Well, not much sleep last night. Panda appeared to maul our 4 websites pretty badly, the main retail one http://www.cocooncollection.co.uk/ the worst.
First page rankings (some of the which have been there for years) have dropped to pages 4, 5 and even out of the top ten. After the initial horror subsided, it was time to take stock, and get some info fast. The article I found the most useful as a starting point was here. I thought I'd start by focusing on the worst hit site, see what I could do to regain rankings, and then roll it out on the others. As it's a pretty big, sprawling site, it also meant I could test a few different techniques at the same time.
So, looking at my first hit list, I took a step back and tried to analyse without prejudice how we faired:
1. Little Or No Original Product Text Content - we write, from scratch all our product descriptions. We do use the same descriptions every time a component appears in a gift collection, but it is all original text, so I figured it couldn't be this.
2. Little Or No Original Category / Section Page Content - yes, guilty as charged.
3. Same Template. Page After Page After Page - ditto
4. Really, Really, Really Big Boilerplate Text - yep, ours is probably too big, needs looking at
5. Same Run Of Site Links On Every Single Page - again, guilty
6. Writing Unique Content But Giving It Away - no
7. Great Unique Content Buried On Pages Not In The Index - possibly
8. Unique Content Hidden From Spiders - don't think so
9. Multiple Pages On The Same Domain With The Same Content - some of this possibly, but has been mostly phased out of the site, but probably not the index
10. Competing against yourself with multiple sub-domains - no
So that gives me somewhere to start. But i also read that high number of internal links seems to be being frowned upon by Google. And ours were hideous really. Almost 300 internal links on the homepage, and when I took a fresh look at the site structure, it was totally confusing to users. Dynamic fly out menus, with the little > signal to indicate they flew out downloading last on some pretty slow loading pages, just shouted 'unfriendly' to me. In fact, I'd probably leave the site, somewhat overwhelmed and irritated I couldn't find what I was after quick enough.
So that was my first step, and today I have about halved the number of internal links on every page. Still not what it should be, but certainly a step in the right direction (I hope!). Gone was the fly-out menu, left hand column now only show the main gift categories, and once you're in those categories, you can drill down further to get to the section you're after. My problem with this solution is, and always was - hence how we ended up in the massive internal link thing in the first place, that the fewer clicks a user has to make to find what they want, the better. But hopefully I've got to a halfway house where a trade-off is made which works both ways.
Next comes the tricky issue that I made some meta changes to all of my pages about 4 days ago. So I am slightly suspicious that those changes have had an impact - yet I know Panda has just hit the UK, so my gut feel is that it's probably not the cause. Even so, it could be, so on 4 pages below I'm reverting back to the original meta data. I've listed the current Google.co.uk positions prior to the change, and will track them (I'd like to say weekly, but it will doubtless be daily as a minimum while I grasp madly at straws that it'll all be ok any minute!)
Pages to change back: http://www.cocooncollection.co.uk/easter-gifts-c-159.html
Current Meta Title: Easter Gifts, Easter Gifts for Children, Kids Easter Gifts, Adults
Current Meta Description: Easter Gifts for Children plus Easter Gifts for Adults or the whole family - lots of lovely fun and cute Easter Gifts that stand out from the norm this year
Current Google position for Easter Gifts: not in top 100
Current Google position for Easter Gifts for Children (was first a few days ago btw!): 6
Current Meta Title: 30th Birthday Gifts, 30th Gifts, 30th Birthday Presents, Gift Ideas
Current Meta Description: 30th Birthday Gifts with lots of choice including 30th Birthday Gifts for Her, 30th Birthday Gifts for Him, Fun 30th Gifts, Commemorative 30th Birthday
Current Google Position for 30th Birthday Gifts: 22
Current Meta Title: 40th Birthday Gifts, 40th Gifts, 40th Birthday Presents, Gift Ideas
Current Meta Description: 40th Birthday Gifts with lots of choice including 40th Birthday Gifts for Her, 40th Birthday Gifts for Him, Fun 40th Gifts, Commemorative 40th Birthday Presents and more. Fast delivery too
Current Google position for 40th Birthday Gifts: 40
Current Meta Title: Gifts for Mums, Birthday Gifts for Mum, Mothers Day Gifts Cocoon
Current Meta Description: Gifts for Mums - whether you need Mothers Day Gifts or Birthday Gifts for Mum, we've got loads of lovely Mum Gifts to treat her and make her feel special, with fast delivery too
Current Google Position for Gifts for Mums: 14
I'm going to also try something a little different on another 4 pages - one keyphrase followed by 'from Cocoon Collection' as the title, the meta description just featuring this keyphrase once with one semantic variation and some marketing spiel, and the h1 text not being the same as the meta title keyphrase, some semantic variation instead. These are the pages I'm doing this on:
Current Google Position for Gifts for Dads: 77
Current Google position for Get Well Gifts: 20
Current Google Position for 50th Birthday Gifts: not in top 100
That'll do for today, I'm emotionally and physically exhausted, and the only potential benefit is that my weight loss is going better than expected as I can't bloody eat a thing!!
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