Google Now Reports “Practically 100%” Of Manual Actions

[Azizur Rahman]

Hi all,

Sorry I have not been showing up for last couple of months been busy with family responsibilities.

I know some of your (especially Roy's) site has been not ranking well lately. I wonder if it had anything to do with the manual reviews.

Check out this article: http://searchengineland.com/google-now-reports-practically-all-manual-actions-136822

I have to say there others here provably has more info on this matter.

Regards,

Azizur
Sent from my iPhone

[Roy]

Thanks for your concern Azizur

I don't want to come across as a complainer - especially in this forum where
everybody is so supportive

My main problem with loss of site ranking is as follows

I originally created my site from hand-crafter HTML pages - and got quite
good Google rankings - and had plenty of site visitors

Then I switched to a WordPress site, and my rankings have been going down
ever since

I used to get 2,000 visitors per day - now I am lucky if I get 1,000

Obviously I have far more control over content and features using WP

But the number of site visitors has dropped, and pages which once ranked are
now off the graph as far as Google is concerned

Yet -

1. I do not have any paid links

2. I have minimised the number of outgoing links on pages

3. There are only Google Ads and Amazon commercial links + occasional
advertising on pages

4. All of my pages (posts) are content rich, originally written, and
user-oriented

5. I see rival pages on Google search results that don't even have the
search terms in their titles, are badly written, 150 words long, and are
clearly just as adverts for something else

At the moment, I am trying to up the SEO quotient using Yoast's WordPress
SEO plugin

Any ideas very, very welcome

http://www.mantex.co.uk

Cheers

Roy

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[Mike Little]

I suspect the problem is pages like these Roy:

http://www.mantex.co.uk/reviews/arts/

http://www.mantex.co.uk/reviews/creative-writing-reviews/

http://www.mantex.co.uk/reviews/typography/

They are just lists of links with adverts in the sidebar. That's no longer acceptable to Google. I don't think they are particularly good for visitors either. 

At a bare minimum, I would add at least a sentence following everyone of those links.  Probably a hand crafted excerpt from the post.

Of course you want all those pages to be "noindex,follow" so they aren't in Googles indexes and counting against your site, which  I suspect hey are.

It's a (slow) process to resolve the issue, but I think you will be able to get there. What's key is to monitor all the parameters you can:

Google Analytics, Webmaster tools, even tracking the lcount of pages google has indexed (using the "site:domain.com" syntax). And confirm that you are making progress in the right direction. But it won't be a quick fix - weeks at least.

Mike

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Mike Little
http://zed1.com/

[Azzam Sheikh]

Agree on the "noindex,follow".  useful to the visitor but certainly no benefit to the search engine spidering.  

It is a 'human list', something one does not mind see after reading an article to find further reading.  But is it the first thing a visitor would see landing on the page? What does it tell me?  If it was a book I would flip over to the other side. 

So agreed with Mike, an excerpt that explains each a little.  If this time consuming then "noindex,follow" or even "noindex,nofollow" those pages and take them out of the loop? 

Kind Regards

Azzam Sheikh

Social Media and SEO Manager - www.national.co.uk
Mobile: +447903 752 126 [UK]

Collaborative thoughts on Google+ Plus: +Azzam Sheikh
Follow me Twitter: @azzams

Professional connection on Linkedin: http://uk.linkedin.com/in/azzams

[Roy]

Many thanks for the reply and the suggestion Mike

 

[and thanks to Azam for his confirmation]

 

Of course, I am not blaming WordPress for any of this

 

My site visitor numbers have dropped  after the Google Panda and Penguin algorithms

 

And I can see why Google wouldn’t rate these index pages – though I think they’re useful to a visitor

 

So the ‘noindex, follow’ sounds like a good idea

 

The problem is that these pages are generated automatically

 

So WHERE and HOW do I add the ‘noindex, follow’ instruction?

 

Is it something that can be done within Yoast’s WordPress SEO?

 

– or is it something that can be done Robots.txt?

 

Or somewhere else?

 

And come to think of it – would it make sense to put ‘noindex, follow’ instructions on admin pages from within a site?

 

Such as ‘terms and conditions’, ‘shopping cart’, ‘thanks for your order’, ‘cancelled order’, and so on?

 

I’m not worried if all this will take time – I’ve been at this for twelve years now J

 

Cheers – and thanks again

 

Roy

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[Roy]

Hi Mike and Azam (any anybody else reading)

 

I think I might have found part of the answer to my own previous question

 

“Where should I  add  ‘noindex’ attributes?”

 

Whoopee! Just discovered that the amazing Yoast actually allows me to edit CATEGORIES – which is where my index pages are generated

 

But there are some other settings on the page I could use a word of advice on

 

SEO title – is that the name of the category as it appears on the site? Or can I make up something more attractive?

 

SEO description – ditto – as above

 

Cannonical – do I grab this URL from the page when it has been generated?

 

Breadcrumb title - ????

 

Noindex this category – ‘Always noindex’ ?

 

Include in sitemap – auto detect?  OR ‘always include’?

 

More work – but might be getting there!

 

Cheers

 

Roy

 

PS – do other people with web sites have these problems? Or am I uniquely dim?

[Mike Little]

Not got chance to answer this till after weekend....

Mike

Mike Little
http://zed1.com/