# Penguin update - What do you think?



## Roof Cleaning (Jun 29, 2011)

Penguin 2.0 or 4 or whatever site you read is calling it seems to be rolling out now.

It is very hard to decipher information on what works or not from many of the various sites so maybe we could start a thread and point out common denominators.

I have lost ranking all over my site so far, but google is dancing. Small drops from 2 to 4 a couple of number one terms to 3..old pages that I have not touched in years up to brand new high ranking pages.

Trying to find where the site is leaking...

I don't think it is too many same anchored text links.

plz share how panda is treating you and how...or any sites/articles you like. This shiot can drive you crazy and suck time like no other.


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## Rbriggs82 (Jul 9, 2012)

I've noticed pretty big jump in rankings. So it's all good in the hood for me.


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## RCP (Apr 18, 2007)

What are you guys using to measure? I have several PR2/3 sites that seem pretty stable, course the update is only a few days old.
Matt Cutts is a pretty good source,
http://youtu.be/xQmQeKU25zg

Seems that quality content geared towards users and building authority without using blackhat SEO is still the best option.


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## Midas (May 9, 2013)

Google analytics is a good 'free' way to check your traffic and rankings. 

Does anyone here use any paid programs for analytics


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## Rbriggs82 (Jul 9, 2012)

RCP said:


> What are you guys using to measure? I have several PR2/3 sites that seem pretty stable, course the update is only a few days old.
> Matt Cutts is a pretty good source,
> http://youtu.be/xQmQeKU25zg
> 
> Seems that quality content geared towards users and building authority without using blackhat SEO is still the best option.


I'm a weirdo and am continually checking where I stand in the cities I'm targeting. Two weeks ago this search would have landed me on the second page for this city, now I'm number one.


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## Sir Mixalot (Sep 8, 2009)

Rbriggs82 said:


> I'm a weirdo and am continually checking where I stand in the cities I'm targeting. Two weeks ago this search would have landed me on the second page for this city, now I'm number one.


How do you check your search results. Private browsing or something else?


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## GrantsPainting (Feb 4, 2013)

I use a rank reporter. Ive seen HUGE jumps lately!!! Both in visits, pageviews
You can search google and then where there is a little man and a world, toggle the switch to turn off the personal results. Found an article that explains it better with other ways too. here 
Really you don't want to use the "in private browsing" because that takes out your location info and most searches don't do that. So your not getting the real results. Try it both ways if you want but I show that only .2 percent of my visitors don't share their geo location.


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## straight_lines (Oct 17, 2007)

Every single search I perform now returns similar results for different keywords. 

Homeadvisor, angies list, yellow pages with maybe one or two actual business listed first page... 

My site is no longer first page for any of my targets. I am sure these lead sellers and angies list are happy..


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## GrantsPainting (Feb 4, 2013)

Midas said:


> Google analytics is a good 'free' way to check your traffic and rankings.
> 
> Does anyone here use any paid programs for analytics


Google webmaster tools and google analytics will pretty much tell you the whole story. WebTools is showing impressions and average placements even if you dont get clicked on, and G.Analytics is showing mainly clicks and actual visitors. You have to get a lot of traffic to need anything more.


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## Roof Cleaning (Jun 29, 2011)

Ok, after a looking at my links and what this update is looking for I believe I may have fixed what hurt my rankings.

Unnatural links is what I think this update specifically targeted. I had made some links inside my blogs html that I think triggered the penguin. These were not links in posts, but links in the template that repeated on many pages.

Problem is now I have to wait for the same penguin bot to do its next crawl...
Who knows when that will be, thank god they were small drops that did not have a large impact.

I believe even if you clean up your link profile and file a disavow link request it still is the same as cleaning the links up manually and waiting for the same bot to come back and bring you candy or kick your arse again????

I'm hesitant to file a disavow request because it is not from a spam site and I can remove the links. I do not want to discredit the blog with google from a disavow??


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## Roof Cleaning (Jun 29, 2011)

I looked at all of my anchored text links from wmt's.
Saw what I think is "unnatural" to penguin, not a anchored link in good content. This case it was a very nicely placed link in the template html. Most of my links were in googles good side. 

Looks like "unnatural" is dynamic meaning if they are over a certain % of your total link profile then bam..penguin slap. My slap was a link scheme even though the blog is stuffed with great content and no spam.

Wondering when that number is considered spam?? Some say 2-3% of your total anchored text link profile is.

I know you need a % from social media,blogs,authors etc... force indexing and gaming the system is still dominating. That means this is just part 1 of the new penguin updates...Hopefully the next update will grab those leads sites like Straight_Lines said. I love it, they are rewarding folks that played by the rules, I hope they get forum spamdexing wheels next slap.

Thinking about changing my forum sigs to be safe....
Even though I do not post a lot..50/50 on the fence.


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## RCP (Apr 18, 2007)

Roof Cleaning, are you using Google Webmaster tools? Glancing at your site I see only 20 pages indexed by Google, no site map and no meta descriptions.


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## Roof Cleaning (Jun 29, 2011)

Rcp,

Yes I'm using googles webmaster tools. This site has only twenty pages, all indexed.

I just have page title and description. Should I ad more? I've been under the impression that meta keywords were not very effective? To allow google to grab out of your content or header.

I do not have a sitemap..I was thinking by not having a sitemap google will crawl all of the site in the navigation. When I update or create a page, I use the 'fetch as google' tool. 

Appreciate the look.. thanks.


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## Sir Mixalot (Sep 8, 2009)

Roof, You might want to take a look at this while your checking stuff.. :thumbsup:

From the big G: 
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=66356




> Link schemes
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## RCP (Apr 18, 2007)

Roof Cleaning said:


> Rcp,
> 
> Yes I'm using googles webmaster tools. This site has only twenty pages, all indexed.
> 
> ...


Good questions. 
On the Meta, I think Darren explains it well here.
On the site maps, I always viewed it as a way to ensure that G crawled every page, I have several sites and always notice a spike after I submit a sitemap. Here is more info.
Paul posted some good info on link schemes. It just goes back to what many of us have been saying all along, write content for the customer, not G!


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## GrantsPainting (Feb 4, 2013)

Roof Cleaning said:


> Rcp,
> 
> Yes I'm using googles webmaster tools. This site has only twenty pages, all indexed.
> 
> ...


The sitemap is a MUST!
I like letting google grab the meta description because then I rank for more keywords that are in my text but its best to start out with them until you can rank for just a few keywords.

You also have formatting inconsistencies all over in phone numbers. subdomains too long by far on your posts. You need more pages. menu below the header is more appealing. Your listing your web address in your sig line which you should be using your company name as the anchor text. Then your preference is set not to use the www, but then thats how your listing it places(big no no) pick one and use it EVERYWHERE the same way.

All that said, you have a PR of 2 which is better than mine. You should have no issues getting them to crawl within 24 to 48 hours. You need to contact them via email asking for review of penality status. There may be a message in your webmaster tools if there is a manual penalty. More likely that you need to develop some better links and are just getting rocked on a bit by those that comply more with the penguin and panda. One of the changes also concentrates on grammar. So if it looks like this post in any way... not good. caps-runon sent.-mispellins-
try searching in google link:yoursite.com and site:yoursite.com


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## Roof Cleaning (Jun 29, 2011)

GrantsPainting,

Thank you for your help.

I have uploaded and submitted a xml sitemap. Also I will add the meta keywords as you and RCP suggested. 

What are the formatting inconsistencies with phone #'s on www.peerlesspressurewashing.com? I'm confused with this?

What subdomians are too long? 

I can't really fit anymore navigation along the top menu, but agree with you. I visited a consultant years ago about the site and he advised me that a vertical navigation listing your pages from most important from top to bottom on the left column of the site is the best spot. Thoughts?

I see my mistake with the sigs and how I had the dubdubdub set up. Duh, thanks for pointing that out I can't believe I did that!!! Checking my other sigs now..

My webmaster tools is clean of a manual penalty so I think I'm going to let the algorithm update the changes. Like you said I KNOW that the sites that jumped over me comply better. I'm pretty sure where I picked up the penalty from some links I had overused in a blog. Once its picked up I think I will recover the 1 spot I lost and go back to the 2 spot on another keyword.

Site is very well written, pretty sure it looks NOTHING like this dribble. Sorry I should post with better grammar. 

Thank you for taking the time to look at my site and help me. I'm going to get the meta's in this week. My site is in dreamweaver and it has a .dwt file for the header and meta's. **** is like a airplane cockpit to me and takes some time for me to navigate my way through but I will get it done.

Tom


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## ReNt A PaInTeR (Dec 28, 2008)

This is going to sound stupid but what is xml sitemap? :blink:

Never heard of that, until now


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## straight_lines (Oct 17, 2007)

And today our site is back ranking as it should. We are back were we were before. 

Do not understand google?


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## ReNt A PaInTeR (Dec 28, 2008)

straight_lines said:


> And today our site is back ranking as it should. We are back were we were before.
> 
> Do not understand google?


That's really good Tommy.Are you one of the first 3?


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## straight_lines (Oct 17, 2007)

Yes for most of our target keywords we rank 2, 4 and 5. There is some that I really want to improve on, but honestly I think we are going to increase our adwords budget over the next year.


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## Sir Mixalot (Sep 8, 2009)

ReNt A PaInTeR said:


> This is going to sound stupid but what is xml sitemap? :blink:
> 
> Never heard of that, until now


Here's some good info-->https://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=183668 :thumbsup:


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## GrantsPainting (Feb 4, 2013)

Roof Cleaning said:


> GrantsPainting,
> 
> Thank you for your help.
> 
> ...


In webmaster tools there is a setting to use the www. or to not in the configuration settings. You have chosen to not use it which there is some discrepancies on which one is better. The only thing that matters is that when you list your url it needs to be the same as you have it set in webmaster tools. Im not completely sure how the setting work and how you get it to change, I just know it has to be consistent. The same is with your phone number. If you use 999-999-999 then use it everywhere. I use the (999) 999-9999 format. So don't have one in one format and then another with periods. 

You might want to consider using wordpress. Its more like working in Microsoft Word. It can be switched over about what you charge to paint times the amount of time it will take you to land that plane. LOL


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## Roof Cleaning (Jun 29, 2011)

Thanks again everyone...

I'm familiar with the www settings in wmt, I will put that on my penguin to do list. It has been so long since I have been through my sites...

I see what you mean about the phone number and how that could goof things up. The header that has the dots between the numbers was made with adobe fireworks, another pita to program to nav through. I don't think google bot can read .jpg type files. So that is going to the bottom of the list.

I have a wordpress site www.roofcleaningtampaflorida.com

On that site I had made some links in the template and even went as far as putting one in a widget behind a logo. I know that goofed me up bad and I have removed them. Also I have about 75 dedicated service area pages that I removed to get rid of over the bad links in the template.

So now everything that links from one of my two blogs to my $ site is from a well written blog post with unique content. My other blog is roof-cleaning-tampa-fl.com a blogger site I put a template over and a new url. Trying to get some painting authority from that site, blogging about paint jobs. Going to link it up with goog+ soon.

Pheeew hurry back to the jobsite with the dryvac to pick up the wallpaper debris. Thanks guys I'm thinking about this **** all day at work.


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## DarrenSlaughter (Jul 16, 2010)

All this means is that we should all thank our lucky stars for any organic love at all...but not depend on it for our businesses. We should still be marketing and advertising and doing all the things we did before there were search engines and treat any organic traffic our sites get as a bonus, not a business.


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## Roof Cleaning (Jun 29, 2011)

- Penguin rolls updates that are quick ( 2weeks or under) meaning you can get traction without waiting forever for the specific algo update.

- Just like I thought, I repaired the unnatural links not in content and in my sig and starting to get back some speed. So it looks for spammy anchored text.

- need more links from different sources.

^
I made the above changes and waited before I did anything else so I know it holds water.

I did add the meta descriptions as suggested, but after the algo update for the backlinks. I wanted to make sure it was those links and not on page seo. Maybe google will tro me a bone for the metas...

The painting page is brand new and I have done pretty much nothing for it. It was on top of page two before the update and now sits on 4. I did see a #1 term for roof cleaning recover and one that was 1 fall to 5 and now is 2/3, those were very link sensitive old pages.


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## RCP (Apr 18, 2007)

Midas said:


> Google analytics is a good 'free' way to check your traffic and rankings.
> 
> Does anyone here use any paid programs for analytics





Sir Mixalot said:


> How do you check your search results. Private browsing or something else?


I asked a SEO guy I trust to write up a piece for BP, one he suggested was Rank Checker Ace. I have been playing with and like it so far.


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## ReNt A PaInTeR (Dec 28, 2008)

RCP said:


> I asked a SEO guy I trust to write up a piece for BP, one he suggested was Rank Checker Ace. I have been playing with and like it so far.


Thanks for that.


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## Roof Cleaning (Jun 29, 2011)

site just got updated yesterday. optimizing more today and going through all of the pages.

Please let me know what you all think and click the sig!

The good the bad and the ugly I can take it.


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