Member Avatar for AccurateAG

Today, I went to check my web site's SERP rankings.

Yahoo and Bing, no problem; they are firmly on page 1, where they have been for more than a year.

Google, big problem. My site is now on Page 3 for one keyword, and not even in the first 10 pages for the second.

When I looked at this using a Google Banned checker, it comes up as not banned.

It is still where it has been on Alexa, google PageRank, etc.

The only thing I have done for SEO in the last few days is to do more directory postings.

I checked my Webmaster tools and there are no nastygrams; in fact, no messages since November 2011.

I know a new Google algorithm update just came out.

A few questions:

  1. Has anyone else been affected by this?

  2. Has anyone seen their rankings recover from the algorithm update hit? If so, how long did it take?

  3. Does anyone know what Google is penalizing these days?

Thanks for all your input.

John.

Edited by AccurateAG
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Member Avatar for JorgeM

I have read some other threads on this forum that this site, daniweb.com, was also recently affected by the most recent Google algorithm update. There were some recent changes on this site and it appears that the recovery is in progress.

I beleive that sites that are considered as content farms are the ones being impacted the most. In other words, sites with duplicate content where the content originated from another site.

Member Avatar for AccurateAG

HI ITG:

That would not apply to me. My content is original; I wrote it myself.

Now, I HAVE put up pretty much the same directory listings, with only a few variants (Meta Description, then 2 others I have used a lot). Would that count as "duplicate content" in Google's eyes?

John

Member Avatar for JorgeM

I wouldnt think so. I have read of other sites online that where affected by this as well for no apparent reason. I have tried to research this in the past, but there isnt much detail about how the algorithm actually works. I guess they dont want to publically expose that information, I assume.

Could it be that someone else out there is reproducing your content. Do you expose your pages via XML or RSS, or other form, where it can be easily requeted from your site and re-displayed on someone else's site? Then yoursite is being considered as the duplicate?

Member Avatar for Dani
  1. Yes, many other sites are affected.
  2. DaniWeb was hit by the Google Panda algorithm update back in February 2011 and it took us until July I think to make a full recovery.
  3. Google makes I think somewhere like 200 algorithm changes a year. I forget exactly how many they say. They are always working to improve their results by targeting spam, content farms, etc.

That would not apply to me. My content is original; I wrote it myself.

DaniWeb's content is all original as well, of course.

Member Avatar for AccurateAG

Hi all:

I went back to Google this morning and ran the same search I do every morning. I am BACK on P1 of Google for both keyword phrases.

At first glance, this looks like a solved problem. Thanks for all your input.

Member Avatar for AccurateAG

Well, I just checed again this morning, and the same exact problem recured.

I have not even done any directory postings in the last few days (since Monday, I think).

I did not check my rankings on Wenedsay or Thursday, so this may date back to Wednesday at the most.

Any suggestions on how I can recover from this?

Member Avatar for willson1

It may be due to keyword stuffing , or over optimization

Member Avatar for AccurateAG

Hil Willson:

No, it is not. I went over the guidelines at Google Webmaster Tools, and there was not anything that was even marginal. Believe me, I don't use black hat techniques. I definitely don't stuff keywords.

John

Member Avatar for JorgeM

Hi John,

You mentioned you have 6 h1 tags on the same page? According to SEO, you should only have 1 h1 tag per page.

I always recommend that web site owners interested in search engine optimization start by reading from the source (Google). They have a starter guide which I find to be very useful.

http://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrusted_dlcp/www.google.com/en/us/webmasters/docs/search-engine-optimization-starter-guide.pdf

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