Penguin: Anyone else feel like givng up?

[staceyb80]

My ecommerce site was hit in April by Penguin. After the refresh in May, I noticed my site moved up in the SERP's but still sits far too low at around page 49 for its main keyword (it was on the last page in Google when first hit in April, so it has came up a bit but is still well buried in the SERPs).

Google seem to be taking their time with the next Penguin update.... the last one was almost 10 weeks ago.

Is there anyone else in my situation who also doesn't know what to do next? I'm not sure whether to wait it out or to call it a day. What's frustrating is the website was really starting to pick up (traffic and sales) right before Penguin slapped it.

 

[souldetective]

we are on the same boat man. i was hit too. i was using blackhat soft...but now i am just buying services from BHW. nothing else

 

[seoguy81]

Giving up because of some stupid company's algo changes is silly. My sites were hit too. But I managed to quickly revive an old domain of mine and built it up learning from the mistakes made pre-penguin and implementing them on the affected sites as well. There are small signs on improvements on the Penguin hit sites.

There is no guarantee that what I do today will be able to sail through future algorithm changes, but its part of the game.

When you're down, pick yourself up, look at the mistakes made and keep going at it. Everything goes in cycles and so will this.

And remember, every time your site moves one position closer, its a victory in itself.

 

[staceyb80]

I think the reason my site was hit is due to lack of anchor text diversity, but I'm sure my anchor text is diverse enough now. Still sitting on that 49th page though. Do you think we need to wait on a refresh to see any improvement, or do you think we are able to improve any time without a penguin refresh? I'm thinking that the refresh needs to be done to see improvement - the next penguin update is taking it's time though.

 

[alaltaierii]

Never give up.
What type of backlinks have you created after penguin ?

 

[staceyb80]

seoguy81: Thanks for the advice, my problem is though that if this goes on for much longer, I won't be able to continue due to financial reasons. Unfortunately I might have no option soon.

 

[staceyb80]

Thanks alaltaierii, I've been doing mostly guest posting and social bookmarking, making sure I vary my anchor text with the majority of the anchors being natural.

 

[seoguy81]

@staceyb80

From my Penguin experience, I noticed that as sites start growing bigger and bigger we tend to lose focus and end up trying to do everything possible to keep or gain the rankings.

Since Penguin, the biggest lesson learnt is NOT TO AUTOMATE. I have SB/BMD/TBS, that's collecting dust. I still use them occasionally, but more as a research than anything else.

I accidentally discovered one of my other sites that was sitting idle, which has now taken on the lead role in bringing home the butter. I know there are situations where it is hard to flip a switch and move to another site, but I think perseverance pays.

Relying solely on organic search would be a mistake and something we should all tone down on. Spending 1 or 2 hours on niche forums, niche sites that accept articles and so on can do a great deal to offset the damages from these algo changes.

Post Penguin, my focus has also shifted more to social media, FB, G+, Twitter. Spending a few minutes conversing with others on twitter, especial authority profiles can go a long way to build trust for your site/brand and also to gain followers.

And most importantly, don't build backlinks that you aren't proud to show off to the world.

 

[staceyb80]

seoguy81, thanks, great advice again. I've not been using any software, and definitely won't be in the future. I've made my backlink profile look more natural and been doing guest posting and social bookmarking - hopefully the site will see big improvements very soon.

I know that no-one knows for sure, but do you feel that penguin will be a regular refresh, or it will only be done a few times a year? I noticed Google takes a while to update the backlinks showing in webmaster tools, so maybe they will update this info before another penguin refresh.

 

[redrubies]

If you have an ecommerce store, you can't rely just on the serps for sales. I've had a jewelry store for over ten years. If I relied just on google, my kids and I would have starved. When you have an online store, you are competing with the big guys. They dominate the serps. Google shows preference to big companies. It's very hard, and not much different from the little neighborhood store competing with chain stores. Chain stores thrive while the small business owner closes up shop. Buy ads, put up fliers, do direct mail, do as much offline marketing as you do online marketing, do press releases, offer coupons, and get creative.

 

[seoguy81]

Here's something you might want to read up in regards to the next Penguin update

http://www.seroundtable.com/google-penguin-refresh-wait-15497.html

 

[staceyb80]

redrubies: Unfortunately my online store was started at a time I wasn't in a good financial position, but I'll see what I can do in regards to placing ads etc on related sites. Thanks for the advice.

seoguy81: Thanks for the link, I hadn't checked the seroundtable blog for a few days, going to read it now.

 

[redrubies]

redrubies: Unfortunately my online store was started at a time I wasn't in a good financial position, but I'll see what I can do in regards to placing ads etc on related sites. Thanks for the advice.
.

That's okay! There are a lot of things you do for free or for pennies on the dollar. Go to the dollar store and find some paper that is of a good stock. It's there every now and then when they buy close outs. You can get photoshop for free at demonoid and make up really nice fliers to put up in your area. You can also use the paper to send out direct mail. To save on buying mailing lists, make your own. You can also make your own private network by buying domains for a dollar or two. There are always coupons on bhw for domains. Put some blogs in your network too. If you need proxies, find them in the proxy list thread on bhw. Feature your store on your private network. Also find threads that have coupons for adwords or bing ads. I don't do adwords because I'm boycotting, but I've seen coupons on bhw. Use addmefast for followers, twitter, etc. When you look popular, real people will follow you. When you get some money, buy some fiverr gigs. Use pr.com for press releases. The free version has always gotten me in google news. Have a contest and save all the email addresses for your newsletter. Find every free thing you can until you make enough money to buy ads and such.

 

[raticals75]

Hi stacey,
Since the penguin a lot of people have shifted more than 50% of there traffic sources to social media and forums. They take more time however the conversion rates are a lot higher because people feel more connected and could relate to you more. Personally I get less than 25% of my traffic from search engines. Also email marketing could be a great alternative.
No matter what I would recommend you don't quit! Role with the punches and there will always be loop holes or a new method for us here on BHW.
Good luck.

 

[staceyb80]

redrubies, Thanks for all of the ideas. I've had some fliers printed, but wasn't sure what the best thing to do with them is. My ecommerce store is in the baby market, so maybe I would be best handing some fliers in to local clinics and and community centres which hold classes for new mums. I'm not sure what you mean by setting up my own private network and needing proxies? That's something I've never looked at so not quite sure what you meant. As for fiverr, what sort of gigs do you purchase? I know that we need to be careful with what gigs to choose. I've read that free press release sites aren't as effective now and that we should use paid versions. That's good if you are still seeing results with free versions though. Do any of you other members on here have any opinions on this?

 

[staceyb80]

raticals75: I'm in the baby market and unfortunately the forums in this market don't allow any 'selling'. This means I can't refer to my website on the forum because it is a site where I can make profit. I can't think how to get around that.

 

[brownlove2013]

This info might have saved me a lot of time.

 

[staceyb80]

Have you been hit by penguin too?

 

[team74]

Don't give up!

Here's the pattern, you should know this by now: Google makes a change, google makes another change, Google makes another change.... and so on.

You gotta roll with the punches. Get a new domain, port all your content over to it, 301 all the old pages to the new ones so you don't get dupe penalties.

If the penalty transfers, then new domain, port the content, and start from the beginning. If your site made money once, it will do again. Granted, this is tough with ecommerce where you have a brand, but exisitng customers will be sent via the 301 anyway.

 

[Scritty]

Automation is absolutely key after Penguin

Bad automation is the very worst thing you can do.

Don't want to sound smug, but all but one of my sites has absolutely thrived after the Penguin update, and I automate EVERYTHING
I just do it in a way that is almost the exact opposite of the crappy ways I see here and that probably 90% of SEO guys use

When you buy a service..don't kid yourself that it's not automation..9 out of 10 of then ARE AUTOMATING even if they say they aren't. The good ones are just doing it properly.

AA lists, crappy content, poor acceleration metrics, no deep linking, no platform diversity. That's so 2011

Good contnet on high PR high traffic websites across a large range of platforms with good diversity on terms of content and anchor text.

Works a charm. And no way could I do that without automation.
If you've uysed automation on your sites and they've failed..

THAT'S YOU, NOT THE TOOLS!
A BAD WORKMAN BLAMES ......