to avoid being considered duplicate content although still managed to obtain good rankings for these pages for a very long time even ranking ahead of Amazon in most cases.  The site is still ranking well for some of the keywords relating to products for which there is still manufacturer copied descriptions so i actually don't think i have been hit by Panda.

So my questions Is, is there any way of finding out for sure if the site has indeed even been hit by Panda at all without looking at analytics & gwt ?

And once i find out if it has or not:

• Is it best if i relaunch on same domain to take advantage of the 11 year old domain history/authority etc ? So long as i make sure all product descriptions etc are unique, if i have been hit by Panda the site should escape its clutches quite quickly ?

**OR **

• Is Panda as aggressive as Penguin in which case is it best to start again on a new domain ?

Many Thanks

Dan

My pleasure, thanks Craig, currently on the Isle Of Wight is lovely !

In that case i would be looking to closer associate the reviews to the page content.

I would also concentrate on using the blog etc to generate fresh content and deep link (where directly appropriate and helpful for user) from the blog post to the product pages and of course category pages too (re your response and factoring in Chris' good comments too).  Regular fresh unique content (associated/tied to an author & publisher) of a high quality (hence likely to earn social amplification) linked to the relevant categories and product pages (where appropriate & helpful) will do far more toward those pages being perceived well by G than overly concentrating on changing the content in the category & product pages

Hope this helps

ps - I'm going to Worthing for a 40th tomorrow coincidentally (just checked your profile)

The problem with Products is that they are are hard to update the content for since they usually (but not always) have an 'evergreen' description. Hence a great way to keep the content fresh is to enable customer reviews and comments on the product page and then encourage customers (via your 'post sale touch points' such as follow up emails saying thanks for your order, hows the product ?) to leave a review of the product (& incentivise them to do so via loyalty points/future discounts).  This will mean the product page is continually populated with new fresh content that is also user generated demonstrating customer/user engagement hence showing 'signs of life' from real people too.

Hi Roy

Well in that case then i would be wary of duplicate content & descriptions etc

I would really focus on trying to develop content/product descriptions to highlight differences between them

This is almost certainly worth watching:  http://moz.com/webinars/ecommerce-seo-fix-and-avoid-common-issues

Cheers

Dan

Hi Roy

It depends how similar the products are, if they are simply variations of the same products then i would just list the 1 product and then give multiple options for the different variations.  For example 1 product page for 'Suede Shoes' with selectable further options/variations of that product i.e. Colours available (blue, red, pink) and size available (8, 9, 10 etc)

Hope that helps

All Best

Dan

Hi Adam

Heres a really good October 2012 Moz article from Cyrus Shephard, all about G+. Have a look at point 7 , it may well be worth having a clearer picture without any background clutter:

http://moz.com/blog/tips-to-use-google-for-seo

All Best

Dan