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Google's War against Wordpress! Is it BAD for SEO? Post-Panda questions and advice!

Discussion in 'Google' started by spycraft, Dec 11, 2011.

  1. spycraft

    spycraft Member

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    #21
    I'll attempt to address all of your replies in one go :)

    jlaurier: Interesting post. And yes, I did notice the same reaction by Google. I don't think that the problem with page/2/ is that the keyword is not in the URL - the problem is that page/2/ has ALL the content from /my-post1/ and /my-post2/ and /my-post3/, so it's either this 1 page, or those 3 posts... Either one or the other will be identified as duplicate content. The same goes for tags. I used to add post tags in every post back when I first begun making those sites, but soon thereafter, I got rid of them. I did not delete them, because I didn't want Google to see Error 404s in pages that it had already indexed, but I removed all the in-links that were pointing to them from my site. This was one of the things that got my sites to rise to the top and the effect was SO QUICK. Almost a week after I removed those links, I noticed a great boost.... but then, Panda hit and I got clobbered. It could be interesting to observe the effect of no-indexing those pages, together with all the category pages, but I remember that Matt Cutts mentioned that we should not no-index or no-follow any URLs from our sites... Maybe he lied.. In regards to the feed - I thought of this one recently and disabled it on all my sites about 2 weeks ago. No change yet in terms of rankings - but we'll see.

    contentboss: If that was the case, then Google would obviously opt for 2). But that is not the case with my sites. Let's take your example - "Wisconsin Rechargeable Dog Bark Collar". That would be one of the long tail keywords that I would just mention 1 time in one of my sites... The site would be about "dog collars" - and I would have articles about "dog bark collars", "cheap dog collars", "rechargeable dog bark collars" etc.. In one of those articles, I could potentially use such a long-tail keyword, but that's it.

    : Many servers/ips. I have a few reseller hosting accounts and each of my sites was hosted on a different IP (at least a different C Class, and in many cases, different B Class too). Also, the sites were not interlinked or anything like that..

    TSG: No. I update them monthly.

    golfpro1: I agree. It is a shock. However, they had to take action to clean up the web. I am just afraid that they deployed an aggressive Panda update without perfecting it first, and many legit sites got hit in their efforts to target spammers.

    simple007: Blogger sites are different. If they don't like a site on blogspot, they just delete it. That's something that they cannot do with self-hosted WP blogs, so instead they penalize them.

    neeshu: Agreed. But a little off topic.

    YMC: I wish it was that "simple". But I have taken the time to customize the default theme and the configuration in order to do all the things that you mentioned. I am obviously using permalinks, and I don't have index by month links or tags. I also use excerpts for category page to prevent duplicate content on-site.

    thsadmin: 90% of those blogs get indexed the minute I hit the submit button, so I doubt that it's an issue of someone getting indexed with my content prior to me. What I don't do is focusing on "trends and what's hot now", but then again, there are millions of sites that don't either, so I doubt that I was penalized for that. Yes, maybe if I had 1 site I would be much better off. But I wouldn't call my sites spam. What if I make a site that's very targeted around a term? Does that automatically make it spam?

    -------------------------------------------------------------------------

    While I cannot link to one of my sites here for obvious reasons (I could PM you a link if you want), I can give you an example of what my average site looks like:

    1) I buy a domain with my main keyword - let's say "dog collars". I then install WP with all-in-one SEO, I configure it (set up ping list, and meta tags), and I start by posting 5 articles around the niche. These are obviously unique and relatively good quality posts, such as "How To Buy A Dog Collar" or "Where To Find Cheap Dog Collars". So, 5 posts around my keyword, using the main keyword and several similar and related keywords - but never excessively. Out of the 500 words of each article, maybe 10 of them will be keywords.

    2) I make some good links to the site - both the homepage and the deeper links. I never make spam-links such as 1000s of article/directory submissions or use spun articles to create Web 2.0s and the sort. I ONLY use unique content.

    3) I make a Facebook fan page, a Twitter profile, and a YouTube channel for each site.

    4) I publish a Press Release announcing some news related to the site.

    5) I update each site with a new article about once per month.

    Now you tell me - is this spam? I don't think it is. But again, let's not go off topic. Let me get more specific here.

    I had a site about a certain type of loan. My site was in the top 5 for over a year, and then got to be 1st for a period of over 6 months before that Panda update in late July. I was the ONLY WP blog in the top 10. After the update, it seems as if the rest of the results on the first page got a +1, and my site went down to 60th. The 9th result is a 10-page CRAPPY html site with 6 pages of content and just a few backlinks. The site's homepage (which is the page that's ranking), has a big Adsense leaderboard for a header, and 2 bulky large Adsense rectangles above its content. That homepage has about 300 words of content, and it's even linking to a different page. That homepage has managed to get to the 3rd place since the update. Why? A bug? Maybe... But how is it that this page which is the DEFINITION of an MFA did not get hit, and even got a boost, while my homepage did?

    I compared this site to mine, and there is no question that mine is better in every conceivable way BUT my site is built on WP.... Think about that for a minute... And yes, I can provide you with both URLs if you want to take a look through PM.
     
    spycraft, Dec 18, 2011 IP
  2. thsadmin

    thsadmin Notable Member

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    #22
    Oh... yeah the "5) I update each site with a new article about once per month." - that's the issue, I didn't think that you could be active on all of the blogs at once. If I don't post for 8 hours - my traffic dies in the ass - drops about 50% within the day. As soon as I post again - boom I get a traffic spike. So I post regularly - about once every 2-3 hours or more... I also have a sub domain for my adult content. It's a blog and I suppose Google expects lots of posts, it keeps the blog relevant and up to date - which is what Panda is all about.
     
    thsadmin, Dec 18, 2011 IP
  3. RamCity

    RamCity Peon

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    #23
    I dont find this issue is with wordpress. You can have duplicate post of any CMS, or even of HTML pages too. Then?
     
    RamCity, Dec 18, 2011 IP
  4. spycraft

    spycraft Member

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    #24
    I don't think that this is the issue thsadmin. While I am sure that posting every 2-3 hours would be great, I am certain that 99.9999% of the blogs out there don't do that. 99.99% of blogs out there don't post once every day even. Many very high quality blogs will just post once a week.. So, I don't think that Google would/should penalize them for that. Furthermore, in my example, we see a "site" with only 15 pages out of which only 5-6 have any real content outranking my site. A site that has not been updated for the past 3 months at least.. and it got a boost. How would you explain that? Does Google expect MORE content only because a site is built through WP? Even if that were true, it would only validate my initial statement - WP is bad for SEO. If I can build an HTML site with 5 article pages and have it rank well, when I need to update a WP blog with new content every 2-3 hours as you suggest to have it rank well, then HTML definitely sounds like the best option, right?
     
    spycraft, Dec 18, 2011 IP
  5. thsadmin

    thsadmin Notable Member

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    #25
    Yes very true on all accounts... I have had great success with HTML based sites... just as you mentioned. The only issue was for me - updating the pages all at once, way back then I had no idea about templates, php, and functions etc, so I had to update all pages individually.

    I don't think that they penalize them, but, with the Panda update a certain percentage of results update in real time, like Justin Bieber for example - because it's an active topic and always new stories in the head lines - I guess with Panda they will kick the older content to the back pages and insert the new posts/pages into the front or first pages of search results.

    I work in the celebrity blogosphere and with celeb's there's constant news - so the Panda effect is probably much greater for me and my competitors. So by me posting regularly I am regularly experiencing these fluctuations in traffic.

    So yeah with a blog - maybe Google likes and encourages regular posts - probably dependent on your niche of course.

    As for sites getting a boost after doing jack shit... it could be because there competitors did less or received less links to their posts or their posts received more of a liking from Google - influences like bounce rate, time spent on page, comments, social interactions.
     
    thsadmin, Dec 18, 2011 IP
  6. seozcl

    seozcl Greenhorn

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    #26
    I will follow it~ wp is better now!
     
    seozcl, Dec 18, 2011 IP
  7. thsadmin

    thsadmin Notable Member

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    #27
    See these idiots and there one liners... shit they sound like the spam on my blogs...

    It must be a blog comment syndrome... they just can't shake it.
     
    thsadmin, Dec 18, 2011 IP
  8. tattoos

    tattoos Prominent Member

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    #28
    Or maybe your memory is lying to you.

    I know that he said don't add nofollow to internal links, but I can't remember him ever saying don't add noindex to pages on your site (I doubt that he would say that).

    Can you link to where he mentioned it?

    Cheers
    James
     
    tattoos, Dec 19, 2011 IP
  9. spycraft

    spycraft Member

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    #29
    thsadmin: I think that the celebrity space is very different because it's based on news.. So, Google would expect to see the latest - and would not rank you as high as other sites that DO provide information almost at a real-time rate. But on sites about products... you can't really expect new content on a daily basis.. So, MAYBE having a blog-type structure is bad... Maybe it's not even just WP... maybe it's blogs in general. As for the spam posts in this thread.... i hate them too!

    tattoos: You are probably right. My memory was probably lying. I am certain that he said to NOT no-follow internal links, but I guess he probably never said don't no-index them... Good point.
     
    spycraft, Dec 19, 2011 IP
  10. smartyjohn

    smartyjohn Peon

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    #30
    Very Good Post. I am agree with the thought that Google penalize a website that indexed at later time. But I am wondering to get some advice about Article Website. When we have a unique article and we publish it on numbers of article websites then how Google Panda deal with those article websites. Will he penalize all website which will be indexed at 2nd or later time? or Panda has different algorithm for article sites.
     
    smartyjohn, Dec 19, 2011 IP
  11. thsadmin

    thsadmin Notable Member

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    #31
    SmartyJohn - that's why article directories are a thing of the past... duplicate content and spam, link farms with one focus and that's to build do-follow links to the authors sites and that is what Google doesn't like, Google doesn't like being manipulated or tricked into giving link juice where it's not warranted. Basically if the sites are identical then the ones following the first may get deleted from the index... you need to make the article sites very different from one another - a common way is to add RSS feeds with very similar topics to the article/each and every article post or page - this keeps things unique and when the feeds update (which they do and should) Google may send a bot to the page and consider that as an update... maybe that's something to consider also spycraft? have you thought of adding feeds to the bottom of your posts to keep them active and relevant with the day?
     
    thsadmin, Dec 19, 2011 IP
  12. weboved@gmail.com

    weboved@gmail.com Peon

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    #32
    i dont think that the problem was with wordpress and in the quantity of the posts per day/month...what about external linking?
     
    weboved@gmail.com, Dec 19, 2011 IP
  13. YMC

    YMC Well-Known Member

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    #33
    This thread has me really thinking.

    I have one site which rarely ever gets updated running on a older version of WP and it seems to have consistent traffic. I have one that I have been trying to get more active on that is over 5 years old and has over 200 posts and yet sees great fluctuations in traffic when I post something new. I am trying to get at least one backlink to each of the new posts and yet overall, the traffic boost has been minimal. It is running only one release behind. I wonder if there is something 'under the hood' with the more recent versions that is leading to some issues.

    BTW, using excerpts also meant using them for your feeds. And simple? I feel like I'm fighting with a 500 pound gorrilla when I try to properly SEO a WP site and make it function like a real CMS and not a blog. Sometimes I wonder if the more we SEO a site, the more G thinks we are trying to manipulate the results and we actually end up shooting ourselves in the foot. The example already mentioned is more fuel for that theory.

    Also, I would strongly recommend looking into the Yoast SEO plugin. It offers a lot. I don't like that he has decided the meta keywords are totally useless and doesn't include them as part of the plugin but with a bit of skills you could probably fix that. I need to and just haven't had the time right now.
     
    YMC, Dec 19, 2011 IP
  14. contentboss

    contentboss Peon

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    #34
    OK, so he's not long tailing it. Must be something else. Perhaps his content is tripping the keyword density filters, or his backlinking strategy has been footprinted.

    As the number of pure wordpress blogs we track is a couple orders of magnitude larger than his, I can say with some authority that I am not, repeat not, seeing any bias against wordpress from google.

    I have, repeat have, seen a gazillion sites of all types clobbered by Panda though, and it's usually the simply badly spun/markov filters that are tripping.

    You fill a site with stuff like "If you wants to avail of cat basket, tries these link to clickbank blah blah blah...' and dont expect any search engine nowadays to rank you for anything. You really can't pass google with that kind of stuff anymore.
     
    contentboss, Dec 19, 2011 IP
  15. Davina

    Davina Peon

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    #35
    very informative sharing. I also using wordpress, and every day many coment spam in my comment area. the link are google, yahoo and facebook. I was using wordpress auto captcha but it's can't block all spamer comment.
     
    Davina, Dec 19, 2011 IP
  16. Envirosurfer

    Envirosurfer Peon

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    #36
    I think a lot of it depends on how much you customized it. Is it still easy for google to crawl? If you are using a very basic theme that is free, chances are that thousands of people are also running it.
     
    Envirosurfer, Dec 19, 2011 IP
  17. kathyclark

    kathyclark Peon

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    #37
    Why would WP or Blogger do that? If you're genuine in your approach and SEO techniques then you'll certainly find a surge in PageRank as well as search engine rankings.
     
    kathyclark, Dec 19, 2011 IP
  18. jhardy2008

    jhardy2008 Peon

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    #38
    Wordpress is good for Google
     
    jhardy2008, Dec 19, 2011 IP
  19. thsadmin

    thsadmin Notable Member

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    #39
    Wow!! such a contribution!! Very informative!! I would love to see the effort that you put into your websites!!
     
    thsadmin, Dec 19, 2011 IP
  20. Envirosurfer

    Envirosurfer Peon

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    #40
    Here is something for everyone to consider why wordpress is NOT bad for your rankings. Google's main purpose is to provide quality results in the rankings. If wordpress was devalued for some odd reason, then users would be missing out on good search results since the majority of websites are made using wordpress. Think about it, Mashable and tons of news sources use Wordpress! Do you think that Google would devalue a page from Mashable just because they are using Wordpress? Don't think so!
     
    Envirosurfer, Dec 20, 2011 IP