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2:46 am
August 27, 2011
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QuoteHi Guys,
Just wondering if anyone else has noticed any downturns in traffic since Penguin's latest update. I have a site that has been plummeting since about April 23rd or so - which is before the official Penguin 2.0 went active...but Google's pretty tricky - so I'm not sure.
I've had double digit percentage decreases (12-16%) week over week since then. My overall traffic is now at least a 1/3rd of what it was.
Didn't really do anything shady with the site, didn't actively backlink but the on-page SEO might be a little aggressive by today's standards. However, the thing that I think might really be hurting me is that I have quite a few affiliate links - which I think I've done a good job of disclosing, but there's probably a good chance that a bunch of them are potentially 'do follow' links. So I'm going to look at that in a minute or two.
Aside from that, some more fresh content couldn't hurt - it's been pretty neglected and I've done the bare minimum to keep it going. So I can't say as I'm surprised that it's taking a beating. The content is good and original - but I don't have a ton of social signals and the content could be added much more frequently and there's not really any "wow" content there.
So, I think when you put it all together I think that's why my site is down. Anyone else experiencing issues or am I the only lucky one?
I have sen zero effect on any of my money sites. If anything I see a small bump, though that could just be a coincidence. I haven't looked over all of my smaller sites though. I think the first round of Penguin did whatever it was going to do to me.
What main keyword were you ranking for and what percentage of your backlinks were made up of that keyword?
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3:29 am
August 27, 2011
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Hey John,
That's just the thing - I wasn't targeting any keywords actively via backlinks. 99% of my approach was on-page SEO and that worked good enough in this particular niche. I did do some basic articles pointing to my site years ago - but it was never automated and it was only 2-4 articles and I think the anchors were different and pointed to deep pages.
Well, that could actually be the problem then. In order to hold a ranking you almost always need some backlinks. It may be that the change in their algorithm actually just effected you for the reverse of how it effected most people... Not enough backlinks. The good news is that not enough backlinks is easy to fix. It could also be something weird like domain relevance taking on more importance or something. If you weren't targeting a keyword and exact match domains just become even more important, whatever you were inadvertently ranking for might have just become less relevant in the eyes of Google. Really hard to guess when you don't have a target keyword or any SEO history though.
Having trouble with your marketing? Wish you could have an experienced direct-to-fan marketing expert look over your actual campaigns, music, or content and offer feedback? Or perhaps you’re just looking for a little one-on-one assistance so you can ask questions that pertain to your specific goals and get a second, more experienced, perspective? Click here to book a session with me now.
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