Dan Petrovic: 10 ways to screw up in Google & 10 ways to fix it

"Great content, structure and clean code – that’s SEO." and then you learn about panda, penguin and top heavy. It could have been indexable tags, browsable search results or a link in your widget. Either way the traffic is dwindling and your client is furious. What do you do? In this session Dan Petrovic explains how people screw up with Google and offers practical ways to recover.

Transcript

1. by Dan Petrovic
   © 2013 Dejan SEO - http://dejanseo.com.au/
   10 ways to
   screw up in Google
   10 ways to
   fix it.
   &
   

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2. #1
   Various Levels of Facepalm.
   © 2013 Dejan SEO - http://dejanseo.com.au/
   

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3. Level:
   

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4. © 2013 Dejan SEO - http://dejanseo.com.au/
   www.dejanseo.com.au dejanseo.com.au
   Solution: 301 redirect
   Alternative: rel=“canonical”
   

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5. Level:
   

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6. © 2013 Dejan SEO - http://dejanseo.com.au/
   http://staging.noao.edu/ http://noao.edu/
   inurl:"http://staging."
   Solution: noindex
   

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7. Level:
   

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8. © 2013 Dejan SEO - http://dejanseo.com.au/
   
   Solution: admin > options > privacy >
   

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9. © 2013 Dejan SEO - http://dejanseo.com.au/
   Feeding Panda.
   

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10. #2
    Index Fluff.
    © 2013 Dejan SEO - http://dejanseo.com.au/
    

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11. © 2013 Dejan SEO - http://dejanseo.com.au/
    Indexable Fluff
    Categories & Tags
    

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12. © 2013 Dejan SEO - http://dejanseo.com.au/
    Indexable Fluff
    Search Results & Pagination
    http://dejanseo.com.au/google-pagination-rel-link-element/
    http://dejanseo.com.au/dealing-with-pagination-issues/
    

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13. © 2013 Dejan SEO - http://dejanseo.com.au/
    Indexable Fluff
    Infinite Navigational Structures
    

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14. © 2013 Dejan SEO - http://dejanseo.com.au/
    Indexable Fluff
    Infinite Faceted Navigation
    

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15. © 2013 Dejan SEO - http://dejanseo.com.au/
    Indexable Fluff
    Infinite Faceted Navigation
    

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16. © 2013 Dejan SEO - http://dejanseo.com.au/
    Indexable Fluff
    Infinite Faceted Navigation
    

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17. #3
    Lost & Found.
    © 2013 Dejan SEO - http://dejanseo.com.au/
    

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18. © 2013 Dejan SEO - http://dejanseo.com.au/
    404
    F ILS
    Says it’s a 404 page.
    Returns 200.
    Indexed.
    

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19. © 2013 Dejan SEO - http://dejanseo.com.au/
    404
    F ILS
    Looks like a 200 page.
    Returns 404.
    Not Indexed!
    

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20. © 2013 Dejan SEO - http://dejanseo.com.au/
    404
    F ILS
    gets a .gov link
    changes URL structure
    return 404 instead of 301
    

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21. © 2013 Dejan SEO - http://dejanseo.com.au/
    404
    F ILS Winner.
    

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22. © 2013 Dejan SEO - http://dejanseo.com.au/
    404
    F ILS
    Returns:
    http://www.istockphoto.com/search/text/404/source/basic
    Wildcard 302 redirects it to an actual 404 page:
    http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-404-black-panthers.php
    Winner.
    

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23. #4
    Being Ugly.
    © 2013 Dejan SEO - http://dejanseo.com.au/
    

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24. © 2013 Dejan SEO - http://dejanseo.com.au/
    Being Ugly
    Top Heavy, Poor UX, Trust Factors
    • Would you be comfortable giving your credit card
    information to this site?
    • Does this article have spelling, stylistic, or factual errors?
    • Was the article edited well, or does it appear sloppy or
    hastily produced?
    • Does this article have an excessive amount of ads?
    • Are the pages produced with great care and attention to
    detail vs. less attention to detail?
    Reference:
    googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com.au/2011/05/more-guidance-on-building-high-quality.html
    

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25. Smells Fishy!
    © 2013 Dejan SEO - http://dejanseo.com.au/
    

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26. #5
    Unguarded UGC
    © 2013 Dejan SEO - http://dejanseo.com.au/
    

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27. © 2013 Dejan SEO - http://dejanseo.com.au/
    Solution: rel=“nofollow”
    

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28. #6
    Link Schemes.
    © 2013 Dejan SEO - http://dejanseo.com.au/
    

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29. Link Schemes
    • Automated Links
    • Blog Networks
    • Web Spam
    • Mass-Scale ‘Clever’ Tactics
    • Your Own Sites
    • Automated Reciprocal Links
    Reference:
    http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/why-link-schemes-fail
    http://cdn.dejanseo.com.au/Google-Link-Disavow-Tool-Guide.pdf
    https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/disavow-links-main
    

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30. Traffic / Rankings
    Affected
    No Yes
    Link Warning
    No
    Yes
    Technical Audit
    Technical Issues?
    No Yes
    Fix
    Preventative
    Link Audit
    Sitewide
    No Yes
    Selective
    Link Audit
    De-indexed Yes
    No
    Link Removal
    Determine Affected
    Pages & Keywords
    Reconsideration Request
    Disavow
    

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31. #7
    Being Generic.
    © 2013 Dejan SEO - http://dejanseo.com.au/
    

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32. © 2013 Dejan SEO - http://dejanseo.com.au/
    Product Title
    Generic product description supplied by manufacturer which
    describes product only vaguely and provides no additional
    information and value to other sites selling the same product.
    $120.00 + Shipping
    Product Image
    (ALT TAG)
    ADD TO CART
    

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33. © 2013 Dejan SEO - http://dejanseo.com.au/
    Unique Product Title
    Unique description designed to inform and educate buyer on both research and
    purchase decision level and enable them to make a decision while they are on
    your website.
    $120.00 + $20 Shipping
    Customer Rating:
    Seller Recommendations | Detailed Specifications Payment Methods |
    Shipping Options
    12 of your friends recommend this.
    User Generated Content:
    - Social Media Sharing
    - Tips
    - Reviews
    - Recommendations
    Product Image
    (ALT TAG)
    + Gallery
    ADD TO CART
    Price Trends
    

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34. #8
    Location & Language.
    © 2013 Dejan SEO - http://dejanseo.com.au/
    

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35. © 2013 Dejan SEO - http://dejanseo.com.au/
    dejanseo.com.au dejanseo.co.uk
    dejanseo.com dejanseo.co.nz
    

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36. © 2013 Dejan SEO - http://dejanseo.com.au/
    rel="alternate" hreflang="x“
    hreflang="x-default"
    
    
    
    
    

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37. #9
    Viagra.
    © 2013 Dejan SEO - http://dejanseo.com.au/
    

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38. © 2013 Dejan SEO - http://dejanseo.com.au/
    SECURITY
    F IL
    site:edu.au viagra
    

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39. #10
    PageRank Hijack
    © 2013 Dejan SEO - http://dejanseo.com.au/
    

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40. © 2013 Dejan SEO - http://dejanseo.com.au/
    http://dejanseo.com.au/hijacked/
    

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41. © 2013 Dejan SEO - http://dejanseo.com.au/
    http://dejanseo.com.au/hijacked/
    Test Page
    

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42. © 2013 Dejan SEO - http://dejanseo.com.au/
    http://dejanseo.com.au/google-against-content-scrapers/
    Manual
    Action
    

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43. • rel="alternate" hreflang="x"
    • rel="next" and rel="prev"
    • rel="canonical"
    • rel="nofollow"
    • noindex, follow
    • 301
    • 404 (really!)
    Your Best Friends
    

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45. Helpful Tips.
    And time savers.
    

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46. Inbound links with rel=“nofollow”
    Not part of Google’s link graph.
    Can’t help. Can’t harm. Period.
    

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47. Links from de-indexed networks
    No longer have the capacity to harm you
    Can harm if re-included, which is unlikely.
    

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48. Google Webmaster Tools
    It’s enough to clean links exported from GWT
    No need to pay for additional tools. Nice!
    

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49. Don’t remove all your links
    Identify bad links and remove in stages.
    Document and communicate
    frequently.
    

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50. Social Signal Canonicalisation
    http://dejanseo.com.au/social-signal-consolidation/
    © 2013 Dejan SEO - http://dejanseo.com.au/
    

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51. © 2013 Dejan SEO - http://dejanseo.com.au/
    http://algoroo.com/
    

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