Google Penalty or not?

[hepeck]

Hello,

I have a site which I believe was penalized by Google. I don't have much experience in SEO, mostly I focus on the content. I'm not that sure if the site was penalized or the search index just changed.

My site is 5 years old, we usually received like 2.5k referrals from Google per day, now suddenly the Google traffic dropped to 0.8-1k referrals per day, reducing our income by 70%...

When I search for "domainname", the most popular article which has the most back-links comes first and then the home page.

In four years I've published cca 5,200 news articles (in specific industry), almost each day a couple of articles. Also, we've published a lot of press releases (some weren't edited) so I was wondering if it could be duplicate content penalty since many sites also publish the same press releases. I don't have too much outbound links either, and I didn't sell links.

Also I've also noticed that the sites that use our RSS and generate copied content with title and description rank first in Google results.

The site and the new articles are cached regularly each day a couple of times. The site is custom made php+mysql with nice urls, headings, tags etc. Not, a blog or wordpress or something. GWT says we have like 4,390 links to the site. The site has Google PR 5.

Any ideas what could trigger the penalty? Thanks...

 

[housemusic]

Probably it's not Google penalty. There is no problem inserting natural duplicate content (news from other websites,including resource link) as you are doing like a lot of new websites do the same thing.

Do websites that are copying your content ranking first for the same content? Try to paste the article title to compare. Also have you made any change at the website recently?

Regards

 

[hepeck]

Mostly I didn't link the resources in articles because those were the press releases and their content is free for editorial use. If I posted news from other websites I've linked them, but not that often...

Recently I haven't made any big changes to the site, I've joined some CPM networks, added "nofollow" attribute to links like privacy, about us, contact etc, and small layout changes nothing special, banner positions, left or right alignment of the pics etc.

The site that is copying my content is ranking first for the "title" term of my own unique article.

 

[nodoubtgq79]

What do you mean "There is no problem inserting natural duplicate content"

Please stop giving bad advice to people!!!!

OF COURSE THERE IS A HUGE PROBLEM WITH DUPLICATE CONTENT

What do you think happens when you submit a press release?
It gets submitted to dozens or hundreds of places ........they ALL appear on page 1 of Google...and within days or weeks MOST of them get Filtered out

This is NOT a penalty but a Filter

Putting duplicate content on your page is a really not a smart move

google sees your site as a duplicate and will more than likely filter you out of the index since it doesn't need 2 sites with the same content on page 1
This is what happens with press releases..............

remove or change ALL of the duplicate content on your website..and you should see your site come back again

Probably it's not Google penalty. There is no problem inserting natural duplicate content (news from other websites,including resource link) as you are doing like a lot of new websites do the same thing.

Do websites that are copying your content ranking first for the same content? Try to paste the article title to compare. Also have you made any change at the website recently?

Regards

 

[nodoubtgq79]

this will always happen if their site/page is more authoritative

Mostly I didn't link the resources in articles because those were the press releases and their content is free for editorial use. If I posted news from other websites I've linked them, but not that often...

Recently I haven't made any big changes to the site, I've joined some CPM networks, added "nofollow" attribute to links like privacy, about us, contact etc, and small layout changes nothing special, banner positions, left or right alignment of the pics etc.

The site that is copying my content is ranking first for the "title" term of my own unique article.

 

[raphaelgaga]

I once had a site that dropped suddenly in the serps. One of my buddies discovered that the site had been hacked and someone put some "spam links" on my site that I guess Google did not like. We removed them and after a couple weeks we were back to our original position.

I do not know the specifics because my friend found and fixed it for me. But if you are good at the techie stuff then it's at least worth a look.

 

[seojumper]

Yes, I have seen that happened to many - being hacked and links to viruses or trojans were posted on their websites (hidden).

Google then ussualy setup a warning in SERPS, and later probably delist the sites.

 

[hepeck]

this will always happen if their site/page is more authoritative

that site has PR 0, it's a simple automated rss crawling and copying site...

 

[housemusic]

If your website has authority (like a website running for 5 years) there is no problem inserting natural duplicate content. A lot of news website insert press releases and news from other websites and of course that google try to identify the source to rank as first and will not give you penalty to your original content.

As he said if its something recently and he never had this problem before it may be something that happened different in the last days.

Have you inserted more duplicated than original content in the last month? Or its the same rate as before when you had no problems?

If within sometime it dont come back to normal I recommend you hire someone to check what may be happening...

What do you mean "There is no problem inserting natural duplicate content"

Please stop giving bad advice to people!!!!

OF COURSE THERE IS A HUGE PROBLEM WITH DUPLICATE CONTENT

What do you think happens when you submit a press release?
It gets submitted to dozens or hundreds of places ........they ALL appear on page 1 of Google...and within days or weeks MOST of them get Filtered out

This is NOT a penalty but a Filter

Putting duplicate content on your page is a really not a smart move

google sees your site as a duplicate and will more than likely filter you out of the index since it doesn't need 2 sites with the same content on page 1
This is what happens with press releases..............

remove or change ALL of the duplicate content on your website..and you should see your site come back again

 

[kryseo]

Check if they have a link back to your site, if they do then big g would be
able to tell which article is older hence which site is copying from whom.

I would check the source code for malicious spam links and also check
if there are backlinks from dubious sites.

I once had my site dropped off totally from the index because of dubious
p*or*n sites linking to mine.

that site has PR 0, it's a simple automated rss crawling and copying site...

 

[nodoubtgq79]

the ONLY reason you would do this is for your readers

if you're thinking you will get help for it to rank or more traffic then you're wrong

Google filters out duplicate content so it would be a waste for the search engines

If your website has authority (like a website running for 5 years) there is no problem inserting natural duplicate content. A lot of news website insert press releases and news from other websites and of course that google try to identify the source to rank as first and will not give you penalty to your original content.

As he said if its something recently and he never had this problem before it may be something that happened different in the last days.

Have you inserted more duplicated than original content in the last month? Or its the same rate as before when you had no problems?

If within sometime it dont come back to normal I recommend you hire someone to check what may be happening...

 

[nodoubtgq79]

pr0 means nothing

check the age of the domain

it can also be QDF

that site has PR 0, it's a simple automated rss crawling and copying site...

 

[*zap*]

CPM network

I think is your problem look it up on Wikipedia thats as good as selling links

As for all this duplicate content google is almost all duplicate content and thats a page rank 10 domain

 

[nodoubtgq79]

funny

GOOGLE IS THE SEARCH ENGINE LOL

their search strings are not indexed

CPM network

I think is your problem look it up on Wikipedia thats as good as selling links

As for all this duplicate content google is almost all duplicate content and thats a page rank 10 domain

 

[dynamicvb]

I doubt the duplicate content is a problem on a domain like you describe here. If there is a penalty you should have a message in Webmaster tools.

With that bring said, I've seen a lot of changes in Google lately. They have been changing the way it ranks sites. I've seen some of my positions on an authority site change too. I'm not sure what it is yet, but there does seem to be something going on as I've seen quite a few people complaining about drops.

I'm pretty sure something new is the page speed tests in google webmaster tools. I had some pages that had dropped so I tweaked my site to improve speed and some of them came back. Not all but some so this is probably not all that is affecting things.

 

[nodoubtgq79]

are you saying that everyone gets a message in GWMT if there is a penalty?

i bet if you run a poll in this forum you probably would find a HANDFUL of ppl who received a message in GWMT and been penalized.

Duplicate content is a filter NOT a penalty

Your site gets FILTERED out of the indexed because it is a duplicate

I doubt the duplicate content is a problem on a domain like you describe here. If there is a penalty you should have a message in Webmaster tools.

With that bring said, I've seen a lot of changes in Google lately. They have been changing the way it ranks sites. I've seen some of my positions on an authority site change too. I'm not sure what it is yet, but there does seem to be something going on as I've seen quite a few people complaining about drops.

I'm pretty sure something new is the page speed tests in google webmaster tools. I had some pages that had dropped so I tweaked my site to improve speed and some of them came back. Not all but some so this is probably not all that is affecting things.

 

[20years]

Food for thought.......

Some malware types are using cloaking to run malware popup/installs on CPM sites. This could potentially be a issue, might wana check with google webmaster tools for a error.

 

[victoriavain]

Did you buy a blast? I bought a $300 blast to forums and got a 30 penalty. I wrote Google and said I got a bad seo and fixed the problem.

If it is a penalty... and it is your first one... then you will know in 30 days.

Chances are they devalued abunch of your backlinks that dumped you out.

 

[nodoubtgq79]

when you add links to your website....they sometimes DROP 2-3 pages NATURALLLY

it may take 2 weeks for the page to come back AND will get much higher ranking

too many ppl jump the gun after a few days and they think it's a penalty

it's not...just wait it out and you'll see it work out
i have sometimes waited 1month


but

let's suppose 'your theory' is true
why dont you now blast your competitors to take them out of the way?

Did you buy a blast? I bought a $300 blast to forums and got a 30 penalty. I wrote Google and said I got a bad seo and fixed the problem.

If it is a penalty... and it is your first one... then you will know in 30 days.

Chances are they devalued abunch of your backlinks that dumped you out.

 

[victoriavain]

I could but now I'm back up. Long term I may be better off but that was 30 days of Hell. That site makes a 4 figure income a month alone. I was sweating bullets. It sat at pg 1 / 6 for 3 years then a few days later landed on 4 then 5 then 6th page and sat there for 30 days.... then slowely crawled back up over 15 days.