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Panda KILLED 8+ year old authority site with 800+ pages, how to fix?

Discussion in 'SEO' started by sdwordpress, Jun 15, 2012.

  1. #1
    This site was #1 organic for dozens of keywords, great traffic, alexa 300,000, PR5: www.sandiegopchelp.com

    Now the site is dead. All pages devalued. I believe it's a content issue, most of the pages were deemed spammy, too many keywords, bulleted lists, etc.

    Understanding that it's a content issue, it will take a year or more to re-write all the pages of the site. Would it be better to remove all the pages and just start from scratch? Should I 404 redirect each page to the home page?

    What is the fastest, best method to fix this massive, dramatic drop?
     
    sdwordpress, Jun 15, 2012 IP
  2. coklatnet

    coklatnet Peon

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    #2
    just my 2 cents : you better start over. because with this way google will reindex it and treat as a new site :)
     
    coklatnet, Jun 15, 2012 IP
  3. uday11

    uday11 Active Member

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    #3
    Try evaluate which pages are having duplicate content & keyword stuffed pages. re-write those pages with new content and again send mail to google for a re-consideration request. By the time you get reply try fix all errors show in webmaster tools.
     
    uday11, Jun 15, 2012 IP
  4. sultanofseo

    sultanofseo Notable Member

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    #4
    bullet list should not be an issue but too many keywords would be considered over optimization which is one of the things google was after on the last penguin update.

    you dont need to change all 800 pages at once. just fix the most visited pages. starting off with around 20 pages, rewrite the content without making a lot of changes. if it gets too time consuming, you can hire a writer to rewrite the pages for you. if you have original content and have good articles, i suggest keeping the content but fix the keyword density to make the pages not look spammy.

    the pages you fix, do some link building to those pages so that google can quickly find the new content. keep changing a set of pages at a time and keep building link to them. it will take you a while to get done with it but you will get it done eventually. you know what they say, work started is work half done. you can;t finish it if you are too overwhelmed and hesitate to start the update.

    also look at google webmaster tool account to see there is any warning. analyze your link profile to see there is anything fishy and you are not having any links from bad neighborhood. if you have any paid links, they should be removed as well.

    good luck
     
    sultanofseo, Jun 15, 2012 IP
    qazu likes this.
  5. spids

    spids Active Member

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    #5
    Great reply I agree completely
     
    spids, Jun 15, 2012 IP
  6. qazu

    qazu Well-Known Member

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    #6
    Great reply Sultan. I'd just add when doing your backlinking use different anchor text. In other words, don't over optimized your backlinks with keyword rich anchor text. This is another issue targeted by the Penguin update.
     
    qazu, Jun 15, 2012 IP
  7. sdwordpress

    sdwordpress Greenhorn

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    #7
    Thanks for the replies.

    1. I have no errors in webmaster tools.
    2. No money available to hire a content writer.
    3. I don't need all the pages, most of them were just niche landing pages that were not important.
    4. No paid links, no bad neighborhood.

    So again, my question is, can I not just take down most of the filler pages that had little value and just focus on, say the top 150 pages that had the most traffic, and delete the rest?

    Also, can y'all please just take a quick look at the site - you will see the content in question. Just click on any of the links in the top navbar. Also at the end of a page you will see related links, which are also niche specific. Was building pages for every computer, tablet, cell phone, etc. It will become clear when you visit the site.

    Your replies will help me determine whether I should re-write each page completely or just remove keywords. The content is original but it's very low value. The domain in question is sandiegopchelp dot com
     
    sdwordpress, Jun 15, 2012 IP
  8. rae081

    rae081 Member

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    #8
    sultanofseo has the right idea...
     
    rae081, Jun 15, 2012 IP
  9. sdwordpress

    sdwordpress Greenhorn

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    #9
    Okay, that may be true, but my question is, why is he saying to fix every page rather than take down? I just am trying to understand the logic. The bad pages are harming the overall site. Why not cut out the cancer?
     
    sdwordpress, Jun 15, 2012 IP
  10. simple007

    simple007 Well-Known Member

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    #10
    sorry to hear that, wow hard to belive google kicked 8yrs old site ... all the best for your success
     
    simple007, Jun 15, 2012 IP
  11. sdwordpress

    sdwordpress Greenhorn

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    #11
    Just trying to get some answers. Many of the niche landing pages weren't targeting products that were profitable anyway. So perhaps those pages can be removed? Still wondering if I can delete pages..
     
    sdwordpress, Jun 15, 2012 IP
  12. Laceygirl

    Laceygirl Notable Member

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    #12
    Be prepared to be pissed when you change the content and find that you still cannot rank. Although many people believe that the penguin update de-ranks bad content sites that is far from true.
     
    Laceygirl, Jun 15, 2012 IP
  13. sdwordpress

    sdwordpress Greenhorn

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    #13
    So you are saying that the content change won't roll us back to where we were before? The damage is permanent? Why would this be?
     
    sdwordpress, Jun 15, 2012 IP
  14. sultanofseo

    sultanofseo Notable Member

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    #14
    if you make major changes to your site, for either content or layout, you risk dropping your ranking for the time being. you will need to do a lot of work in terms of link building to get that ranking up again. if you take down all the bad pages, all of a sudden you lose lots of pages of content which is not good for a site. since the content is spammy, you can keep the page, fix the content and when googlebot revisit the page, it will see the content is not spammy anymore. it will still take some time to get the updated content reindexed and getting back into the ranking path, but you dont risk the hit you would otherwise get from deleting hundreds of pages. your focus should be on keeping as much content as possible and not making any major changes to the site.

    as you said about the content being spammy as it has lots of keyword repetition, its very easy to fix it by removing some of the keywrods from the page. that doesn't change the site content at all and is the best course of action.
     
    sultanofseo, Jun 15, 2012 IP
  15. varrav

    varrav Member

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    #15
    Well, at least it was good while it lasted. I would probably start from scratch with a new site, hopefully less spammy. Maybe keep the old site up for the time being and see if its rank increases over time, while you also build up the new site.
     
    varrav, Jun 15, 2012 IP
  16. Laceygirl

    Laceygirl Notable Member

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    #16
    It will help but content isn't the source for your ranking drops. For example: I have a site that is a benchmark for excellent content. One of the largest compilations of unique information regarding the niche. After the update I currently dropped to page 11 on the SERPS. What are the sites that ranked up? Sites connected with google such as youtube pages, and stupid results such as from the internet movie database for pages of TV shows related to the niche that aired from 1991 to 1994.

    This is an example to show you that after the update google has de-ranked unofficial sites and forced them to move over for corporations regardless the of old old or related the content. If you change your content you'll still have that problem. Check the higher ranked sites and see if they are truly a better result than yours. My bet? They are just a bunch of corporations.
     
    Laceygirl, Jun 15, 2012 IP
  17. amcg

    amcg Active Member

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    #17
    I think you should be careful about getting rid of the pages and starting again, If this is just a minor update your site may have done nothing wrong and could be changed back in the next update.
    But if you start changing everything now, deleting pages and content which you may think aren't good then you may actually be hurting your site more.

    Normally you would have Messages in Webmaster Tools about any issues Google doesn't like about your site i.e bad content, spammed backlinks etc. If you haven't any of these then I would hold out a little while longer and see what happens.

    For the time being, I would just concentrate on adding new fresh content and see if your Site gains back it's rankings little by little.
     
    amcg, Jun 15, 2012 IP
  18. sanchyclub

    sanchyclub Well-Known Member

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    #18
    keyword density issue is really important for penguin... so try to keep it below 3%
     
    sanchyclub, Jun 15, 2012 IP
  19. sdwordpress

    sdwordpress Greenhorn

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    #19
    Great answers. One more question, and then I will cover my strategy:

    If I take a page of mediocre content and then redo it with far superior content, it would be a dramatic change, but it would be so much more Panda friendly, would this not be a GOOD thing? If not in the short term, than over time. (I don't care about the short term, the pages have all devalued anyway, so I am thinking I might as well go for it and redo the page entirely, perhaps keeping a few parts but mostly scrapping it).

    Your thoughts?
     
    sdwordpress, Jun 15, 2012 IP
  20. Laceygirl

    Laceygirl Notable Member

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    #20
    Did you not listen. 1000's of peoples sites with superior quality articles were dumped off of their ranks. Content isn't going to save you.
     
    Laceygirl, Jun 15, 2012 IP