After Panda-Penguin, Does a 301 still carry the SEO Juice ? [ANSWER INSIDE]

Hey Guys,

Long time since i remain silent SEO wise. Even thought, I had only 2 websites hit by Penguin or Panda. One wiped out from top 1000 (probably Panda related) and the other a major step back in SERPS (probably Penguin).

Both are what we can universally call top class websites with top class content.

Among all the crap i've been reading, ** btw some of you are really worrying as SEO company owner**, some threads / opinion worth to be read :

- Expertpeon's comments to all Penguin Thread
- Abstroose : Social Signal are no joke
- Senuke Official Video
- and a few others wised opinion which aren't based on feelings can't recall accurately sorry :/

And some others stuff you really need to forget :

- Is SEO dead
- Is "X tools" dead
- Shall i sell spells on ebay from now on?

SEO was, is, will be part of the Search Engines FOREVER. Well until the day Google has a few billions employees who would read all the websites.

I wish we could pull up the BH threads back at the time when keywords stuffing was over through a G. update. I can safely say that it was the exact same threads topics. Same went with Panda last year... Everybody panic, but at the end you still can rank a website, don't you ?

The first question i asked my self after after reading about Penguin is :

Test 1 : Is setting a 301 from affected pages to a new duplicate one can fix the damages ?

With this first question, let's remind the events. 3 updates occured in 1 week. 1 Panda before Penguin, and 1 another of Panda after Penguin. That should lead you to wonder, have you been hit by Penguin or Panda or both ?

Workshop deployed : After a few hours after Penguin, i set a 301 on a subpage like the following : my-page.php to mypage.php with the exact same content.

Result : One week later the new page got indexed here is are the results with 2 keywords :

The keywords are in the following form :
=> KW1 = word1 word2 (medium competition)
=> KW2 = word2 word1 (hard competition)

I started to work on them 1 month before Penguin with post on surviving blog networks, web 2.0, social bookmarks, Pyramid Scheme, Wiki links, EDU / gov blog comment, a few forum posts / Profiles, PDF, Spun crap splog... I always had a strong anchors diveristy with around a dozen LSI keywords but prioritized over the main ones.

KW 1
Before Panda Update 1 : 13th
After Panda Update 1 : 14th
Penguin : 39th
After Panda Update 2 : 70th
After 301 : 28th
After Penguin Refresh : 16th


KW 2 (same page)
Before Panda Update 1 : 16th
After Panda Update 1 : 16th
Penguin : 57th
After Panda Update 2 : 57th
After 301 : 57th
After Penguin Refresh : 58th

Link Building Done during all these : Quality Web 2.0 properties + 3 articles on Major Articles Directories + repins + retweet

Conclusion : Interesting results actually. The 301 fixed the Panda update 2 slap right away. And after that it fixes the Penguin slap once it refreshed. Is it related ?

Some Facts which may blurr the case study

1) Anchors diverisity : i had way more backlinks with KW2 than KW1 as anchors
2) Inner Netlinking Anchors : More overoptimized on KW2 than KW1.
3) 1 keyword has been clearly affected by both Penguin and Panda
4) Did the link building performed after the updates helped following a link devaluation ? Or it just had no effect at all ?

Question raised :

1) Does Penguin apply to a whole website or just a KW ? --> I think a KW
2) Does Panda apply to a whole website or just a KW ? ---> i think i've read the website, but case study above tends to show otherwise
2) What about Panda Updates, was it punitive ?
3) Are the backlinks responsible ? ---> I tend to say no, it isn't. I believe it is smarter than just backlinks. I believe it is something in between off site anchors and on site anchors, need to run test on that.
4) Does the 301 still have the old effect which is to carry the Link Juice ? Leads to the next question


Test 2 : Is a 301 from website UNAFFECTED by updates is still carrying the SEO juice ?

Workshop Deployed : A website was wiped out a few days after Penguin, during the Panda update 2. It messed with my mind as i had an EXACT copy of that website with different content but same optimization on site / off site...
One is wiped out from top 1000 and the other has sticked ...
Well, it appears that in my epic life luck i have since i'm born, i received a DMCA complain on the website and Google removed my homepage from the results ... Updates was just a coincidence.

So i have register another EMD from .org to .us, and i have set a 301 from the .org to the .us.

I changed the whole content from HTML to wordpress, write 1k words quickly, add a few images, and videos and quickly index it with whois, social bookmarks, massive pinging services.


Before DMCA : 2nd
After DMCA : homepage deindexed
New Website once indexed : 1000+ (Indexing process took 4 days)
Once 301 taken into consideration : 4th

No backlink has been done to the website but the indexing ones...

Conclusion : 301 still carries the SEO Juice.


Okay, so this isn't rocket science to be honest. Plus, it raised actually more question than i can answer . But i keep digging, and i'll expose others points once i found them.

However, some may learn from it or see things i didn't. Feel free to comment and add your opinion.

@Penguin : You are on your way to get pownd buddy, meanwhile make profit to amazon give them a bigger adwords budget they will need it, we are coming for you, we always do !

The sites i have looked at (1 of my own, the others are not) that have been slapped by penguin appear to have page penalties rather than sites penalties (copy a paragraph of text and google that paragraph and see if your page appears). Given that redirects still work, have you tested where changing the page URL and redirecting the old page to the new will get you out of penguin? I would test this myself but the only site i have that got slapped is a clients site so it's far from a test site!

It seems a less drastic change than buying a new domain and could also be applied to client sites easily

Thanks,verry interesting post mate +4

I have a site where the homepage has some sort of penalty from pre penguin times. When I google a paragraph from the homepage as Rugbyjack2005 says my site's homepage is not in the results. However when I google the homepage URL the homepage DOES come out top. Not sure what this means.

This sites inner pages rank well. However it is the homepage I want to rank.

I do have a very similar domain name which I registered at the same time which is sitting around doing nothing. Please could you tell me what you would suggest I do?

Can I move the content to the new domain then no index the posts and 301 them to the new site? Or just 301 the homepage and make the new site content unique?

Cheers

weBay

The sites i have looked at (1 of my own, the others are not) that have been slapped by penguin appear to have page penalties rather than sites penalties (copy a paragraph of text and google that paragraph and see if your page appears).

Click to expand...

That doesn't demonstrate a penalty toward the whole website . A website penalty appears if all the keywords from all the pages are dropping in results, but it is dued to one page penalty only which has spread over the website.

The test you ran, shows if the content is indexed or not.

Given that redirects still work, have you tested where changing the page URL and redirecting the old page to the new will get you out of penguin?

Click to expand...

Well i just wrote down 18 pages front and back on this . It is written in main post, the conclusion is it depends if you have been hit by Panda or Penguin or both...

When I google a paragraph from the homepage as Rugbyjack2005 says my site's homepage is not in the results

Click to expand...

Try to google a sentence rather than a paragraph.

and if it doesn't appear, type this site:yourwebsite.com and look for the homepage.

Can I move the content to the new domain then no index the posts and 301 them to the new site? Or just 301 the homepage and make the new site content unique?

Click to expand...

Well, i would say you would need to fully indentify the reason of your homepage's drop before jumping on a 301.

Because the case study above didn't proove if a penalized Website that you redirect on a new domain doesn't carry the penalty too. That's something i'm not sure...

And genuinely, the test 2 was about testing this actually. But as it wasn't a penalty but a DMCA it changed my initial test subject :/.

weBay said:

I have a site where the homepage has some sort of penalty from pre penguin times. When I google a paragraph from the homepage as Rugbyjack2005 says my site's homepage is not in the results. However when I google the homepage URL the homepage DOES come out top. Not sure what this means.

Click to expand...

The page isn't deindexed and that why it shows when you type in the specific URL, it just has a demotion penalty on it. It will still appear in the search results, just not at the top where it would normally. It probably even ranks for other keywords as there seems to be a link between particular keywords and demotion penalties (something like the penalty only appears for competitive keywords etc.).

acotut said:

Thanks,verry interesting post mate +4

Click to expand...

Now tell me, aren't you affraid of the SEO war ? ... I'll never drop it, will I ?

It probably even ranks for other keywords as there seems to be a link between particular keywords and demotion penalties (something like the penalty only appears for competitive keywords etc.).

Click to expand...

Tends to agree with that too. No proof yet, but that's another thing i'm eager to be sure of.

Well at least the more competitive a KW is the darker you go according to Google's guidelines. So, what is the line which trigger the penalty when you go wild.

abysse said:

Try to google a sentence rather than a paragraph.

and if it doesn't appear, type this site:yourwebsite.com and look for the homepage.

:/.

Click to expand...

I tried googling a sentence and not on the first 3 pages I checked. When I do the site:mywebsite.com the homepage is top.

abysse said:

That doesn't demonstrate a penalty toward the whole website . A website penalty appears if all the keywords from all the pages are dropping in results, but it is dued to one page penalty only which has spread over the website.

The test you ran, shows if the content is indexed or not.

.

Click to expand...

All the sites i have seen that have been effected by penguin have not only seen a drop in rankings but the page that ranks highest for a particular keyword is now different. E.g. red apples page ranked for a search for red apples pre penguin and now blue apples page appears post penguin for the same search. If penguin was a site wide penalty, all pages would be effected exactly the same and your red apples page would still appear rather than the blue apples page for the same search.

If you search for a particular paragraph on a page, it should show up first in the rankings assuming your page and content is indexed and that you have unique content. It is possible that other pages will out rank you with a sentence but they wouldn't for a paragraph. I said content rather than URL because we are not testing whether it is indexed or not, we are testing whether it has a demotion penalty on it. Checking a URL would not tell us about a penalty. Pages that have been effected by penguin will still appear in the results, just not at the top where they would normally.