Do you think I got deranked by Google?

Hey guys

As you see from the pic, the site is still growing and traffic was already low before the google update. From this chart pattern can we tell whether or no the site got any problems?

- Site is still indexed on Google
- I don't see any Manual penalties in GSC
- I was averaging 4-8 clicks and now it is 0-1
- The only thing i noticed is loss of rankings
- it is an ecommerce website. where I list real products. However, I used AI for products description ( around 50 words per product). I don't see any bad thing in using AI for product description as apposed to blog content. Do you think it is it better to leave product description empty or use small AI description that is unique for each description?
- I am using OFF-PAGE SEO plan that includes variety of links (bookmarks, forum posting, profile links, blog posts ... etc)


What you think? should I move to new domain? or since i have not been deindexed then i still have hope?

It looks like it is hut by an update.

hard to say, but if I were to guess I would say you were... But it's also a possibility that you've being wrongly affected by the update and you might regain the rankings after the update finishes (it's still going by the way). I'd not stress too much about it just yet...

loveseeker78 said:

Do you think it is it better to leave product description empty or use small AI description that is unique for each description?

Click to expand...

it's definitely better to use unique descriptions, and I also don't think it's good to never use descriptions

And speaking of uniqueness, you might have used the same (or similar) descriptions on 2+ products (which could also be similar to each other) and this confuses google and de-ranks both of your pages. I actually think that this is what's happened to your site, not that you've been penalized by google.

Change the descriptions that are too similar, for the products that are also too similar with themselves, and then re-submit the sitemap (or wait for google to recrawl the modified pages) and if you don't get your rankings back in 1 week then something's wrong (you've been either wrongly affected by the update, or penalized by the algo)

loveseeker78 said:

- I am using OFF-PAGE SEO plan that includes variety of links (bookmarks, forum posting, profile links, blog posts ... etc)

Click to expand...

never heard of "blog posts" backlinks, what are these? Guest posts or what??

The other backlinks are pretty useless, I doubt that you'll see any rankings because of them (although, I did see forum links doing miracles in the health industry, but those were pretty good forum links and if you manage to get similar ones you might actually rank).... but yeah, in general, these are pretty useless backlinks, especially for keywords with commercial intent, I'd not waste time with them besides diversifying the link profile and diluting the risky anchors...

loveseeker78 said:

should I move to new domain?

Click to expand...

lol what? NO WAY! Dude, you just started the site few months ago, and you're still indexed, don't rush and do stupid things! Wait for the update to finish, and fix the cannibalization issues first and if you don't see any results after these 2 things you can reconsider your options (although I'd still not move to a different domain). Your current domain and site are still in good standings with google... at least if you're still getting impressions and clicks, if you're getting neither then you can drop the domain, but like I said, it's too early.

loveseeker78 said:

or since i have not been deindexed then i still have hope?

Click to expand...

there's always hope if you're still in google's index, that's why I think it would be wise not to give up on the site just yet...

Thanks

tazarbm said:

hard to say, but if I were to guess I would say you were... But it's also a possibility that you've being wrongly affected by the update and you might regain the rankings after the update finishes (it's still going by the way). I'd not stress too much about it just yet...


it's definitely better to use unique descriptions, and I also don't think it's good to never use descriptions

And speaking of uniqueness, you might have been used the same (or similar) descriptions on 2+ products (which could also be similar to each other) and this confuses google and de-ranks both of your pages. I actually think that this is what's happened to your site, not that you've been penalized by google.

Change the descriptions that are too similar, for the products that are also too similar with themselves, and then re-submit the sitemap (or wait for google to recrawl the modified pages) and if you don't get your rankings back in 1 week then something's wrong (you've been either wrongly affected by the update, or penalized by the algo)


never heard of "blog posts" backlinks, what are these? Guest posts or what??

The other backlinks are pretty useless, I doubt that you'll see any rankings because of them (although, I did see forum links doing miracles in the health industry, but those were pretty good forum links and if you manage to get similar ones you might actually rank).... but yeah, in general, these are pretty useless backlinks, especially for keywords with commercial intent, I'd not waste time with them besides diversifying the link profile and diluting the risky anchors...


lol what? NO WAY! Dude, you just started the site few months ago, and you're still indexed, don't rush and do stupid things! Wait for the update to finish, and fix the cannibalization issues first and if you don't see any results after these 2 things you can reconsider your options (although I'd still not move to a different domain). Your current domain and site are still in good standings with google... at least if you're still getting impressions and clicks, if you're getting neither then you can drop the domain, but like I said, it's too early.


there's always hope if you're still in google's index, that's why I think it would be wise not to give up on the site just yet...

Click to expand...

for

tazarbm said:

hard to say, but if I were to guess I would say you were... But it's also a possibility that you've being wrongly affected by the update and you might regain the rankings after the update finishes (it's still going by the way). I'd not stress too much about it just yet...


it's definitely better to use unique descriptions, and I also don't think it's good to never use descriptions

And speaking of uniqueness, you might have been used the same (or similar) descriptions on 2+ products (which could also be similar to each other) and this confuses google and de-ranks both of your pages. I actually think that this is what's happened to your site, not that you've been penalized by google.

Change the descriptions that are too similar, for the products that are also too similar with themselves, and then re-submit the sitemap (or wait for google to recrawl the modified pages) and if you don't get your rankings back in 1 week then something's wrong (you've been either wrongly affected by the update, or penalized by the algo)


never heard of "blog posts" backlinks, what are these? Guest posts or what??

The other backlinks are pretty useless, I doubt that you'll see any rankings because of them (although, I did see forum links doing miracles in the health industry, but those were pretty good forum links and if you manage to get similar ones you might actually rank).... but yeah, in general, these are pretty useless backlinks, especially for keywords with commercial intent, I'd not waste time with them besides diversifying the link profile and diluting the risky anchors...


lol what? NO WAY! Dude, you just started the site few months ago, and you're still indexed, don't rush and do stupid things! Wait for the update to finish, and fix the cannibalization issues first and if you don't see any results after these 2 things you can reconsider your options (although I'd still not move to a different domain). Your current domain and site are still in good standings with google... at least if you're still getting impressions and clicks, if you're getting neither then you can drop the domain, but like I said, it's too early.


there's always hope if you're still in google's index, that's why I think it would be wise not to give up on the site just yet...

Click to expand...

Thank you dude! Your answer enlightened me

50 words is a bit thin.

lewwy789 said:

50 words is a bit thin.

Click to expand...

yep! When I worked as SEO for an ecom company exactly 10 years ago most of our products had at least 300 words of text, and that's for the basic stuff (wires, cables, pipes, etc). The more complex products (the electronics especially) never had under 600 words of text in their description, and that's on top of features, pricing and deals, technical specifications, etc... we easily got over 1000 words of text for each product (and it was my job to come up with these walls of text, I hated every minute of it LOL)...

Anyway, try to have at least 150-200 words of text for each product OP (or, if that's not possible, at least for the bigger / better / more expensive / more complex products), 50 words is indeed too little...

It looks like the March update hit your site. Keep working on it. Add some more fresh and useful content on the product pages. It should recover soon.

tazarbm said:

yep! When I worked as SEO for an ecom company exactly 10 years ago most of our products had at least 300 words of text, and that's for the basic stuff (wires, cables, pipes, etc). The more complex products (the electronics especially) never had under 600 words of text in their description, and that's on top of features, pricing and deals, technical specifications, etc... we easily got over 1000 words of text for each product (and it was my job to come up with these walls of text, I hated every minute of it LOL)...

Anyway, try to have at least 150-200 words of text for each product OP (or, if that's not possible, at least for the bigger / better / more expensive / more complex products), 50 words is indeed too little...

Click to expand...

The problem is this. Site has 5000+ pages. We sell Practice questions (mock exams). and for each product we should use the same exact keywords: Practice questions for A, practice questions for B, practice questions for c..... ETC. Given the large number of products, I would need maybe years to come up with product descriptions that are HUMAN, unique, and 500+ words at the same time.


That is my dilemma:
1) 100% Human content -- not feasible, takes time, and very expensive
2) AI content, i risk getting penalized ( even though AI can generate good product descriptions)

loveseeker78 said:

The problem is this. Site has 5000+ pages. We sell Practice questions (mock exams). and for each product we should use the same exact keywords: Practice questions for A, practice questions for B, practice questions for c..... ETC. Given the large number of products, I would need maybe years to come up with product descriptions that are HUMAN, unique, and 500+ words at the same time.


That is my dilemma:
1) 100% Human content -- not feasible, takes time, and very expensive
2) AI content, i risk getting penalized ( even though AI can generate good product descriptions)

Click to expand...

yeah, 5k pages is a lot

But this is where site structure comes in so big, instead of having 5000 pages targeting 1 long tail keyword you could group the closely related keywords into clusters of 10-20 of them, and create 1 single page for each one of these clusters and optimize it for each keyword by putting it under its own H2 or H3 sub-heading.

This way you will have 10-20x less pages to worry about and they'll be more topically relevant too (because they group all similar keywords under the same closely related topic) which should (in theory at least) improve the overall topicality of your site, which will gradually improve the rankings, too... And since you're grouping 20 keywords together you will struggle less in coming up with unique things to write, too since you only have to write 50-100 words for each keyword instead of the usual 500+. It's a win-win

tazarbm said:

yep! When I worked as SEO for an ecom company exactly 10 years ago most of our products had at least 300 words of text, and that's for the basic stuff (wires, cables, pipes, etc). The more complex products (the electronics especially) never had under 600 words of text in their description, and that's on top of features, pricing and deals, technical specifications, etc... we easily got over 1000 words of text for each product (and it was my job to come up with these walls of text, I hated every minute of it LOL)...

Anyway, try to have at least 150-200 words of text for each product OP (or, if that's not possible, at least for the bigger / better / more expensive / more complex products), 50 words is indeed too little...

Click to expand...

Yeah I can't think of any product that could be described properly with 50 words, even plain white paper would be going on 300-400 words, like you say anything with any technical data is going to push that right up.

loveseeker78 said:

The problem is this. Site has 5000+ pages. We sell Practice questions (mock exams). and for each product we should use the same exact keywords: Practice questions for A, practice questions for B, practice questions for c..... ETC. Given the large number of products, I would need maybe years to come up with product descriptions that are HUMAN, unique, and 500+ words at the same time.


That is my dilemma:
1) 100% Human content -- not feasible, takes time, and very expensive
2) AI content, i risk getting penalized ( even though AI can generate good product descriptions)

Click to expand...

I understand the dilemma, maybe a few solid AI prompts would help or start small and work manually on small groups like tarazbm suggested, if they pick up you are laughing.

loveseeker78 said:

Hey guys

As you see from the pic, the site is still growing and traffic was already low before the google update. From this chart pattern can we tell whether or no the site got any problems?

- Site is still indexed on Google
- I don't see any Manual penalties in GSC
- I was averaging 4-8 clicks and now it is 0-1
- The only thing i noticed is loss of rankings
- it is an ecommerce website. where I list real products. However, I used AI for products description ( around 50 words per product). I don't see any bad thing in using AI for product description as apposed to blog content. Do you think it is it better to leave product description empty or use small AI description that is unique for each description?
- I am using OFF-PAGE SEO plan that includes variety of links (bookmarks, forum posting, profile links, blog posts ... etc)


What you think? should I move to new domain? or since i have not been deindexed then i still have hope?

Click to expand...

I thin your content is AI copy past improving you content

tazarbm said:

yeah, 5k pages is a lot

But this is where site structure comes in so big, instead of having 5000 pages targeting 1 long tail keyword you could group the closely related keywords into clusters of 10-20 of them, and create 1 single page for each one of these clusters and optimize it for each keyword by putting it under its own H2 or H3 sub-heading.

This way you will have 10-20x less pages to worry about and they'll be more topically relevant too (because they group all similar keywords under the same closely related topic) which should (in theory at least) improve the overall topicality of your site, which will gradually improve the rankings, too... And since you're grouping 20 keywords together you will struggle less in coming up with unique things to write, too since you only have to write 50-100 words for each keyword instead of the usual 500+. It's a win-win

Click to expand...

It is brilliant idea really I am going to apply your approach. Do you have in mind any site that is applying the idea? I just need to have some ideas about how to design it

loveseeker78 said:

It is brilliant idea really I am going to apply your approach. Do you have in mind any site that is applying the idea? I just need to have some ideas about how to design it

Click to expand...

no sites, I know from experience that topical clustering works. Find a tool online that automatically groups all of your keywords under the same cluster and you can create and label each page with the title of that cluster and then add each one of the [however many keywords you have in cluster] as a sub-heading. If you can add unique images for each sub-heading it might also help, but you can ignore using so many images if there's not enough uniqueness to be had, or if you feel like there are too many images...

There are clustering tools online, but I don't remember their names but they exist for sure, just google 'em

loveseeker78 said:

It is brilliant idea really I am going to apply your approach. Do you have in mind any site that is applying the idea? I just need to have some ideas about how to design it

Click to expand...

Yeah, definitely don't change the domain. A lot of people got hit by the latest google update. Having those 5+ product descriptions written manually doesn't seem feasible, but giving AI generated ones a human touch as much as possible would be beneficial.

the traffic is too low to conclude anything,
you should double check the number of current & previous keywords and their positions,
you should also give it some more time, seo ain't an overnight game for most cases, it takes at least a couple of months+

Don't rush to a new domain just yet. AI-generated descriptions aren't inherently bad, but they gotta bring value. If it's just filler, Google's recent updates might not be giving you the love. Diversify that off-page strategy beyond the basics;

Hi I can help you with your seo. Were an agency with 15 years experience. You can consult first your requirements for free and talk about your targets.

Tg: stepmas

This might be an algorithmic penalty.

The good news is that this is easier to fix than a manual penalty.

Whatever the case may be, stop focusing on off-page SEO.

The quality of your links as well as their composition may have a way of working against you.

Instead of focusing solely on AI for product descriptions, look at user click patterns in your statistics to tell you which descriptions you need to manually fix.

Focus on the end user's experience.

Are the descriptions robotic?

Are they repetitive?

Are they shallow?

These are the symptoms of AI-generated content.

Now, I'm not pointing any fingers here.

It's too late for that.

Instead, do the work.

That's the best advice I can give you

I know a lot of people use AI to get around doing the work but you got penalized in some form or other.

Now do the work.

Then, use your stats to figure out which items need work done first and then rework your whole site.

Remember, you get out what you put in.

This is a job.

This is a business and if you want to get rewarded, you have to put in the right amount of work.

The good news is, unlike a job where if you don't work, you don't get paid, you only have to put in high-quality work once and it will pay off many times into the future.

It's definitely worth the investment of your time and effort.