I have no time to post more interesting posts recently, but this one worth it! This question has been received on our free “Ask SEO Expert” service.
Question: My site had a Google penalty for duplicate content. Maybe also for bad linking but not sure is this. A weber send me a email to told me I would write a spam-report to google. He had a lot of fun to kill my business. It’s only 4 days from now that it happen but I already clean up all my site as he got only unique content now and no more link back except 4 links of directories that worth it and which I’m in. I have a statements that said these directory accept our site and this prove our legitimate. I’m still first for my site name and my pages are still index. But my traffic drop 75% in a matter of seconds. I want to get back. I did not sent any re-inclusion yet cause I think it’s better show them I’ve been penalise for a little while at least.
Jeff
I have asked Jeff if he can provide me with more details about the recent 12 months SEO “love fair”.
This was his answer:
My domain is an old one. I bought it in April 2003 but it was the property of someone else since 1998. For over 3 years now I did use a technique of duplicate content. Every page got a root word and are duplicate in 30 to 90 page with the same content but the title and the H1 and H2 are different each time. All these page are linked each other from the bottom with a list of text link containing the title of each page and the link are {hidden}.. and not only relative to document. So it give some back link.
Sin 2 month from now I start to promote my site in many destroys which ask for a link back. I then build up a page with many partners links. I removed those one and I kept only the one which worth something for (4 o them I had over 100 before), and I put a text saying that these directory accept our site darns they evaluate it so it prove how good he his.
Everything was going well and I had more and more traffic. Then a mad webmaster send me an email saying Yahoo!! I will send a spam report about your site for duplicate content hahaha! I found his IP address and I ban it from all my site and email.
It was the first time in many years that I put a email on my site to let people contact me. And I remove it now because of this. 2 days after, it happens. My traffic drop on the floor. Nothing from Google was coming anymore. I then delete every duplicate page and bunch of link which where all together. I build only unique content. I remove my back link as I said and theses directory will probably put you mine in a little while.
Since that day, I write unique content to fill back all my page in order of the most traffic they where bringing me in the pas. I also have a not-found 404 page. My pages are still in the index so favor, even duplicate ones. But my backlink are not there anymore. Only a few ones left. Which are my own site but on other servers with different IP’s.
My site still come up first when I type hes URL. But my traffique is lost.
I saw on the web that this kind of penalty could last 30 days for the first offence if you make the good changes but you don’t need to ask for a re-inclusion. Do you think it’s true and I should wait a month before ask? The fatal day where God throw my away is last July 12.
They only good new I got since then it’s my page views by visitors jump from 1,9 to 3,9 and the time pass from 1:30 min. to 3:17 min. and the rebound rate fall from 60% to 37%.
Please help me!
Jeff
This is my answer:
Jeff, Apparently every possible mistake has been done 😉
Quickly looking at your site (and sending my own bot) I found:
- Five dead links out of 66 pages found. Google site: shows 232 pages indexed – Bad ratio…
- Many of the index pages are inside Google hell “Supplemental Result” – Read more about it at https://www.search3w.com/selected-news/google-new-algorithms-and-search-engines-changes/
- No Robots.txt found to solve described problem.
- Wrong 404 redirect has been used.
- ..and so on..
Jeff’s final email
Hi,
I’m replying you back to tell you that my penalty been release this morning. But your advices been good for me so I want to tell you some info of my experience so you can add info on your site. Or play with it to make more money by knowing but not necessarly saying it.
Everywhere they said that there is a kind of 30 day penalty for first offense. For me it last 1 week, 7 days flush. My traffic went down on july 12 in the middle of the day and came back this morning july 18.
Since I saw the traffic goes down and because the guy who sent a report spam told it to me 2 days before, I was ready to act and I did it right away. Since that day I start deleting all my copy pages and replace them by unique content one after the other stating in order of the modt traffik generator page. Ful day working non stop I upload and took off my link partner page. Kept only 4 of them wich had real valu ans replace a text wich was sayong write me to exchange link by These sites are directory wich accept our site, so it proove how good he is.
I did not write a re-inclusion letter to google. Nothing, I stay calm and gave no sound to them by any way. I did not stop uploading like a crazy, I was really motivated.
Then this morning, In my analytics stats, Google was already at 250 visitors at 7 o’clock am. Every day during last week I received only 6 visitors from google. I remark also that the coming back off google was gradual. Yesterday I receive 33 visitors, the day before 12 and every day before that including july 13 I receive 5 or 6 visitors. So since two days I start to double and then today its back to normal.
So I hope it will help you knowing more about it and knowing that if you act pretty quick it can last as low as 7 days. I’ll contact you back if I made a mistake and if my traffik stop during the day. If no news from me, it means everthing is fine.
Thanks again for your support.
I have another wich had the panealty the same day and I did send a re-inclusion for this one and he is still penalize.
Jeff
