Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Beverlys.com used to rank on the first page for "fabric."

I'm trying to get the date of their demise, but don't have it yet so I can't pinpoint what Google update might have killed them but I can guess. In doing a backlink analysis, there were hundreds of poor quality, toxic sites pointing to them. We have carefully gone through them all and submitted a disavow request. They are now on page 9 from nowhere to be found a week ago. But, of course, that's not good enough.

They are on page 2 for "fabric online" and "quilt fabric." So Google doesn't completely hate them. But doesn't love them enough even for those terms.

Any suggestions? They are rebuilding the site to use a different ecommerce platform with new content and new structure.  They will also be incorporating the blog within the site and I've advised them on many other ways to attract traffic and backlinks. That's coming. But for now, any suggestions and help will be much appreciated. Something has got to be holding them back for that one gem of a keyword.

Also, I would like to know what experiences others have had with the disavow request form. Does Google absolutely hold you to making every attempt you can at getting those links removed? ANd how does it know? No one responds so it seems to be such a waste of time. And many now actually charge to remove your links.

Thoughts?

Thanks everyone!

Hi Ruben,

If the one is showing and it's perfectly relevant and has equally good information, then I wouldn't worry about it. But maybe you think you'll get higher rank for that location if that page ranks, and that may be true. So how do you do that?

First step I'd try is clean up the copy. In my opinion, it's overly optimized with that EXACT phrase occuring 9 times in a small amount of copy. It's unnatural. You wouldn't speak that way, so why write that way, and why would you want your readers to even see that page then? I think Google shares that sentiment. So write for consumer first, Google second.

So what do you write?  I've had success rewriting and reusing the main landing page copy, whether that be the home page, or in your case, the generic personal injury attorney landing page for pages like this. You have to consider that anyone landing on this page, assuming you get it to rank, don't have the benefit of landing on the home page and may never see your personal injury page, so you need enough good information here to get them to call. But you don't want duplicate content, so you have to make it different enough. That can be difficult, I know. How many times can you write basically the same thing?

The other option is to provide completely different content and then force them to go elsewhere in search of information about your services. I know that's contrary to logic. It's better to convert them on the spot, but if you can't because your site will have too much duplicate content, or you worry about people landing on this page and it sounding too much like another page they just came from, then make this page very different. But do understand this may be their landing page from the search engine, so be sure to have enough information at the top that tells them they are in the right place and you have what they need. Then fill the rest of the page with geo-specific information that gives you an opportunity to weave your local keywords in. You have an office there. Put your address (with schema code), phone number and map.  Perhaps you also include city-specific information that your Tampa target market might find valuable and relevant, perhaps even ways your attorneys are involved in that community or cases they've fought and won in the community.

Finally something I've had success with is thinning out content that seems to be cannibalizing other pages. In your case, you could remove the word Tampa from the page that is currently ranking and link to "Locations" instead. From there link to your city pages. Be careful though. That could have a negative effect. At least you have some rank for that page. You don't want to lose it all, but it could be something to try. But do get that Tampa page in order first. That may be all you need.

My 2 cents for what it's forth. Do let us know how it goes!

Did you notice the precipitous drop in backlinks in March?

I'm still trying to get data from her so I can get a timeline, but I bet that's it. Looks to me like some site might have taken her out of a blogroll with so many pages suddenly disappearing, but the domains also went down and continue to fall.

Thanks, Marie.

Hi Marie,

I share your concern over blogspot. She says she's been doing it for years and never had a problem, but you and I know the only thing constant about Google is change and what worked yesterday may not today. I'm trying to get her to no-index that site, but she is reluctant, so I'm looking at other things as well. To address your comment about similarity in the sites, there is very much that. Many pages are identical.

Most of her backlinks also come from the blogspot site. The answer may be in the backlinks alone. As we saw what happened with MyBlogGuest, she could be guilty by association. So looking at all the backlinks is a something we need to do as well. I didn't find that mention you did but found others. How did you get that one?

I need to add in here for the benefit of other small business owners, be careful who you hire for SEO. She bought SEO services from a very well respected web host thinking that with their good reputation, she'd get great service and great results. She got great price and great expense.

Trying to get data and dates from her now. She was not using Analytics but some other tracker software. I'll share when I get it.

Thanks for your input! - Kat

This client has a brand new site: http://www.susannoyesandersonpoems.com

Her previous site was really bad for SEO, yet at one time she actually ranked on the first page for "LDS poems." She came to me because she lost rank. I checked things out and found some shoddy SEO work by a very popular Wordpress webhoste that I will leave unnamed. If you do a backlink analysis you can see the articles and backlinks they created. But there are so few, so I'm not sure if that was it, or it just was because of the fact that her site was so poorly optimized and Google made a change, and down she fell.

Here's the only page she had on the LDS poems topic in her old site: https://web.archive.org/web/20130820161529/http://susannoyesandersonpoems.com/category/lds-poetry/ Even the links in the nav were bad as they were all images. And that ranked in position 2 I think she said.

Even with her new site, she continues to decline. In fact she is nowhere to be found for main keywords making me think there is a penalty.

To try and build rank for categories, I'm allowing google to index the category landing pages and had her write category descriptions that included keywords. We are also listing the categories on the left and linking to those category pages.   Maybe those pages are watered down by the poem excerpts?? Here's an example of a page we want to rank: http://susannoyesandersonpoems.com/category/lds-poetry/

Any help from the peanut gallery?

Just tried to correct a phone number in a listing in White Pages. Their link to edit goes to a Yext signup and there is no other way to edit the listing at all. If you click on Feedback you'll see an outdated how-to which no longer applies. So apparently, White Pages has gone to the dark side too. I'm really not happy with this Yext takeover because it appears to be trying to force small business owners into an expensive plan they don't need. (It will cost my client 2 x $499 to correct their 2 listings.) I sent Whitepages an email and asked them to either update the listings or take them down. Not sure what will come of it. And I hope Google is reading this because if consistency in NAP is as important as everyone says it is, then I want Google to know that consistency has just gotten that much harder and very expensive.

Kathy

Kurt,

Acxiom provides data to Local.com. You can see it in the fineprint at the bottom. And since local.com apparently does not let you update any of their listings directly unless you go through Yext, then my recommendation is get your information correct at Acxiom and hope the data will flow through. As for Hot Frog, I was actually able to claim that one and didn't have a problem at all.

So happy that Moz here came out with their own local search listing tool.  I recommend checking that out.

Kathy

Unfortunately, Taysir, it's not best practice but it works and a lot are doing it much to the chagrin of business owners who play by the rules and the SEOs who support them. As others stated here, organic SEO on local pages is what's needed. Perhaps if you post what kind of business it is, others here may give suggestions on how to optimize those.

Do people really search for red Boston Bruins hats? Or do they search for Boston Bruins hats? Frankly, as a consumer, I'd find it annoying to have to sort through that many more pages if you implemented A. But since color may be important, I'd make it a filter as AWC suggests. I'm not familiar with Shopify, so don't know if it's built in. If not, I'd build it. I'd address your last usability concern the same way - i.e., customize your software.

Personally, I don't think you need a lot on site. After you have the topic covered on your site, I'd look for opportunities off site. Since improper handling can result in injury, look for guest blog opportunities on physical therapist and chiropractor sites, sites that target businesses that actually handle material, employee benefit insurance and brokerage sites, even sites that have pages on relocation like city, realtor, and professional organizer sites. I'd also create an infographic demonstrating how to safely handle material and draw attention to it by notifying the same sites. Then create a series of videos and put them in Youtube.

Usually when we discuss duplicate content, we're addressing the topic of penalties or non-indexing. In  this case, we're discussing ranking high with duplicate content.

I've seen lots of dental, chiropractor and veterinarian sites built by companies that give them cookie cutter sites with the same copy. And they all rank #1 or #2.

Here are two companies that do that:
http://www.rampsites.com/rampsites/home_standard.asp?sectionid=4
http://mysocialpractice.com/about/

The later uses external blogs to provide inbound links to their clients' site, but not all services do that, in fact, this is the first time I've seen them with external blogs. Usually the blog with duplicate copy is ON SITE and the sites still rank #1.

Query "Why Your Smile Prefers Water Over Soft Drinks" to see duplicate content on external blogs.

Or "Remember the Mad Hatter from the childhood classic, Alice in Wonderland? Back then, the process of making hats involved using mercury compounds. Overexposure could produce symptoms referred to as being" for duplicate content on chiropractor sites that rank high.

I've seen well optimized sites rank under them even though their sites have just as much quality content and it's all original with more engagement and inbound links.

It appears to me that Google is turning a blind eye on duplicate content. Maybe because these are local businesses with local clientele it doesn't care that a chiropractor in NY has the same content as one in CA, just as the visitor doesn't care because the visitor in CA isn't look at a chiropractor's site in NY generally.

So maybe geo-targeting the site has something to do with it. As a test, I should take the same copy and put it on a non-geo-targeted site and see if it will get indexed.

I asked another Local SEO expert if she has run across this, probably the best in my opinion. She has and she finds it difficult to rank above them as well. It's almost as if Google is favoring those sites.

So the question is, should all dentists, chiropractors and veterinarians give it up to these services? I shudder to think that, but, hey it's working and it's a whole lot less work - and maybe expense - for them.

Times these are a changing guys. Google just rolled out some new Google+ Page (which is where all Google Place Pages are going) updates. Apparently you can have up to 10 categories now, but none will be custom. This, however, is in the new Google+ Page dashboard. Your existing Google Place pages will be rolled into that soon and then your categories will probably need to be updated. I don't think Google said what they're going to do with your preexisting custom categories, but I wouldn't be surprised if they just disappeared. That's their way of getting rid of all those spammy categories.

I'm actually thinking along the lines of deletion too. Like Jesse said, why not? She has a few followers over there, but she should be directing them to her site anyway. Maybe we should put up a "closed and meet us over there" sign.

Just discovered my client has been copying all her blog posts over to her wordpress.com blog account. So she has duplicate content to what is on her site. She has roughly 700 posts on her main site but doesn't look like that many on the wordpress site.

There are no inbound links coming off the wordpress site that I could find.

Here's an example:

http://thevanillaqueen.wordpress.com/2013/01/30/is-canola-oil-a-healthy-choice/

http://vanilla.com/is-canola-oil-a-healthy-choice/

What are you recommendations for what should be done?

Thanks!

Thanks guys. I should probably clarify. I do know what to do on the site itself. And I have several ideas on what to do to build inbound links( in which social will play a large part) as I realize that is their only hope of ranking. I plan to target universities that have social good programs to try and get on their radar as one example. I'll also be looking for guest blogging opportunities on related sites. And we'll also be doing Facebook campaigns. The whole site is social and is built around the concept of social good sharing. So as we get users, the buzz will happen because the system invites it. But I'm looking for ways to get Google to notice even without that happening yet.

Clearly, given that there is no content to speak of, inbound links and social shares, tweets and the likes are critical. But, given the competition and the lack of content, this is a very difficult task. Love to hear any creative ideas to do so if you have them.

We've been recommending more content, but they won't listen. So I plan to share your comments here in the form of an audit report and in the hopes of getting them to comply. If anyone has any good supporting data to prove the data, I'd love to see that as well. Thanks for backing me on the need for more content! Keep those recommendations coming! Thanks.

Wondering what you all would recommend for SEO on this site:

www.gudville.com

Most of their content is behind a login. Basically there are 5 pages open to Google and to anyone without that login, and they are not open to doing it differently at this time. Once in, there will be a lot of sharing with Facebook friends that will include invitations to join them in their causes.

Love to hear all your recommendations.

Kathy