48 replies to this topic

[xyZed]

Hello. My site has been up in the top 3 - 5 (commonly number 1) for well over 5 years for the term, washing machine. But now I've noticed since October 5th my home page www.washerhelp.co.uk appears to have been completely removed from Google. It no longer ranks for washing machine and as far as I can see it ranks for nothing at all any more.

I've never done any SEO other than common sense headers, clean xhtml and good, original, quality content. As far as I know I haven't done anything wrong but I'm very concerned about it.

The strange thing is most of my other pages seem to have held their positions. The only thing I could think of is maybe I had the word washing machine too many times but it's been like that since the beginning. I'd really appreciate it if someone could suggest a possible reason for this disaster.

The only thing I've changed trying to "fix" this is that I've removed several instances of the words washing and machine, and made some duplicate links nofollow as I had all the main navigation sections listed twice, once in the tabs and once where I've listed each section.

Many thanks

Edited by xyZed, 03 December 2012 - 10:29 AM.

[DonnaFontenot]

Google's Penguin update happened on October 5th, so you may want to look at the backlinks you have going to the site (low quality?), the anchor text used on those backlinks (is it overoptimized?) and your internal links anchor text. Here is a list of the google algo updates: http://www.problogge...your-community/

[xyZed]

Hello Donna, thanks for your reply. The only backlinks I have are from my sister site www.whitegoodshelp.co.uk which should be high quality and all very relevant and a few now from my Washerhelp facebook page linking to a few articles. I have links to Washerhelp from Wikipedia, Which? The guardian, Telegraph and many other high quality sites all of which were totally unsolicited. Apart from that thousands of people on forums and various ask sites have linked in to me. I'm completely baffled by this. I've never exchanged links with any one either.

The only thing I can think of is maybe I have the word washing machine too much in my links but I always have, and google has loved me for over 10 years. Also, I have just the same thing on all my other pages but it seems to be only the main home page dropped.

For example, I'm still number 1 for - washing machine problems and this page is full of the phrase, washing machines
http://www.washerhel...leshooting.html

[xyZed]

My whitegoodshelp Blog ranks higher than Washerhelp now for some things so it hopefully shouldn't be considered a poor link source. In fact I'm also very concerned because Washerhelp has always been very prominent on Google for all its articles - but recently I wrote a new article on Washerhelp, then I put a small paragraph on my whitegoodshelp.co.uk blog and my forum announcing the article but they both rank higher than the actual article itself.

For some reason the article http://www.washerhel...leshooting.html is on page 2 at number 18 but my forum is linking to the article is number 1 and the blog article is number 7 It makes no sense for a small paragraph announcing a new article to rank so much higher than the actual article.

[DonnaFontenot]

First you said, "The only backlinks I have are from my sister site www.whitegoodshelp.co.uk which should be high quality and all very relevant and a few now from my Washerhelp facebook page linking to a few articles.

Then you said, "Apart from that thousands of people on forums and various ask sites have linked in to me."

Those thousands of forums and ask backlinks may very well be the culprit.

Frankly, it doesn't matter that Google has loved something for ten years. What matters is that now it doesn't love it. There may be other reasons for the issue, but if it were my site, I would be looking at the one thing you know for sure. On the same day that you dropped, Google released another Penguin update. Look for Penguin problems rather than trying to find other possibilities. Or...at least, that's what I would do.

[glyn]

i wrote this alraedy but got lost in migration so it will be shorter!

add site to webmaster tools and file a reconsideration request and make a point of asking about any manual action. Be proactive.
analyze backlink profile or your competitors and find link on domains with trust rank above 50% or raise higher in case of too many
get links on sites with amazing authority and no i don't just mean a bunch of .edu links either.
Don't use software.

I saw a site on a near match get out of Google from a position 2 held for 10 years, and now it is coming back slowly.

Some domains however will never come back to where they were because the keyword they were ranking for now has too much commercial benefit for other paying advertisers and the overall Admanager.


G.

[chuckfinley]

Hi xyZed,

It would be hard to tell which page you wanted google to rank for "washing machine" because you have used it excessively on every page and in the anchor of internal links going to every page on the site.

If you want the Homepage to rank for "washing machine", I wouldn't use "washing machine" in the anchor of links to other pages.

I believe this is the classic case of keyword stuffing. Also, this site is the poster child for Penguin.

I would remove the word "washing machine" from all those links on the homepage and most of the links on every other page. Link to the home page, once, from your most important pages (based on PageRank and traffic to that page) using the anchor text "washing machine". Start small, you can always add more -- you don't have anything to lose, you're not in the top 100 for "washing machine".

More is less in the Penguin world.

Rather than using "washing machine" so much, use related keywords (see Wordtracker) but pick ones that are relevant to that page.

If a page is ranking number one for it's keyword, leave it alone except to remove "washing machine".

See my checklist and Donna's post here, they apply to you --> http://www.cre8asite...showtopic=90694

Go through the Wordtracker University materials and do that.

No one can tell you the exact numbers to use. You'll learn through trial and error. I'm sure you should use "washing machine" much less, though.

[xyZed]

Thank you all for your comments so far, it's given me something to go on. I don't understand why Google would ever want to penalise my site because it's nothing but pure unique content. I'm not sure what Chuck meant by "this site is a poster child for penguin". Do you mean it's a perfect example of the kind of site that Google has affected with penguin or the kind of site google was aiming for? There's a big difference.

The sad thing is I've never tried any tricks, all I've ever done is design my site for my users. I hate the thought of having to try and second guess Google all the time, all I want to do is write good content and put clear links to exactly what the content is about up.

Having said that I do accept I could probably remove many instances of the washing machine words from my links but if I have links that are about washing machines most of them have the word washing machine in them and it's totally natural to me. Links like "using" seem unhelpfully short, but "using washing machine" feels right to me.

The puzzlement I find is that the advice given here is without doubt well informed but at the same time apparently contradicted by the fact that only my home page is affected. The following page is number 1 and has 51 of the words all over them
http://www.washerhel...leshooting.html

This page is number 3 for - washing machine reviews - http://www.washerhel...ne-reviews.html and has 59 instances of "washing machine"

This page is number 1 for - washing machine smells - and has 108 instances of "washing machine"
http://www.washerhel...air-help_4.html

My home page, which has completely disappeared from Google only has 31 (although I did remove about 7 or 8 the other day).

So whilst I would hate to come across as questioning the "too many mentions of the word washing machine theory", and I can see I could get rid of many of them (and will), how can we explain my other pages being unaffected when they have far more?

___

Edited to add

I'm finding upon checking that most of my pages that rank high for washing machine related queries are "stuffed" with the words washing machine - I won't list many more but this one is number 5 for - washing machine leaking - http://www.washerhel...air-help_4.html and has 108 instances. However, the number 1 slot only has 2 instances!

My page actually answers 3 separate questions, only one of them about leaking - so is it number 5 because it mentions "washing machine" too many times or because the page is long and only part of it is relevant?

I hasten to add that this is not a poor quality site trying to get higher rankings with keywords, I just happen to have unintentionally over done how many times I use the words of the topic I'm writing about. My dilemma is, does it make sense to remove lots of words from pages that are ranking very high? And what has caused my homepage, which has possibly the fewest of these words to disappear from Google?

Edited by xyZed, 04 December 2012 - 08:34 AM.

[DonnaFontenot]

You keep focusing on everything except the one thing that Penguin targets most > low quality backlinks. While Penguin also deals with onsite links and anchor text, the main issues usually deal with low quality backlinks. Until you deal with those (removing them), you'll just keep dancing around the problem, imo.

[chuckfinley]

Thank you all for your comments so far, it's given me something to go on. I don't understand why Google would ever want to penalise my site because it's nothing but pure unique content. I'm not sure what Chuck meant by "this site is a poster child for penguin". Do you mean it's a perfect example of the kind of site that Google has affected with penguin or the kind of site google was aiming for? There's a big difference.

Hi xyZed,

I mean your site is the exact thing that google is penalizing.

My dilemma is, does it make sense to remove lots of words from pages that are ranking very high? And what has caused my homepage, which has possibly the fewest of these words to disappear from Google?

Yes, but even though those pages rank well, the internal links back to the Homepage might not be helping you rank for "washing machine" because there are too many.

You might do this in steps.

As Donna points out, the links from your sister site might be the problem or there may be other low quality links.
For example, that Wikipedia page isn't trusted per Wikipedia and probably has 100 followed links to your site with irrelevant anchor text, looks like spam to me. majesticseo.com can help you with link analysis.

If that doesn't work, you might look at keyword stuffing. It appears that you have been penalized only for the key phrase "washing machine". If you get to this point, I agree with you that removing "washing machine" from poorly ranking pages first would make sense.

I would go through all Wordtracker University's materials or some other site to get the basics of SEO. I bring up Wordtracker because it's a good tool and their system is simple and their materials are easy to understand. They will help you with related keywords, synonyms and the like.

Understanding why google does this isn't important -- it has to do with their business model. Whether we understand why or not, they're doing it.

My gut feeling is -- Keyword Stuffing. I think you've been filtered out for overuse of "washing machine". A link penalty, -50, etc., would normally affect the whole site. It's only an educated guess, though. It's up to you to find out without taking the rest of your site down.

Edited by chuckfinley, 04 December 2012 - 11:27 PM.

[xyZed]

Many thanks for your replies again, it's very much appreciated that people take the time to try and help.

I don't fully understand Donna's point about low quality backlinks. Everything I've read about SEO has usually said Google will never penalise a site for backlinks because that would give people the power to bring down a competitor. I understand they will for link farms and links clearly designed for trying to trick Google, but I've never solicited any links from anyone, and have never accepted a reciprocal link request or a paid link request. Apart from over 10 years ago when I first started and exchanged several carefully chosen links, the links into me are out of my control apart from the ones on my sister site. However, the sister site (whitegoodshelp.co.uk) has always been a genuine stand-alone site where I can expand my advice to other white goods and not just washing machines. It also even beats Washerhelp for some terms so it can't be low quality. Am I misunderstanding the term low quality? I'm taking it as from poor web sites or even dodgy sites.

There are thousands of links to me from scraper sites, forums where people advise others to come to my site, or post replies to questions from my site and link to me, then there are many links from places like ask.com and fixit.com where people ask questions about washing machines and people constantly search google, find the answer on Washerhelp and then post the answer (mostly as their own - but occasionally with a link back to me). Plus I have back-links from many newspaper and magazine articles and consumer sites. Surely I can't be affected by links I have no control over?

The only link from an external site I can think of is where I have a banner add to my home page here http://www.findmyrecycler.co.uk/
I offered to host this site for free because I met the siteowner and he seems a genuine committed environmental "warrier" passionate about helping the environment. Could the fact that this site is hosted on my server be relevant? Could he be doing something dodgy and causing an issue? This banner has been up since late July.


I hope you don't think I'm just a stubborn person but I still don't get how I could be penalised for overuse of the words "washing machine" on the home page when internal pages I have with 108 uses are number 1. The home page only uses the phrase 34 times yet internal pages use it loads more times especially the category pages which link to all relevant content.

The links in from my sister site can be seen here - there are just 5 articles under "Washerhelp articles" http://www.whitegood...lp-articles/ - but only one of them links to the Washerhelp home page.

I have a washing machines category here - http://www.whitegood...shing-machines/ which has 7 pages of articles many with links to Washerhelp but virtually every one of them is a specific link direct to related articles, and not to the home page. All in all this equates to 40 articles since 2007 when the blog was created, which can't possibly be spammy. (I do have sitewide links to "book washing machine repair" but that page is number 3 for - book washing machine repair so presumably that's OK?)

I have tons of internal links but my site is designed for users, constantly giving them links to other related or interesting articles. Are Google saying I should design for search engines instead of my users? If I have a site exclusively about washing machines how can I not mention the word washing machine constantly, on every page? I can definitely see that I can reduce the occurrences, especially on my troubleshooting page which has links to "washing machine leaking", and "washing machine overheating", which are bad for users because it makes finding the fault they are researching harder, but at the same time this page is number 1 in google so it's potentially risky changing things.

Is it possible that I have had points deducted so to speak for using the phrase too much, but I've had such good points from other aspects that it's not affected me too much until now?

Finally, I haven't received any notifications from Google webmaster about anything except one internal page which has "had a significant drop in visits" about 3 months back - but bizarrely that page still ranks number 2 for its topic.

Edited by xyZed, 05 December 2012 - 07:06 AM.

[cre8pc]

I took a look around to see if any usability issues would show up. While there are some UX concerns, the only one that I find for your homepage that could freak out engines is the huge number of repeated phrases you're targeting. For humans and anyone using assistive software to read and use your site, the content would become frustrating from the repetition.

Google looks for sites that humans use and recommend. This is why usability and social marketing have become the other arms for online marketing.

A business can pay for rank or optimize for natural results. The optimization for humans is still overlooked by site owners (but something I've been teaching and writing about for a dozen years now.)

Your site is a hobby site (based on the design and content). Many of these types of sites are more popular than brand sites but to do that you have to get a fan base, and to do that, get social. Slap a top quality image of a product on your homepage and surround it with content about why your site is the number one choice on your topic. Add a Pinterest icon so people can pin it and bring others to it.

Fix up the navigation....I got totally lost within seconds. Address your visitors instead of constantly saying "I" and "me". They want to know what you have for them them and how it benefits them.

Funnel traffic by developing your brand via social marketing. IF your competition is doing this, they are ranking because of it.

[DonnaFontenot]

Everything I've read about SEO has usually said Google will never penalise a site for backlinks because that would give people the power to bring down a competitor.

Then you haven't read anything about Penguin. Time to start reading current material. I don't have any other advice I can give. What you do with the advice is completely up to you.

[chuckfinley]

I don't fully understand Donna's point about low quality backlinks.

Links -- http://support.googl...en&answer=66356

Keyword stuffing -- http://support.googl...en&answer=66358

Remember, google sends out a bot that is implemented by code -- there is no subjectivity or guarantee of fairness. google doesn't see you as their customer and they aren't willing to support you to help you rank your site as a result. There are thousands of sites that get penalized. The complaints light up the forums after every penalty algorithm update. It doesn't seem to be fair for a lot of different reasons, but nevertheless, google never adds customer service technicians to help website owners resolve these kinds of issues. We suspect they don't care.

I think you can answer your questions by asking yourself a few questions --

"How can google tell the difference between the spammer and the scraped?"

"google is still enforcing the Quality Guidelines and penalizing sites with Panda & Penguin, I wonder if they ever get it wrong?"

"I wonder if google ever says one thing and then does another?"

The only link from an external site I can think of is where I have a banner add to my home page http://support.google.com/webmasters

That Wikipedia site with all those links using anchor text that aren't even related to washing machines isn't helping you. Also, that Wikipedia states it isn't trusted is not good -- there are things you can do to change that.

For your links in general -- look closely at the Quality Guidelines with an open mind and the idea that the bot doesn't know you and may think your site looks like one or more of those violations.

I hope you don't think I'm just a stubborn person but I still don't get how I could be penalised for overuse of the words "washing machine" on the home page when internal pages I have with 108 uses are number 1. The home page only uses the phrase 34 times yet internal pages use it loads more times especially the category pages which link to all relevant content.

Those other pages don't rank for "washing machine" or "washing machines" and your domain isn't in the first 100 search results for either of those terms. Hmmmmmm....I wonder if there is a causal relationship?

It's really this simple, your site uses the phrase "washing machines" alot. No one talks like that.

Your pages remind me of the cigar example in the Keyword Stuffing Quality Guidelines above.

The anchor text of links coming to this page can affect this.

Also, look for keyword stuffing in the source code -- alt text, dummy css styles, comments, etc.

If I have a site exclusively about washing machines how can I not mention the word washing machine constantly, on every page?

There are lots of ways.

As Kim alludes to above, an image can go a long ways. Talking about things related to washing machines that are of interest to the user without beating them over the head with it is possible.

Imagine what would happen if you were talking to someone about washing machines and you started every sentence with the words "washing machines" because the topic you're discussing is about "washing machines" -- get it?

In sales, we talk about things that will make people want to buy our product. We don't start every sentence with "you should buy a washing machine."

Or another way to look at it. If this were a book you were trying to sell, do you think anyone would buy it?

Another idea -- on this page --> http://shopping.wash...pliances-prices -- you list categories of items. For example,

Home Appliances

Cookers

Dishwashers

Extractor Fans

Freezers

Fridge-freezers

Hobs

Why didn't you list them as? --

Home Appliances - Cookers

Home Appliances - Dishwashers

Home Appliances - Extractor Fans

Home Appliances - Freezers

Home Appliances - Fridge-freezers

Home Appliances - Hobs

It's possible that your homepage will rank with 2 or 3 uses of "washing machine" and 5 to 8 uses of related keywords (see Wordtracker.com for explanation) and 4 or 5 internal links with "washing machine" or related keywords as anchor text, or less -- it depends on competition and how well your site has established itself as being relevant and the authority on the subject.

You may want to consider buying Tim Ash's book -- Landing Page Optimization or Steve Krug's book -- Don't Make Me Think. You may be able to get ideas there.

For now, I think Wordtracker has the basic information you need to deal with this. Please get their ebook, it will answer most of your questions about how to use keywords. Also, they have a good, short video on keyword selection that covers frequency of use.

Is it possible that I have had points deducted so to speak for using the phrase too much, but I've had such good points from other aspects that it's not affected me too much until now?

Based on your accounting of the situation, here's what we know --

• Your penalty happened on the exact day google ran the last Penguin update
  
• Penguin is largely about links and keyword stuffing
  
• I have never heard of a Penguin case where only one or two keywords were affected. Normally there is a fairly devastating loss of traffic from many keywords
  
• I have never heard of a case where one or two keywords were all that were affected by a link penalty, they are normally sitewide penalties
  
• I have often heard of cases where a specific keyword was filtered out for over use.
  
• Overuse of anchor text in links with an intent to influence rankings violates google Quality Guidelines for both links and keyword stuffing

That's what we know and, as usual in the real world, there are some inconsistencies. On the other hand, without actually reviewing your site, I can't say we have all of the information that is relevant.

Based on the above, what do you think the cause may be? We know google thinks something is wrong or you would be ranking for both "washing machine" and "washing machines" today. Clearly there is some kind of penalty at play.

Finally, I haven't received any notifications from google webmaster about anything except one internal page which has "had a significant drop in visits" about 3 months back - but bizarrely that page still ranks number 2 for its topic.

It seems unusual that you wouldn't have noticed a drop in traffic. "Washing machine" gets 5 million global searches per month, broad match. "Washing machines" gets 2.24 million. ???

google doesn't always notify you that you have been penalized. Often webmasters only know it because traffic drops substantially.

As Glyn pointed out, you could resolve this by filing a request for reconsideration and hope that google responds with what they think the problem is. Think about that carefully, though, as I have recently read of cases where the webmaster then got a manual audit and google further penalized the site -- quite dramatically. Oftentimes with google, it's better to let sleeping dogs lie.

Note: That google is not capitalized anywhere in this comment is not an error. I do that out of dis-respect for google.

Edited by chuckfinley, 06 December 2012 - 05:03 PM.

[xyZed]

Many thanks for the replies again, especially Chuck who;s written at length and sympathises with my feeling of unfairness. It's great to see people taking so much time to discuss this. I'm hoping some will at least be finding it intriguing and more of a puzzle though I know some think it's perfectly simple and they may prove to be right. I'm a very logical person, and get very frustrated when things don't appear to be logical as it messes with my mind I understand google does some very illogical things but once logic is not involved I go a bit mental .

The consensus of opinion seems to be that I'm being penalised for either or both of keyword stuffing or link schemes. I fully intend to address all the concerns raised, which make sense, but I still can't fathom why the only page affected as far as I can see has one of the least amount of the offending words, and others with 5 times the amount of keywords rank number 1.

Regarding the links scheme page, the only possible thing I've done on that list is have links to a couple of internal pages in my signature in my own forums, which must appear hundreds of times on the repair advice forums. These links are to direct people asking diy repair questions to an article on diy repair safety, and to a page advertising repair companies if they feel they need professional help. Neither of these sig links are no follow but they both rank high. My DIY safety link is number 1 for - diy safey and - washing machine diy safety. So if this is "wrong" why is it ranking so high? I also have sitewide links to my forum at both the top and footer of every page on Washerhelp to the forum, and it's number 1 for - washing machine forum. So again, if google doesn't like that why is it ranking so high?

Having said that, historically any forum I've joined has had a link to my homepage on the sig. Maybe that's come back to bite me but how dare google say I can't advertise my own web site in my interactions with people on the web. That's ridiculous to count as spam.

Finally, according to google analytics's Washerhelp ranks for 33987 terms in google and checking just the first 500 shows around 98% of them have the term "washing machine" in them and link to pages full of the words. So my mind is in a haze trying to understand how I could be being penalised for overuse of the words when only the home page which hardly has any has dropped.

The crazy thing I'm starting to think now is that some months ago I removed loads of internal links from the home page to simplify it and it must have previously had at least 80 - 100 mentions of the words so I'm wondering if it doesn't have enough any more?

The wikipedia site Chuck mentions is also a puzzle (I'm not easily puzzled honest) because it has nothing to do with me. My site has been used as a reference on an encyclopedia site about washing machines with 95 references to "washing machine". If that's bad what chance do we have? I also thought all links on wikipedia were nofollow?



Chuck: The page --> http://shopping.wash...pliances-prices is a white label site provided by Pricerunner so I have no control over it though I did get them to put nofollow in all the headers.

I have the Don't Make Me Think book. I haven't read it for some years though.

I have never heard of a Penguin case where only one or two keywords were affected. Normally there is a fairly devastating loss of traffic from many keywords

• I have never heard of a case where one or two keywords were all that were affected by a link penalty, they are normally sitewide penalties
  
• I have often heard of cases where a specific keyword was filtered out for over use.
  
• Overuse of anchor text in links with an intent to influence rankings violates google Quality Guidelines for both links and keyword stuffing

Exactly, that's why it makes no sense to me for the reasons I mention above. The only thing that makes any sense is the crazy notion that I don;t have enough mentions on my home page any more

It seems unusual that you wouldn't have noticed a drop in traffic. "Washing machine" gets 5 million global searches per month, broad match. "Washing machines" gets 2.24 million. ???

I'm terrible for looking at stats. I can go for 6 months without looking at any stats. I hate it because I find it boring, I'm not great with figures and stats but am very creative so tend to do what I'm best at. I've been running the site for about 12 years and have studied in short bursts a lot about SEO but I was always taught by my early influences to just write good content for my users and have never tried a single "trick" other than using the keywords in headers, titles and body in what I always thought was pretty natural and google thought that too for the last 10 years - and still does for every page except the home page for some reason.

Edited by xyZed, 06 December 2012 - 07:07 AM.

[xyZed]

Then you said, "Apart from that thousands of people on forums and various ask sites have linked in to me."

Those thousands of forums and ask backlinks may very well be the culprit.

Is it really possible that google would penalise a site because it's so popular and useful that thousands of people talk about it and link to it on forums?

[DonnaFontenot]

Yes, it's really possible, especially if Google believes those links are either from very low quality sites or have been placed there in a manipulative manner - or if there aren't enough other types of links besides forums links to round out the link profile.

[earlpearl]

I'm sure there is a lot of good advice here, but I tend to follow Donna's advice, especially if she repeated it several times.

[chuckfinley]

Wordtracker University.

Keywords -- If I want the Homepage to rank for a keyword and I put it on every page on my site, all of the pages will be competing with the Homepage for that keyword and the end result may be that none of the pages rank for that keyword. I agree that the way to solve this is not simple and takes a lot of creativity. It Can Be Done. --> http://www.seobook.c...es/002367.shtml

Mulitiple Causes -- It is very probable that there isn't just one cause.

Wikipedia Links -- The footer links are no-followed. The links in the body are all followed and use unrelated anchor text. It seems unusual that anyone would create so many links and attach them to random words in the content unless they were trying to manipulate the search engines, possibly to hurt a competitor. BTW, negative SEO works.

Link Schemes Intended to Manipulate Search Results -- That's google's blanket Quality Guideline, it applies to everything. It is very subjective and google can and will apply it to any situation they feel like applying it to.

This Doesn't Make Sense -- I agree that it doesn't seem to make sense to website owners in an awful lot of cases. Maybe you're looking at it through the wrong prism. If you looked at it through the prism of google's business model it would make a lot more sense, at least as to why they would do it. Also, the internet is huge and their ability to control it is not very good and really is not possible given today's technology. There are a lot of unintended consequences.

Edited by chuckfinley, 06 December 2012 - 05:45 PM.

[chuckfinley]

Read that SEOBook article I gave you, then read the following.

I searched for text from your homepage in quotes and got no search results --> "Washerhelp is created and run by me (Andy Trigg), an engineer with over 30 years experience."

I searched for text from an interior page in quotes and that page was returned.