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Thank you Andy for your reply.

While I was waiting for an answer here, I made further research, and it looks like this can be a good strategy to cope with Panda related penalties, at least until the "bad content" is updated and improved:

https://moz.com/community/q/noindex-vs-page-removal-panda-recovery

Your thoughts?

Thank you again!

Oh, thank you Andy and Logan! So, can I remove the canonical tag altogether?

Thank you so much!

All the best,

Fabrizio

Hello Moz fellows,

I have another question about content quality and Panda related penalization.

I was wondering this: If I have an entire section of my site that has been penalized due to thin content, can adding "noindex,follow" to all pages belonging to that section help de-penalizing the rest of the site in the short term, while we work to improve those penalized pages, which is going to take a long time? Can that be considered a "short term solution" to improve the overall site scoring on Google index while we work to improve those penalized pages, and, once ready, we remove the "noindex" tag?

I am eager to know your thoughts on this possible strategy.

Thank you in advance to everyone!

Hello Moz fellows,

a while ago (3-4 years ago) we setup our e-commerce website category pages to apply what Google suggested to correctly handle pagination.

We added rel "canonicals", rel "next" and "prev" as follows:

On page 1:

On page 2:

On page 3:

And so on, until the last page is reached:

Do you think everything we have been doing is correct?

I have doubts on the way we have handled the canonical tag, so, any help to confirm that is very appreciated!

Thank you in advance to everyone.

Everett, another clue that suggests me that those category pages may have been hit by a "quality" algorithm instead than a "back link" one, is that it looks like Google released a "Panda" like update in June, and that's exactly when the problem started on my own website:

http://www.gsqi.com/marketing-blog/june-2016-google-algorithm-update/

I can confirm what Glenn highlighted in his article over there: same dates, similar issues.

Thanks Everett, I am aware of those pages and they have been already put on our disavow list, but I was talking about all other category pages that have lost rankings in a similar massive way for which I can't find any particular bad back link.

For example, I have used Open Site Explorer for the following similar category pages, but I couldn't find any bad back link:

http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Choir.html

http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/StringQuartet.html

http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/TenorSax.html

The following ones belongs to a different category altogether (composer's pages) and yet, I can't find any bad back link pointing to them:

http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Beethoven/DownloadBeethoven.html

http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Chopin/DownloadChopin.html

http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Debussy/DownloadDebussy.html

And many others...

So, I am wondering, why those pages dropped as well? Can a single penalized page put down an entire category of similar pages?

Thanks for your reply Everett.

Well, I don't think that may be a backlink problem because I haven't found any clearly "spammy" websites linking to those category pages. Actually those pages don't have that many backlinks overall.

Please, let me know if you think I am missing anything key here.

I appreciate your help!

Everett, I have an update about this issue and I'd like to know your thoughts about it.

After further research we have discovered that our "violin category page" wasn't the only one to have lost a lot of ranking in the past month or so. A whole bunch of category pages, similar to the violin page have lost rankings as well, a big deal, from page 1-2 to page 30 or more. Strange thing, it looks like our "most popular" and most "linked" pages have lost rankings, whereas less popular and less linked page have lost nothing (!!)

Here are some examples:

Category pages that have lost rank since June 25:

http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Violin.html (dropped on 7/3)

http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/AltoSax.html (dropped on 7/19)

http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/PianoSolo.html (dropped on 7-19)

and many other "instrument category pages"

Other popular category pages like our most popular composers page have lost rankings in a similar way:

http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Bach/DownloadBach.html (dropped on 7/2)

http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Mozart/DownloadMozart.html (dropped on 7/6)

http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Debussy/DownloadDebussy.html (dropped on 6/25)

And as I said above, other similar pages, but not as popular and linked within our website, haven't lost any rankings:

http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Accordion.html

http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/BassGuitar.html

http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/score/ClarinetCBb.html

http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/EnnioMorricone/DownloadEnnioMorricone.html

http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/MichaelWSmith/DownloadMichaelWSmith.html

http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/MarkHayes/DownloadMarkHayes.html

Another strange issue is that all our "genres" category pages are ok, up and running and seems to have not been affected:

http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Genre/Jazz/

http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Genre/Pop/

Note though that genre pages are much less popular than instrumental and composer/author pages, and less linked within our site.

Any ideas? I don't think this can be due to a "penguin" or "back-link profile" related issue, but maybe a Panda issue, or... what else?

Thanks Rand! That tells it all

Yes, I see now what you mean... unfrotunately the correct perspective wasn't clear at first, at least to me.

Mostly, the first tip confused me:

1. Ask bloggers for reviews - Contact any relevant blogs in your niche and ask for a review. Send them the product and ask for a link in return.

That can be confusing... "send them the product and ask for a link in return".... the "in return" wording made me misunderstood the tip. That really looks like "asking links for something in return".

All other tips actually look like you are describing, and look ok. In any case, that's why I posted this thread with the title "Subtle line of asking links for money/service/benefits", that subtle line can be easily crossed if we don't see all these tips in the right perspective.

So, in summary, maybe we should shift the concept from:

"Link to me and I'll give you something in return"

to:

"I give you something awesome to you and, hopefully, you'll link back to me"

Is that the correct mindset in link building nowadays?

Thanks again.

Thanks Rand for taking care of that, I am sure it'll avoid a lot of confusion.

There is another great article that could sort the same kind of concerns:

https://moz.com/blog/99-ways-to-build-links-by-giving-stuff-away-and-improve-your-brand-too-14029

The article's title itself, I guess, doesn't work that well anymore, isn't it?

Thank you again.

Yes, exactly what I thought : Create excellent content hoping for natural links back, without any "additional/artificial benefit" given to the linker such as money, exchanges, services, etc.

Do you think that by just removing the concept of "additional benefit" would make link building safe? Or simply: We should shift the concept of "additional benefit" to the "actual benefit" a link can give to site owners (a really awesome resource to show to their won users, a tool, etc.)

I am just thinking aloud here, but I think that at the end the modern/safe link building boils down to simply "remind" and "introduce" users, site owners, bloggers, etc. to your so-hard-built content hoping for a link back. The more "reminders" you send out, the more chances for links back you get. Isn't that just like "advertising"? Has "link building" become like "advertising"?

Thank you Jake for your reply and for confirming my doubts! I thought exactly what you wrote... but.... I mean, does that mean that "link building" is dead? I see we are just talking about "content building" here, and nothing about "link building"....

Just wondering if what I have proposed above is feasible...

Hello here,

I am putting down a link building strategy according to the latest "good practices" and Google recommendations, but I find myself often confused.

For example, I'd like to implement the technique suggested by Rand on his article below:

https://moz.com/blog/headsmacking-tip-1-link-requests-in-order-confirmation-emails

But if you look at the comments, a user suggests to "ask for links in exchange of discounts", and everyone there applaud him for the idea (Rand included). But, wait a second... am I the only one realizing that now days Google discourage to ask for links for "money, services, or any other kind of 'offered' benefit"?

So.. where to draw the line here?

Here are other examples that I am not sure are "safe" in link building:

1. Ask for links in exchange of a free Membership on a site (where usually a Membership is sold for a price)

2. Ask for links in exchange of exposure (isn't this a sort of "link exchange"?)

3. Ask for link in exchange of "anything else you can think of", even if necessarily doesn't involve money (i.e. for a "certified site badge", for a free e-book, or anything else)

I'd really like to know your thoughts on this very sensitive issue.

Thank you in advance to anyone for helping me to understand.

Thank you Everett, I think what you wrote makes sense and I'll see what to do. I'll analyze again all my affiliate links and assess the risk of getting rid of those links. If I see I could risk losing rankings in some way, I'll consider to disable the stronger affiliates last.

Thank you again.

Thank you Everett, that's actually my "dilemma"... I understand the risks of both actions:

1. If I leave things how they are now, I could still benefit of any little juice coming from those links, but I could risk a penalization from Google because of that.

2. If I apply what you are suggesting, I will be safe from any possible penalization from Google, but I could lose any possible juice coming from those affiliate links.

Since from my back link profile it looks like most of our best referrals are affiliate links, I am very afraid to lose a lot of juice and consequently rankings if I disable those as you are suggesting. Data in my hands shows me a strong possibility on that (we have affiliates with a strong SEO profile), whereas I have almost nothing showing that those links are really penalizing me, that's why I have such an hard time to decide what to do.

Another option could be to keep the way it is just for those "strong" affiliate links, whereas disable all other ones...

How would you suggest acting in this kind of scenario?

Wonderful, thank you Everett.

Thank you Everett, good points!

I have opened another thread on this topic (I didn't expect you to reply on this old one!) where I am discussing about possible solutions for inbound affiliate links:

https://moz.com/community/q/affiliate-links-dilemma

It looks like my best solution would be to leave the way it is, maybe changing 301 redirects with 302? How would you suggest tackling this issue... or would you suggest just "ignoring" and leave the way we all have done, with a simple 301 redirect to the "clean" URL?

Thank you again.

Yes, thank you Everett, I read about that, and I agree with you that that would be a bullet-proof solution.

I wanted just to check if what Google states now days would actually work, I couldn't see that mentioned on this thread before. But looks like you'd agree with Google on that, right?

Thank you again!