Google Penguin and How My Website was Hit

[Teri Green]

To be straight forward about it am new on websites and wordpress. What I did at first was just researched, read, and followed some "How To's" available online. didn't know much about Google Algorithm and stuff until I noticed traffic from my website was dropping at the start of this year and this where I found out about Panda, after a few months it was Penguin, and it hit me again.

And since I was or my website was badly hit with these two algorithm I could no longer rely that much on the videos, tutorials, tips and guides on how to here on the web. Where would I go then to have a decent and reliable information and the right steps on how to edit or modify my website's contents then to pass these two Google algorithm stuff, not to mention the future updates of Google.

[snakeair]

Let me get straight to the question.

Was and is all the content on your blog original unique content?

We might need the URL to take a look at it and be able to give you some tips.

[Teri Green]

At least that's what I thought that all contents were original, if they're not then I couldn't also trust the writers where I ordered them to be written I have about 300 plus pages in there

From an average of 300 visitors per day into 5, its disastrous really

[Teri Green]

Here is the url [removed]

[HTMLBasicTutor]

Originally Posted by Teri Green

Here is the url [removed]

Note from Moderator:
I removed your url because AVG had a hissy fit. According to AVG you have malware on your site. This could be a reason for the lack of traffic.

Did you check Google Webmaster Tools (if you have it) for any messages that Google found malware on your site?

Here is the report from AVG.

[jeffsmith]

There is a very simple rule to save yourself from penguin update, you just need to follow the google webmaster guidelines.

[DatingExpert]

The best way to keep your sites safe from Google updates are to use white hat seo.

[snakeair]

Originally Posted by jeffsmith

There is a very simple rule to save yourself from penguin update, you just need to follow the google webmaster guidelines.

Originally Posted by DatingExpert

The best way to keep your sites safe from Google updates are to use white hat seo.

HTML brought up a very good point. The thread creators site might be infected and if this is 100% true then this is why the traffic is low and decreasing. Let's wait till we hear back from the OP before posting other information.

[Teri Green]

Sir (Moderator),

If I may, when your avg detected the malware on my website, was it when you clicked on the URL? and was it from the landing page of my website, I just needed a bit of help here on what particular page it is, I'm only using the free version of avg here.

I would like to thank you in advance for giving me assistance here and to those guys/girls who posted some comments about it. A newbie here so any help is very much appreciated

Thanks!

teri

[HTMLBasicTutor]

It was the link you provided.

[williamsam]

it's sad Teri but i think you might have used one of that techniques to reach top on SERPs that Google considers as a black het seo and it might cause your blog to hit vary badly.
Matt cutts said that the only way to recover your sites hit by these updates is BUY FRESH DOMAIN AND BUILD UNIQUE CONTENT IN IT

[HTMLBasicTutor]

Originally Posted by williamsam

Matt cutts said that the only way to recover your sites hit by these updates is BUY FRESH DOMAIN AND BUILD UNIQUE CONTENT IN IT

Where exactly did Mr. Cutts say that? Please provide the original spot where he said that (not someone else's interpretation) so we can all read it for ourselves.

[Teri Green]

Yes I agree with that, can you please provide us the link on where Matt Cutts said that and does that mean my website is useless now? All of my contents are unique, 300 plus pages of them. Google or no Google I'd still keep on updating my website, ranking or not it will continue on giving services to whomever interested to read it I guess and will continue on updating my subscribers on its newsletter. Right now I really don't know what I did wrong with it, if I don't know what's wrong with it then I wouldn't know what or how to fix it.

Its not even offering or selling any products, its just plain contents of information. Bought a domain, uploaded contents and images, newsletter subscriptions (free), some Google Ads, and now just adding more articles to it (scheduled).

I will be needing more ideas here, I guess buying a new domain and transferring some contents is my last option, because If I'd do this now and then Google decides some more updates to its algorithm, there's no assurance that my new domain or site will not be affected again.

Sorry guys, but if you have more info on this you are very much welcome, something I can do slowly but more effective. Thanks for all your post/comments!

[Brave7]

Originally Posted by williamsam

Matt cutts said that the only way to recover your sites hit by these updates is BUY FRESH DOMAIN AND BUILD UNIQUE CONTENT IN IT

I read this too, it is unbelievable sad to hear from Cutts. It shows how Google cares for webmasters.

[HTMLBasicTutor]

Originally Posted by Natural Elements

I read this too, it is unbelievable sad to hear from Cutts. It shows how Google cares for webmasters.

Well, one of you two provide a source where he actually said that without the author's interpretation so we all can read it for ourselves in context.

[stephengfm]

Originally Posted by HTMLBasicTutor

Well, one of you two provide a source where he actually said that without the author's interpretation so we all can read it for ourselves in context.

Google Search does not have it quoted.

[jjmcd82]

It comes from an interview he did with Search Engine Land:

Waiting On Penguin To Update Again
If you do clean things up, how will you know? Ideally, you’ll see your traffic from Google recover, the next time Penguin is updated.

That leads to another important point. Penguin, like Panda, is a filter that gets refreshed from time-to-time. Penguin is not constantly running but rather is used to tag things as spam above-and-beyond Google’s regular spam filtering on a periodic basis.

Is Penguin a site-wide penalty like Panda or page-specific? Cutts wouldn’t say. But given that Panda has site-wide impacts, I think it’s a fair assumption that Penguin works the same.

What that means is that if some of your site is deemed Penguin-like, all of it may suffer. Again, recovery means cleaning up the spam. If you’ve cleaned and still don’t recover, ultimately, you might need to start all over with a fresh site, Cutts said.

Two Weeks In, Google Talks Penguin Update, Ways To Recover & Negative SEO

[HTMLBasicTutor]

Ok so let's look at this (which Danny Sullivan wrote and is not a direct quote of what Matt said).

What that means is that if some of your site is deemed Penguin-like, all of it may suffer. Again, recovery means cleaning up the spam. If you’ve cleaned and still don’t recover, ultimately, you might need to start all over with a fresh site, Cutts said.

Notice I highlighted might. This does not say you must.

It also says if you have cleaned up your spammy techniques and have not recovered.

[jjmcd82]

Originally Posted by HTMLBasicTutor

It also says if you have cleaned up your spammy techniques and have not recovered.

True, there might be ways to clean up, but it is hard to know before the refresh comes out.

But one doesn't have to solicit or participate in spammy activities to get hit. I never paid anyone or asked for the 1000s of bad links that I'm assuming have hurt my traffic. There's also no way for me to contact webmasters running Chinese & Russian spam-farms to politely ask for link removal. There's no manual reconsideration since Penguin isn't a manual penalty.

The spammers who hit me are still ranking for the porn and pill phrases they were targeting. It is just the medium-sized domains they used as intermediaries that got nuked, and we "might" just have to start over from scratch because we got caught up in someone else's spam. It seems like it would be easier for me to make my own link farm and point it at all the competitors who jumped ahead of me since April 24.

(I'm a little bitter if you can't tell, sorry )

[stephengfm]

Originally Posted by jjmcd82

True, there might be ways to clean up, but it is hard to know before the refresh comes out.

But one doesn't have to solicit or participate in spammy activities to get hit. I never paid anyone or asked for the 1000s of bad links that I'm assuming have hurt my traffic. There's also no way for me to contact webmasters running Chinese & Russian spam-farms to politely ask for link removal. There's no manual reconsideration since Penguin isn't a manual penalty.

The spammers who hit me are still ranking for the porn and pill phrases they were targeting. It is just the medium-sized domains they used as intermediaries that got nuked, and we "might" just have to start over from scratch because we got caught up in someone else's spam. It seems like it would be easier for me to make my own link farm and point it at all the competitors who jumped ahead of me since April 24.

(I'm a little bitter if you can't tell, sorry )

Why doesn't Google just nuke the people who have the links?

For example, if they just make the value of those links ZERO, then there is no benefit or penalty to having those links. Those links just become useless and Google can just NOT crawl those sites.