Has Bigdaddy dumped me out of Google?
Well, I had a great week away in France and hope to write a little more about this later - however, I have arrived back to a little problem. (Well, its a pretty big problem really!)
My main online shopping site has just been dumped by google. I have gone from having over 100,000 pages indexed to only 300 pages in the course of a couple of months. This happened pretty much in 2 stages, the first drop happening at around the time I changed servers, from a US based to UK based server so I was of the impression that this may have caused the first drop and have been waiting for the site to bounce back in the listings. Unfortunately, having now check after returning from the holiday, it has slumped to an alltime low of 300 pages indexed.
What has happened? Well, I am putting it down to the Bigdaddy updates at google. It appears that most of my product info pages have been dropped. The pages that are indexed, the top category pages are doing better than ever with regards to search result positions so I all is not disastrous. However, I need to get these product info pages back into google somehow, before the secondhalf of the year and definately before xmas.
Reading Matt Cutts article about the Bigdaddy Updates - (theres a lot of reading there!) I am pretty sure its this update that has bombed me out of the listings. Out of the reasons he gives for peoples site having pages dropped, it seems that google now no longer considers my site as being important enough to have the (maybe fourth level) product pages stored in its index. After having read his lengthy article and a fair few of the comments, the only conclusion I can come to is that my site does not have enough backlinks.
I have never really chased back links in the past - the site is listed in the ODP and a few other directories but other than that - I am just not a fan of chasing links for the sake of it. Looks like I might have to change my view now though.
Anyhow, I know that a fair few of you are pretty well up on SEO, so if you get chance to drop by www.heritage-gifts.co.uk then please do and let me know your thoughts.
Also, any suggestions on how to start increasing the number of back links? I know articles are hot at the moment but I dont think they will particularly work with this site (ie, alot of totally different products). I can see how they can work for Peter and his Coffee shop as he is trying to target a far more specific range of keywords. Free directories dont seem to hold a lot of weight any longer by all accounts. An affiliate scheme is not something that I can really offer (due to operating at low margins). Forum posts are supposed to be pretty worthless now, recipricol linking is out.......... Hmm, doesnt seem to leave a lot of avenues open to a humble online storekeeper. I can see how ranking an information site by inbound links may work but I cant see how more inbound links can prove that a shop is worth visiting. If it has the item you need at the right price....... Well, then its worth visiting.
Ahh well, I am off to try and find out more info and dream up a link strategy.
Cheers,
Rich
My main online shopping site has just been dumped by google. I have gone from having over 100,000 pages indexed to only 300 pages in the course of a couple of months. This happened pretty much in 2 stages, the first drop happening at around the time I changed servers, from a US based to UK based server so I was of the impression that this may have caused the first drop and have been waiting for the site to bounce back in the listings. Unfortunately, having now check after returning from the holiday, it has slumped to an alltime low of 300 pages indexed.
What has happened? Well, I am putting it down to the Bigdaddy updates at google. It appears that most of my product info pages have been dropped. The pages that are indexed, the top category pages are doing better than ever with regards to search result positions so I all is not disastrous. However, I need to get these product info pages back into google somehow, before the secondhalf of the year and definately before xmas.
Reading Matt Cutts article about the Bigdaddy Updates - (theres a lot of reading there!) I am pretty sure its this update that has bombed me out of the listings. Out of the reasons he gives for peoples site having pages dropped, it seems that google now no longer considers my site as being important enough to have the (maybe fourth level) product pages stored in its index. After having read his lengthy article and a fair few of the comments, the only conclusion I can come to is that my site does not have enough backlinks.
I have never really chased back links in the past - the site is listed in the ODP and a few other directories but other than that - I am just not a fan of chasing links for the sake of it. Looks like I might have to change my view now though.
Anyhow, I know that a fair few of you are pretty well up on SEO, so if you get chance to drop by www.heritage-gifts.co.uk then please do and let me know your thoughts.
Also, any suggestions on how to start increasing the number of back links? I know articles are hot at the moment but I dont think they will particularly work with this site (ie, alot of totally different products). I can see how they can work for Peter and his Coffee shop as he is trying to target a far more specific range of keywords. Free directories dont seem to hold a lot of weight any longer by all accounts. An affiliate scheme is not something that I can really offer (due to operating at low margins). Forum posts are supposed to be pretty worthless now, recipricol linking is out.......... Hmm, doesnt seem to leave a lot of avenues open to a humble online storekeeper. I can see how ranking an information site by inbound links may work but I cant see how more inbound links can prove that a shop is worth visiting. If it has the item you need at the right price....... Well, then its worth visiting.
Ahh well, I am off to try and find out more info and dream up a link strategy.
Cheers,
Rich
posted by richandzhaoyan | 9:17 AM
9 Comments:
Sorry to hear of your page loss. Google's been so up and down recently, only now after months am I seeing some rankings improve for my own sites. Clients of mine are just off the radar and highly frustrated over it all.
As for your site. The pages will (fingers crossed) start to slowly reappear, it's just a case of patience. However with SEO in mind there are a few points you could improve on.
1. Page titles, whilst unique are not utilising the allowed characters (aim for 75). Also I would add 'Heritage Gifts' to the end of each title for company branding.
2. Header tags. You have one H1 and that's all. Personally I'd use image replacement on your top heritage gifts logo/image, and put Heritage Gifts - Page name in there, use CSS to use the image to overlay it. Then make the description bit right below a H2, the retailers bit. Then alter your h1s to h2s for the content headers, and then anything within that's a header use a h3.
3. If you switch your CSS off, your top menu is a default blue on blue background. This could be perceived as hidden text, so use CSS to make that background blue and have it as white in the html.
4. Also, if you're up for it (sorry not sure of you coding abilities) I would get a doctype into every page, and the get the pages as valid as possible. If nothing else, check for major errors as this could be a stumbling block for spiders too.
5. Wherever you can use a list to convey the information ie. for items that are listed, then do so. This includes definition lists.
That's just what I would do anyhow :)
Hi Rich,
I hope you had a great holiday, well deserved. But to come home to the Google mess I am sure doesn't make you feel to good. I am still not really listed on Google but I know MSN did an update yesterday and for Bean Coffee Shop I have gone from #1 to the bottom of page #13. I am hoping that is not the end of their update.
I don't think you want to do anything too drastic with your store until you are sure this is the final place they are putting your site. I would concentrate on the backlinks. For your "new" site that you are adding I would also make sure there is something/anything up on the URL and create a few quality backlinks to it so that Google can start indexing it and that will make its time in the sandbox shorter when you do have it ready to be launched.
Just thinking about Google, they seem to be adding new features making things more "regional", how are your rankings when you check it on Google UK instead of .com? For "Coffee Shop" on MSN.com I am at the bottom of page #13 now, but on msn.ca I am #1 with more search results on the .ca site. That is still searching the world (not just Canada) but using a regional search engine (if that makes sense).
Thanks for your comments both.
Sarah - Thank you for taking the time to have a decent look at the site and for the points you mentioned. They are very good points that I will try to implement over time (some will be easier than others!) Just briefly:-
1. Yes, I have been looking at the page title for a while and although I thought that maybe adding extra characters might dilute the effect of having the keywords in the title tag, it certainly appears (from competitors results that this is not the case) - Anyhow, this is an easy fix so I will give it a try.
2. H1 tags - Another good point, especially about the logo - definately worth implementing. I did originally (way back) have the idea of using just text for a logo and to be honest, I am not sure why I didnt stick with it.
3. Yikes, well spotted - frightening how easily you could use black hat techinques without any intention - again, I will get this changed.
4. Hmmm - Validation is something that I would love to get in place but fear that I simply cannot afford the time spent sorting out what is a fair old mess - to be honest, I dont think it has affected the SEO rankings of the site up to now - whether or not it is affecting the current problem, who knows. Certainly I would like to sort the site out but this really isnt going to be an easy task. One for the future I think.
5. Yes, again a very good point but one that is going to take a lot longer to implement than the first 3 suggestions - Much as I would like to imlpement it, I fear this suggestion is going to have to wait a while.
Whether or not the above suggestions would sort out the curent problems I really dont know - I think as you said at the start, it may just be a case of waiting a little while and seeing how things settle out. Still, these suggestions should help the pages that are still indexed so thanks again for pointing them out.
Pete, (in a backwords order!)
Yes, the uk results are the same as for the .com results. The pages that are listed are doing well, maybe better than before for alot of them but still, the vast majority of the product pages have just vanished.
I agree that it is probably best not to make any whole sale changes to the site, at least for the time being. Still, I do have to keep a little eye on the clock as I would really like to have as many pages indexed as possible for the xmas sales.
With regards the other site - Its just not quite ready yet..... It is taking a fair bit longer than anticipated to populate the database - about 10,000 products. Still, I am almost there now and with a little finishing off, it should only be 2-3 weeks away. Although the sandbox is a pita, as long as the site is indexed and sales are coming in by the beginning of next year, I will be happy, as I am hoping that by listing hardware, decorating and gardening, it will go some way towards reducing the seasonal business of toys and gifts.
Just as an update to all, I have tried to contact google via their support centre. I got the automatic reply and have now replied to that email, so it will be interesting to see if they can, or are prepared, to shed any light on the subject. (I have my doubts!)
Anyhow, I will let you know how it goes.
Cheers,
Rich
(btw the holiday was superb thanks - I will try to post about it over the weekend.)
There is a contribution for XHTML validated site. Using a compare/merge program I don't think it would take that long, a day or so.
Cheers Pete,
I will look it up. I think the best idea would be to try and make sure the new site validates first. Its not quite such a mess as the original. I reckon I will try see how much work is involved there and then tackle the original site once I have the new one up and running.
The first thing I would do is take sarah's advice regarding the page titles, especially on your product info pages.
Also while browsing your site I noticed that the product descriptions are very short. I could imagine Google not thinking these pages are very important as the info on them is usually only one sentence, which in the grand scheme of your page is not a lot of difference from page to page.
I know it's a pain to update your product descriptions but you may want to do a little testing with any new products you may be adding by giving them longer descriptions and maybe a features list (as per Sarah's 5).
Another thing that seems to work well is to utilize Google Sitemaps. If you're not using them already Chemo made a good one that's easy to keep updated via a cron job.
I also tried validating one of your pages. Other than a couple of unsupported tags (i.e. table height) the code seems fine however I would definetly add the DocType 4.01 transitional (it seems your current one is commented out). I would also add the content-type meta tag as the validator was giving me problems without it. Both these changes shouldn't take very long.
Thanks for taking the time to comment geebandit.
I have just made the change to the Title tags for the product info pages.
I will certainly try the sitemap - the reason I havent bothered up till now is that I have not seen any problems with google spidering the site, in fact it still appears to be spidering all the pages without any problems - its just that after spidering them, it is choosing not to add them to its index. Adding a sitemap will certainly do no harm though so there is nothing to lose. I will take a look into implementing it tomorrow.
With regards to the product descriptions, I guess I will have to start to try and lengthen them - the only problem is that alot of the products simply dont lend themselves to long descriptions. If you are selling high price tag items, ie. computers/laptops/tvs then there is plenty to add to the description and not only is it good for the search engines but also is essential as a means of selling. If however, you are trying to sell a mug for a fiver, there is very little you can do apart from state the volume/size, without waffling inanely :) Still, I will certainly put more effort into future descriptions.
Thanks also for checking the validation - although slightly daunted by the prospect of churning through the code (I seem to remember attempting this but then giving it up as a bad job about a year ago) I will look into it also tomorrow.
Cheers,
Rich
1 word => froogle.
Google are systematically removing e-commerce product pages from the results pages. I suspect this is because of the push towards froogle which is already massive in the US, but has not made much impact on this side of the water.
Yes Gary, dropping product info pages in favour of google listings makes sense and to be honest, froogle really does help me. It does perform exactly the same task as having the product info pages in the main index. The beauty of froogle is that if your product comes up as a match for a google search, you appear right at the top of the main natural listings.
The only thing is, my main online competitors still apprear to have a lot more pages indexed than me - so, I am jealous and obviously concerned that it is going to affect sales - Mind you, the immediate evidence doesnt support this as it has been a very good weekend for sales.
I will continue to make the changes suggested by all above as it cannot do any harm and should help with all the search engines, not just the big G - but I will not be making any drastic changes - I will just keep an eye on the situation and and see how it pans out.
Cheers,
Rich
Post a Comment
<< Home