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I can't see it being detrimental to your rankings and I would say that as long as the list isn't too long then it'd be a helpful thing to have, if, as you say, your users aren't the most techy people!

I'd agree with the people here that it is unlikely these kind of links are the reason for the penalty. If you haven't already, do a backlink analysis on Open Site Explorer and look for any links that look like spam such as article directories, low quality directories etc. Also, have a look at the percentage of branded links vs anchor text links because it may be this that resulted in the penalty.

you need to be careful about the number of onpage links you have. I take it you have your categories or products in a drop down (or some sort of menu) in the top navigation?

I'd recommend using breadcrumb navigation so that if users get to a certain level and decide they need to go back, then they can using the breadcrumb navigation. Your SEO and link building efforts will help you drive people to the right pages so just concentrate on making the user experience as easy as possible.

I would use an internal linking strategy through the content on the page though, especially if the categories/products are similar. Or maybe a "you may also like" section.

Ok, brilliant. Thanks for your advice.

Hi dan, thanks for the reply. We do have an /Christmas/_all page. Are you staying that all the canonicals should go to this structure? We build to the none /_all versions so wouldn't this have a negative effect on rankings?

Hi all,

I have an ecommerce client and on the pages they have a drop down so customers can view via price, list etc. Natrurally I want a canonical tag on these pages, here's the question.

as they have different pages of products,  the canonical tag on http://www.thegreatgiftcompany.com/occassion/christmas#items-/occassion/christmas/page=7/?sort=price_asc,searchterm=,layout=grid,page=1 is to http://www.thegreatgiftcompany.com/occassion/christmas#items-/occassion/christmas/page=7.

now, because the page=7 is a duplicate of the main page, shouldn't the canonical just be to the main page rather than page=7? Even when there is a canonical tag on the /Christmas/page=7 to the /Christmas page?

hope that makes sense to everyone!

Mike is absolutely correct. Whenever you are changing your website and the URL's are changing you should always make sure 301 redirect the old URL to the new one. Saves all the hassle of finding the links.

Hi Robert,

It seems like your strategy is right now and you were unfortunate to hire an agency that has resulted in the penalty. I hate to be the bearer of bad news but I have seen websites that have never recovered from a penalty, even after having the reconsideration request accepted. However, looking on the positive side, and with the links you are/have built there shouldn't be any reason why you shouldn't start to see a recovery.

When you got them to remove the links, did they get them removed or use the disavow tool. The problem with using the disavow tool is that some agencies aren't sure what is a good link and what is a bad link so if they just got rid of everything then you have effectively started from scratch but with a penalty hanging over your head so it is going to be hard to rank again.

Look at your backlink profile again and compare it to what it was before the penalty (if possible) and then see if you still have any links that look suspect. Any article directores or poor quality directories that are still there, get them taken down.

As Moosa said, try and get them to take the articles down first because this would be better and Google says that you should try to get them taken down BEFORE using the disavow tool. If you have already tried then go ahead and use it, you can disavow links from an entire domain so you can just do that.

The reason for the slip could be the unconfirmed update from Google. As nothing has been confirmed its difficult to say but there has been a lot of talk on Webmaster forums that rankings have dropped for many websites.

Coming back to your question, there is no set time on how long it will take and as Paddy Displays said, it depends on how often Google visits the website with the link on. If, as you say, the websites are high quality then it should be soon.

Yes you should only have 1 H1 tag per page, I didn't realise the "International Mailing List" was the H1. As Market Stomper said, it was more about UX and separating the paragraphs.

The way you have done the alt attributes for the images at the bottom of the homepage is correct. Don't stuff keywords into your alt tags because you will gain nothing from it. Try get a keyword into your image alt tag but it is more important that the description matches the image.

You've done a pretty good job there. I would suggest adding some H1's into your content as well and maybe some in-content linking too which can be good for users.

I'd second what Dimitri said, using these types of websites is a sure fire way of getting your website penalised.

Cheers guys, much appreciated

We have found a couple of blogs that would be good for some unique content but I suspect they may be part of a network. Apart from checking the IP and for duplicate content of them both, are there any other signs that they may be part of a network?

Hi Chris,

Thanks for the reply. We have seen a few drops in rankings since the unconfirmed update last week so I've noted all our current rankings so I can compare them once the changes have been made. We have been SEO'ing the website for a while now but the web company made some changes to their CMS and messed things up!

Hi Mozzers,

I saw a considerable amount of duplicate content and page titles on our clients website. We are just implementing a fix in the CMS to make sure that these are all fixed. What changes do you think I could see in terms of rankings?

Hi Nathan,

This is another example of Google not getting it right across all industries (the home improvement industry is another example).

If the website is new then it may be a case that Google is testing it higher up the rankings but when it gets cached again (last cached on 22nd April) it is sure to slip. Alternatively, if those around the website are spamming then it will be helping them stay where they are.

I've seen some people on a few forums say that they have seen huge drops in rankings! Now, some of these people were leaving comments and including links back to their websites so might not be anything major.....i hope!