Domain name help please - Too Generic or Too Over optimized

[ColoradoChris]

Hello to all,

I am hoping that I can get a general consensus on what to do. I am working on my families website.

it is All Specialty Buildings (dot) com

It is all one word.

Now I have been hit by penguin with no manual action. I assume penguin as I did have some directory links found and some forum signatures.

So that being said I have taken many tips from here to attempt to do better.

So I come to my domain name.

I have been told by a Google forum helper when I was searching for penguin help, that my domain name is horrible and needs to be changed.

The All is a stop word, and so it leaves specialty buildings which no one would search.

I am not trying to do an EMD, but the ASB is the companies name.

So I am curious of two possible scenarios that I am looking for advice please:

1 - If a domain gets hit with a penguin penalty, and it has been almost a year and no traffic restored even with a disavow and new links, then it would be best to ditch the domain and start from scratch - Then if so do I try and find a unique name? Like maybe add a keyword like maybe asbconstruction or asbcolorado or something no where related to what we do to prevent any google penalties

2 - The domain name is fine as it is the business name and if people search for the business they will also find a matching domain - so it looks more professional. And if there was a penguin algo hit, then once it refreshes then the site may be back up to speed. Now maybe it does not take a refresh, so maybe I am not doing enough then, but hopefully its because google needs an update before I see any results.

Thank you for any thoughts on this. I am looking to make the move to the genesis framework, but I want to make sure my domain will not be any sort of future issue.

Best wishes and thank you in advance

Chris

 

[Margaret Ornsby]

Firstly, your domain name is not horrible. It is simply the name of the company. And it works for you because when I google your company name, your business shows.

The domain name alone will not cause a penalty.

Directory links per se and forum links per se are not bad. Relevancy, quality & frequency are things which do influence whether directories and forums are beneficial or not.

When you say "now I have been hit by penguin" - when is now? It could have been one of literally hundreds of changes google makes a year. Nevertheless, all too often these types of sudden dropts are because of backlinks to the website. Don't have enough into to know if that could be your situation or not.
Have you ever hired someone to do link building, article syndication or some such for your website? Or hired someone to "boost your rankings"?

I'm personally not a fan of trashing a site and starting over unless the domain is totally unsalvageable. I'm not convinced with what you've said here and what I've seen in a short investigation of your site that is the case. So if you have no messages in Webmaster tools, you have clean backlinks, then look at site quality.

I have noticed when scanning through the copy, you use the word Colorado a lot - and barn a lot, lot.
One page of just over 1000 words had colorado 33 times, and barn 60 times. Step aside for a sec from the concept of "keyword density", and instead think of it with people. Would you really talk like that to someone? Imagine your webpage like a conversation with a sales person. Do you think if the rep said colorado 33 times in the conversation you'd think they'd be a bit off?

PM me if you're interested in a manual for recovering from manual penalties - it's good for those as well as for fixing most common penalties. It's not mine BTW, just a really good reference. No guarantees you'll find something to fix your situation, but I do believe you'll find some useful info for moving forward, whatever you decide to do.

 

[ColoradoChris]

Thank you very much WonderWoman

I TRULY appreciate your tips and ideas.

The site is a small business here in Colorado where we specialize in pole barns, horse barns, indoor arenas, garages, and steel buildings.

So in conversation I do mention barns, but 33 times is too much by far, and Colorado over 60 is plain wrong on my part.

So if I may ask:

1 - Does keyword density matter anymore in terms of can I just say pole barns one time and I am good, or is it important to say it a few times, but not more than say 3% of 1000 words?

I do not have a manual penalty, but I will gladly accept any sort of literature you may have to offer. Thank you 100 times over. I will pm you.

I assumed it was a penguin algorithm issue as it was the fall of last year and I fell off the earth. Our business has suffered GREATLY due to this lack of online exposure.

I removed bad forum signatures by actually going into a couple of the forums I noticed and changing it to nothing all together. Then I disavowed all bad backlinks from an seo mistake in 2011. Bad choice in hiring. Thus this is the reason I am trying to do it all myself now.

So say I take a page for service and I have that page dedicated to only Pole Barn related inquires. So say pole barn kits, pole barn packages, pole barn buildings etc. Since I live in Colorado and only serve Colorado, what would you recommend is a proper way to address adding these phrases without over-optimizing?

So maybe for a tile I thought -

Colorado Pole Barn Construction, Kits & Packages.

But does where you put the state to target make a difference?

I mean I see some say to begin and end with the state or city etc.

Like - Atlanta Plumbers & Drains | Serving Atlanta GA

Google Keyword planner shows only 40 searches a month for Pole Barns Colorado. So if I have Colorado Pole Barns, maybe this is bad as it should be in the order of what someone would search.


When I use a filter and say I put the geo target for Colorado, it shows the keywords Steel buildings with 800 or so searches and down the list pole barns has 140. But there is no word of Colorado in the search at all. So is Google smart enough to know where I am and who I service?

I know this may be childs play for many, but for me I am in dire need of help and I am willing to listen to any and all advice.
Best Wishes to all

Chris

 

[Eric Rohrback]

I took a look at the backlinks, and it's definitely possible you got hit hard by penguin. I'm seeing a massive loss of do-follow links starting around October-November. Are you seeing a traffic drop in analytics starting around the same time period? The biggest red flag I see is that you have exact match geo-targeted anchor text which is way out of whack.

• barn builders colorado (52%)
• horse barn builders colorado (10%)
• all specialty buildings (5%)
• pole barns colorado (5%)
• all specialty buildings inc. (3%)
• colorado post frame and horse barn builders (3%)
• Colorado Pole barns, Steel buildings, & Horse Barns (3%)
• noText (2%)
• a frame garage (2%)
• all specialty buildings: pole barn builders (2%)
• colorado barn construction (2%)
• commercial garages (2%)
• construction (2%)
• frame garage (2%)
• framed building 2 (2%)

As you can see, your brand name is drastically lower than the "money" terms you're trying to rank for.

Thoughts?

 

[ColoradoChris]

I took a look at the backlinks, and it's definitely possible you got hit hard by penguin. I'm seeing a massive loss of do-follow links starting around October-November. Are you seeing a traffic drop in analytics starting around the same time period? The biggest red flag I see is that you have exact match geo-targeted anchor text which is way out of whack.

• barn builders colorado (52%)
• horse barn builders colorado (10%)
• all specialty buildings (5%)
• pole barns colorado (5%)
• all specialty buildings inc. (3%)
• colorado post frame and horse barn builders (3%)
• Colorado Pole barns, Steel buildings, & Horse Barns (3%)
• noText (2%)
• a frame garage (2%)
• all specialty buildings: pole barn builders (2%)
• colorado barn construction (2%)
• commercial garages (2%)
• construction (2%)
• frame garage (2%)
• framed building 2 (2%)

As you can see, your brand name is drastically lower than the "money" terms you're trying to rank for.

Thoughts?​

​

Hi Eric

Thank you so much for taking time out if your day to help.

About October I noticed we fell off the earth website wise. So I asked in the google product forums what happened.

A few people jumped all over me saying I had 800 links coming from a bowling forum that I was an admin on.

Then another 100 or so from this forum or that forum etc. I didn't know it was wrong as a lot of people seemed to advertise what they did for a living.

My problem was I was too active so it created a lot of links.

I went in and killed all forum signatures that I could find.

Then started chopping at any directory or un industry related links by asking for removals. I even paid many as they are taking there time to do this.

So now I sit from over 1000 all over the place type of links to 329 better links. This of course is info from GWT, which may be leaving out proper data.

I have used abrefs or whatever the backlink checker a lot of people use is, and a lot of things are still shown, but with a (..) behind it. So I am hoping these certain links dont count anymore.

I have used moz tools and some scraper sites like mrwhatis I cannot remove.

So with that being said, it is hard to get links that are proper for my business as many of our customers are farmers and either do not have a website to link to us, or we are in and out and never go back as we did the job right the first time.

So I thought forum signatures are bad, so this is why I killed them. But to have 52% showing barn builders colorado - somewhere it's still showing this type of anchor text, I just need to find out where.

What if they are directory sites that were disavowed? If I cannot remove the link, how do I improve the ratio of anchor tags?

And finally you mentioned the money keywords, do you have any suggestions on how to improve this?

Thank you so much

Chris

---------- Post Merged at 06:45 AM ---------- Previous Post was at 06:38 AM ----------

So I guess to add, since you saw the huge drop of links, do I need to re do those forum signature links? I thought it was bad link guest blog posting. But I am in the position I am because of bad choices

 

[JoshuaMackens]

October 4th was the date of the last penguin update. 52% exact match anchor is a lot. 5%-15% is ideal but personally I quit using exact match anchors. It's too risky.

It sounds like Penguin and looks like Penguin.

You need to keep that site up and keep working on it because it should come back sometime. Traditionally though, it's not going to come back until the next Penguin update. Also, traditionally, that update should have been done in May but it was not. We're kind of waiting around for it now. That's why you haven't recovered yet because you can only recover when the refresh hits. It hasn't hit yet.

However, things may be changing on that front. Panda use to be on a long timer like Penguin, meaning you couldn't get out of it for months or even longer until they ran the next refresh. I've heard rumors that now Panda is on a much more frequent timer, maybe as often as every week or two. It stands to reason eventually Penguin would become this way as well. However, there is zero anecdotal evidence so far to support the assertion that Penguin is refreshing at more frequent intervals. I imagine that day is coming though. It seems to be a resource issue. Penguin is probably very hard on Google's systems to run.

---

If you have the time and resources, I would go ahead and say start building another site. It's going to take awhile to gain any trust unless you can find good, strong links but at least you will have two sites able to rank now in the near future. If one gets penalized again, you have the other to fall back on. Diversified risk.

Finally, stay away from all forum links and directory links. They're not worth the time, money, or risk. Some of them are okay and may even help, but the risk is just plain not worth it.

Only use branded, bare URL, and random anchor text from here on out. If you can get a particularly powerful link and are given the chance to craft the anchor text, maybe do just one exact match anchor.

You'll find others with different opinions on anchor text but a penalty just isn't worth it these days. Well, it never really has been worth it.

Conclusion:

1) Continue to clean up your main site and wait for the refresh, hoping you pass.

2) Build a new site only if you have the time and resources. Remember, do not copy content over from your current website to the new one. You can rewrite it if you like but do not copy it. You're headed for a Panda penalty there. Also, you may want to get a new C class IP for the new site so Google doesn't associate the websites together. If you don't understand C class IP's, say so and I'll try to fill you in there as well.

 

[Margaret Ornsby]

Chris,

Have a read of this very recent post http://localsearchforum.catalystema...cklinks-guest-blogs-nobody-safe-not-even.html

You can just about skip the whole article because the gems and clues come largely from the discussions. The article forms the background context for the comments. As you read, discard the emotive stuff and look at the logic of what's being said. Marie in particular talks about patterns of links.

Your forum post signatures with backlinks are not inherently bad; think of the pattern. The algo will be looking at patterns. Did the signatures come in a burst (looks unnatural). Does it look like you' could be trying to manipulate backlinks by using search terms not the company name (my own personal ultra-conservative interpretation on forum signatures). Try to step back and look at it from a helicopter view.

As a side note, WMT is known to be erratic in its reporting of sitelinks, so take it with a grain of salt. When I was looking at your backlinks in Majestic, I could see at one stage you had lots of links, but now you have far fewer. So you have done what you can to clean up what you thought was "bad." Things like the bowling forum signature - probably a good call to take those down.

Now I'm going out on a limb and going to challenge your thinking. (and what comes next is without intimate knowledge of your history or situation, only an opinion based on what I'm reading here, so if you think I'm off-base, ignore - deal?)

You're not suffering from a penalty per se, rather an adjustment by the algo - where Google thinks your site really belongs - does that make sense? Yes, there were probably a few things that in hindsight could have been done better. They gave your site a lift - for a while - but now it's not working in your favour.

If you can shift your thinking from penalty to adjustment, you can start moving forward again.

Here's why -

Penalty implies something needs to be undone. Yet you might spend days or weeks chasing your tail trying to undo something (but what?), when simply taking action in a positive direction could take you closer to your end goal. SEO is no longer a short-term fix - it's a long-term play. While you can drop like a rock from the search engines, the rise to the top is slower and more gradual.

Since you're really targeting a specific geographic area, are you doing offline marketing too? Radio? Print? I don't live in Colorado so I can's say for sure, but if you're not, those might be more affordable options and give you some quicker sales while you are sorting out the website.

Can you look at Adwords/Facebook ads - maybe target specific sites/groups where you know your audience (customers) are likely to look for a business like yours?

Don't be hard on yourself. Your choices aren't bad - just misinformed. Now you're learning about making better informed choices

 

[JoshuaMackens]

Chris,

Have a read of this very recent post http://localsearchforum.catalystema...cklinks-guest-blogs-nobody-safe-not-even.html

You can just about skip the whole article because the gems and clues come largely from the discussions. The article forms the background context for the comments. As you read, discard the emotive stuff and look at the logic of what's being said. Marie in particular talks about patterns of links.

Your forum post signatures with backlinks are not inherently bad; think of the pattern. The algo will be looking at patterns. Did the signatures come in a burst (looks unnatural). Does it look like you' could be trying to manipulate backlinks by using search terms not the company name (my own personal ultra-conservative interpretation on forum signatures). Try to step back and look at it from a helicopter view.

As a side note, WMT is known to be erratic in its reporting of sitelinks, so take it with a grain of salt. When I was looking at your backlinks in Majestic, I could see at one stage you had lots of links, but now you have far fewer. So you have done what you can to clean up what you thought was "bad." Things like the bowling forum signature - probably a good call to take those down.

Now I'm going out on a limb and going to challenge your thinking. (and what comes next is without intimate knowledge of your history or situation, only an opinion based on what I'm reading here, so if you think I'm off-base, ignore - deal?)

You're not suffering from a penalty per se, rather an adjustment by the algo - where Google thinks your site really belongs - does that make sense? Yes, there were probably a few things that in hindsight could have been done better. They gave your site a lift - for a while - but now it's not working in your favour.

If you can shift your thinking from penalty to adjustment, you can start moving forward again.

Here's why -

Penalty implies something needs to be undone. Yet you might spend days or weeks chasing your tail trying to undo something (but what?), when simply taking action in a positive direction could take you closer to your end goal. SEO is no longer a short-term fix - it's a long-term play. While you can drop like a rock from the search engines, the rise to the top is slower and more gradual.

Since you're really targeting a specific geographic area, are you doing offline marketing too? Radio? Print? I don't live in Colorado so I can's say for sure, but if you're not, those might be more affordable options and give you some quicker sales while you are sorting out the website.

Can you look at Adwords/Facebook ads - maybe target specific sites/groups where you know your audience (customers) are likely to look for a business like yours?

Don't be hard on yourself. Your choices aren't bad - just misinformed. Now you're learning about making better informed choices

I agree with Margaret.

It would behoove you to move in a positive direction. I'm going to take it a different route and apply more specifically to SEO.

Take her advice and don't nitpick too hard on what to clean up. It sounds like you've already done a good job there. You also know at what point you're stretching to find something to clean up. At that point, go the opposite direction.

Make a move to start building better link equity. More authoritative, more natural, etc. Don't focus on the clean up so much anymore as much as the "build up".

If you can do radio, TV, etc. and anything offline that Margaret suggested, you can double up on that.

Guess who has a website? Radio stations. Guess who has a website? TV stations. Guess who else has a website? Every single person you've ever paid a dime to, for anything.

Ask them for links. If you can afford radio and TV, get some customers and some links as well.

Great ideas Margaret.

 

[Margaret Ornsby]

Sorry Joshua - we must have been posting at the same time.
Oh dear - we have different interpretations for Chris.
...awkward...

Whatever you do Chris, don't give up or stop asking questions. Yes, differing professionals in this market have differing opinions. But doctors can too; at least we're not as diverse as economists!

Best of luck, whichever path you choose.

 

[JoshuaMackens]

Sorry Joshua - we must have been posting at the same time.
Oh dear - we have different interpretations for Chris.
...awkward...

Whatever you do Chris, don't give up or stop asking questions. Yes, differing professionals in this market have differing opinions. But doctors can too; at least we're not as diverse as economists!

Best of luck, whichever path you choose.

I thought our advice meshed well

Good luck Chris!

 

[Margaret Ornsby]

Ha! Happened again.
Thanks Joshua.
You too have some good points, def makes a better thread.

Hope we haven't confused Chris

 

[ColoradoChris]

October 4th was the date of the last penguin update. 52% exact match anchor is a lot. 5%-15% is ideal but personally I quit using exact match anchors. It's too risky.

It sounds like Penguin and looks like Penguin.

You need to keep that site up and keep working on it because it should come back sometime. Traditionally though, it's not going to come back until the next Penguin update. Also, traditionally, that update should have been done in May but it was not. We're kind of waiting around for it now. That's why you haven't recovered yet because you can only recover when the refresh hits. It hasn't hit yet.

However, things may be changing on that front. Panda use to be on a long timer like Penguin, meaning you couldn't get out of it for months or even longer until they ran the next refresh. I've heard rumors that now Panda is on a much more frequent timer, maybe as often as every week or two. It stands to reason eventually Penguin would become this way as well. However, there is zero anecdotal evidence so far to support the assertion that Penguin is refreshing at more frequent intervals. I imagine that day is coming though. It seems to be a resource issue. Penguin is probably very hard on Google's systems to run.

---

If you have the time and resources, I would go ahead and say start building another site. It's going to take awhile to gain any trust unless you can find good, strong links but at least you will have two sites able to rank now in the near future. If one gets penalized again, you have the other to fall back on. Diversified risk.

Finally, stay away from all forum links and directory links. They're not worth the time, money, or risk. Some of them are okay and may even help, but the risk is just plain not worth it.

Only use branded, bare URL, and random anchor text from here on out. If you can get a particularly powerful link and are given the chance to craft the anchor text, maybe do just one exact match anchor.

You'll find others with different opinions on anchor text but a penalty just isn't worth it these days. Well, it never really has been worth it.

Conclusion:

1) Continue to clean up your main site and wait for the refresh, hoping you pass.

2) Build a new site only if you have the time and resources. Remember, do not copy content over from your current website to the new one. You can rewrite it if you like but do not copy it. You're headed for a Panda penalty there. Also, you may want to get a new C class IP for the new site so Google doesn't associate the websites together. If you don't understand C class IP's, say so and I'll try to fill you in there as well.

Thank you so much for your insight.

I wanted to clarify if I may - I had a few directory links found such as a freeseo directory. Bad I know and I did pay to have them remove it. Yet it still shows up as a link under sites like backlink checker and so on. Although when you click on where they say the link is, it has been removed. So I am hoping that this will update at some point.

The nasty drop in links came from dropping A LOT of forum links. So hopefully google would understand that I was trying to clean up, not make things worse for sure.

To build a new site is not the end of the world as I have hosting and themes etc. I was even looking at the Genesis framework thinking that it may be a good start to build a new site on. Basically a better foundation.

I just want to do things right. Which is why I am here, to learn from the best, and to get honest help.

I greatly appreciate everything for sure.

---------- Post Merged at 09:05 PM ---------- Previous Post was at 08:59 PM ----------

So to ask in general - if someone offers me a link- What should I do in terms of the Anchor Text?

Do I just do the business name? or try and put in keywords?

So for an example, say since we build buildings I try and target real estate agencies as they want to sell houses, and maybe a person may need a barn. So if they can refer to me as a barn builder, then maybe it will make the deal go through for them.

So for an example would I try and go with the business name?

or

Go for more of anchor text % strategy? So say I am .08 or something low for the keywords - horse barns - Would I try and make the link say Horse Barns? Or is this the type of stuff that will get me into trouble?

Thank you.

Chris

 

[Margaret Ornsby]

Hi Chris

The links to the directories will take time to fade out of existence. It can take months for them to go live, and years to go away.

If someone offers you a link - please read the following, and then you can decide whether the link fits with your strategy or not. This applies whether you create a new website or keep going with the old.
...
In answer to your question about backlinks, might I challenge your thinking again?

Don't think about the link. (h/t Dan Thies)

Think instead about coming up with the best answer to "the question" there is on the Internet. In other words, if someone's thinking of building a barn, what sorts of questions would they ask? Then, build the best damn answer out there, for each one of those questions.

If you start creating that sort of content for your product and service pages, and start blogging with that sort of content, and can get into forums or social media or any sort of place where farmers might hang out (again I'm thinking you'll want to include offline media here), then "links" will come - organically. You might get picked up by a farming magazine.

Promote your business, just use technology to do it. BTW, social media leaks, so it's good to tie back to blogposts in social media.

Don't think about links, think about what value you can give to people to make them want to link to you.

And think beyond barns when you're blogging. What else goes with barns?

• Construction of the barn or any outdoor shed - does it matter?
• Do you have to consider tornadoes in Eastern Colorado?
• What about snow weight in the mountains?
• Is there a particular area or pockets where you have a cluster of customers? What did you learn as a company about building structures in that part of Colorado?
• How many horses can you "safely" cram into a shed if outdoor access isn't available.
• What's the minimum square footage for horses in outdoor sheds
• If you could design the perfect structure for free range chickens, what would that be? (My mother puts hers in an old converted outhouse - not ideal)
• What are some handy tips for a backyard petrol head or a small motor repair shop - tools, structure, infrastructure, etc.
• What kinds of garages work well on suburban blocks - (if you do anything with suburban properties) and what are the considerations.
• Can you write content regularly for a real estate chain? (I know someone who lives in Colorado who does blogging for 2 RE firms; my understanding is they're hungry for content).

Another approach - intensive farming - controversial topic - take a stand on building structures and whether you think 999 pigs in 2 square inches is okay or not (it's an example, I'm not being serious so please don't report me to the humane society). Your blogpost could get picked up by some press somewhere, and whammo - your article is spread around the net. **That's links you want ** You can't build that kind of content thinking about links. You can build it by thinking about your customer.

It's a higher risk play, but might suit the kind of audience you want to attract. Remember when you're writing anything on your website to keep it inline with your ideal kind of customer/s!

Whew! I need a glass of water after all that...

Does any of that make sense?

Can you also see how I've tied Colorado into a couple of topics? You can safely include your location in your page content as long as you do it naturally... I don't have to use Colorado and barns in every page title or paragraph to get the idea across. Google will, over time, "get" that you are an authority on Colorado and barns, so if someone's searching for barns in New York, your site is less likely to get served up to them. Even if you do, what's the worst that could happen?
A - they read it and get useful info from your content and realise you're Colorado only.
B - they read it and get useful info from your content and someone from NY calls you.

- - -

Taking a breather...
If you're after more sales in your very specific area, then Google Local will be the quickest way to start generating leads. If that will help with the revenue situation, then perhaps make that a priority. Talk to Linda about training if you need.

Okay, enough, sermon ended.

 

[JoshuaMackens]

Again, I agree with Margaret. She just gave a wealth of knowledge you should pay attention to. What she outlined is exactly what you should do with a big focus on getting your content exposed through social media, forums, communities etc, (all things she said, just emphasizing).

If someone is offering you a link, chances are you won't be able to control the anchor text. If you can, you either got lucky or it sounds like you might be buying links. The only problem with buying links is that pretty much every link you can buy these days are dangerous, not worth it, and a waste of your money.

To answer your question about anchor text directly, just so that it's answered:

I wouldn't use any type of exact match anchor text. Google knows what the website you're linking to is about. The power is in the link, not the anchor text. It's an outdated way to SEO and is incredibly dangerous as you have found out first hand. It's possible your penalty didn't even come from the location of your links (directory, forums, etc.). It may have come entirely from a 52% exact match anchor text portfolio.

Use only branded (business name), bare url (http://website.com), and random anchor text (click here, this website, etc.).

If you want %'s I would do 40% bare URL, 30% branded, 30% random.

You're on the right track man. I would seriously consider the content marketing pitch Margaret just gave you. Great content, great way to get links.

 

[Margaret Ornsby]

Here's another great post that might be of help Chris
http://localsearchforum.catalystema...signature-backlinks-worth-risk-if-theyre.html