Why was my website demoted

[Lynn Wenger]

About a month ago my site, rohrermfg.com, was demoted in Google's index for the key phrases "post driver" and "post drivers". We used to be on the first page. Do you see any reason why the site would have gotten demoted? 

[Jay Bale]

Lynn,

Your not the only one that this happened to.

May 22 Google began a large demotion penalty for sites with none or minimal content above the fold.

This is an obvious SEO issue and can be solved by simply removing the 4 extremely large rotating images completely and slide the good text up.

Google can not read those big images or decipher the content of them. They can tell however what the ratio of text to image is and where on the page those images are. Google would like to be able to read the content that is exposed in the screens view without any scrolling down required. In the coming years we will see this penalty expanded because we will be moving to unilateral navigation, the ability to swipe pages up or down or side to side. When that day comes we will all be designing far differently.

As Michael Wilson has said over and over.. "Content is King" but I like to spice it up for the occasion..

"Content is King - Above the Fold"

You will come back real fast on Google after you remove the images. Don't shrink them or try to keep them on at all.

Let the Google bots know its gone completely. After your rankings come back, then shrink them down and put them below the fold.

Problem solved ! Let me know how it all went some months down the road.

Jay Bale SEO

On Wed, Aug 14, 2013 at 5:48 PM, Lynn Wenger <lynnw...@gmail.com> wrote:

About a month ago my site, rohrermfg.com, was demoted in Google's index for the key phrases "post driver" and "post drivers". We used to be on the first page. Do you see any reason why the site would have gotten demoted? 

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[Colin King]

On Wednesday, August 14, 2013 10:48:39 PM UTC+1, Lynn Wenger wrote:

About a month ago my site, rohrermfg.com, was demoted in Google's index for the key phrases "post driver" and "post drivers". We used to be on the first page. Do you see any reason why the site would have gotten demoted? 

 

Hi Jay and Lynn,

 

I totally agree that "Content is King" and I also believe that if you have loads of advertising above the fold then you are likely to get justifiably penalized by Google BUT I would not expect to get penalized for having large rotating pictures at the top of the screen.

 

Our out two websites at www.educationquizzes.com and www.jigthings.com have large pictures at the top of the screen because I believe that nowadays this is the best possible way to grab the attention of visitors to a site.  Our SERPS for both sites continue to rise and we certainly have not seen an indication of any form of penalty this year.  Here in the UK my two favourite shopping websites (Marks and Spencer and John Lewis) both adopt the idea of large pictures first and text later.

 

I would be extremely interested to hear other views.  Are you there Michael Wilson?

 

Best wishes, Colin

 

 

[Lynn Wenger]

Hi Jay,

This is very good to know and will require a few changes to several of our sites. 

However, the demotion is specific to the keywords "post driver" and "post drivers". We're still ranking well for our other key phrases. Do you have any insight as to why we were dinged for these particular phrases? I was told by another SEM pro that it is probably because our blog is "postdriver.net" and is integrated with our site (which we had to do because of tech limitations on our ecommerce server). Does that seem likely?

~Lynn

[Jay Bale]

Colin,

You can have a large image if your an expert SEO and still get enough of a good score for good SERPS.

In Lynn's case, this change would be the most effective at a chance of getting back without hundreds of hours of SEO work, that only persons like yourself and full time SEO's understand.

In Lynn"s case the timing is all all too close to the fold issue event. I have been seeing a LOT of this issue across many companies in the last 2 months. Perhaps thousands and my recommendation has been working.

Best,

Jay

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[Colin King]

On Wednesday, August 14, 2013 10:48:39 PM UTC+1, Lynn Wenger wrote:

About a month ago my site, rohrermfg.com, was demoted in Google's index for the key phrases "post driver" and "post drivers". We used to be on the first page. Do you see any reason why the site would have gotten demoted? 

 

Hi Jay,

 

Many thanks, your insight is appreciated.

 

Colin 

[Sam Mah]

Your site ranks 72 on desktop and 69 out of 100 on mobile according to Google PageSpeed. Speed is a factor in Google search algorithm. Why don't you try to improve your site's speed?

[Google expert Michael Wilson]

Lol that's why I love Jay .... He calls it like he sees it. 

Actually Lynn you asked the group for help and I'd like to ask the group the same question to them and you in response to your question... What have you done for your site lately ? (Feed it.)

That's why u bounce. #1 doesn't bounce. 

I have been planing sites with over 10000 pages. I like #1 ;) happy Googling Lynn

Michael Wilson 

Content is KING.

Sent from a Google hub.

[Google Expert Michael Wilson]

Hold the phone!

sorry to jump in but the site has issues.... maybee the theme..

problem: multiple H1 and No H2

									<h1 class="entry-title">
				<a href="http://postdriver.net/the-man-savers-got-your-back/" title="Permalink to The Man Saver’s got your back!" rel="bookmark">The Man Saver’s got your back!</a>
			</h1>
						

<h1 class="entry-title">
				<a href="http://postdriver.net/ranch-life-make-your-coffee-outdoors/" title="Permalink to Ranch Life: Make your Coffee Outdoors!" rel="bookmark">Ranch Life: Make your Coffee Outdoors!</a>
			</h1>

how is googlebot suppose to understand what the site is about?

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