Site always gets the same search result position - No Joke

arius · #1 (**permalink**) 10-08-2006, 05:58 PM

One of our sites printcountry.com always rank 31st on most of the major keyword search results on Google (including the keyword "printcountry") which I think is very odd. Some keywords you can try (and most are very competitive) "printer ink", "epson ink", "epson printer ink", "discount cartridge" and I can keep adding on this list.

It is no JOKE, I can not understand why. Did some thing at Google fixed our position, but can not understand it for the life of me. Or is it possible that this happens on my browser only.

Please help me shed some light on this. Am I going crazy?

arius · #2 (**permalink**) 10-09-2006, 01:35 PM

Per suggestion, when I tried to search "Printer Cartridges & Epson Printer Ink from PrintCountry" (which is the pages title) on Google, I still get the result #31st. I am convinced that there is something fishy going on here and I am not crazy.

Is it possible that there is some form of light penalization on Google that max. your SERP at 31st position?

Webnauts · #3 (**permalink**) 10-09-2006, 04:01 PM

The link http://www.printcountry.com has a doorway farm. The following links probably point to keyword-rich auto-generated pages.
Links:
Printer Ink Cartridges - Inkjet Printer Cartridges - Discount Printer Ink Cartridges - Cheap Printer Ink - Printer Ink Refill - Printer Toner Cartridge - Laser Printer Toner -

The link http://www.usnavysealstore.com has a list of terms. The following text contains mainly a list of generic terms rather than a natural phrase. Naturalness value is only 34.44%

Text: at us navy seals store, we are proud to offer a wide variety of navy seals merchandise and gear including t-shirts, sweatshirts, seals workout, fitness and training books and dvds, navy seals luminox dive watches, gear, gifts, patches, pins and more.

Spamming?

arius · #4 (**permalink**) 10-09-2006, 04:34 PM

Dear Webnuts. I am not sure I understand you (or what this has to do with site being stuck at 31st position) What do you mean a "doorway farm" in your statement "The link http://www.printcountry.com has a doorway farm. The following links probably point to keyword-rich auto-generated pagesand what do you mean probably auto-generated pages. Only thing you can do and click and see that there are not auto generated spamming but real written content with keywords in mind.

About the USNavysealstore.com, that page has a list of product links. So I am not sure about your naturaliness percentage but still not making sense. So is that mean http://directory.webnauts.net/ is getting a high naturalness value.

Here I am trying to understand why I would be 31st on all these different keywords:

epson ink cartridges - 31
canon ink cartridges - 31
printcountry - 31
print country - 31
inkjet cartridges - 31

The point is, even if I am spamming (WHICH I DONT THINK I AM, but of course everybody has a different definition and that is a point of many other threads), why would I be 31st ALWAYS. Not 43, 88, or out of the index but 31st?

Webnauts · #5 (**permalink**) 10-09-2006, 05:24 PM

I just did a quick test with this tool: http://tool.motoricerca.info/spam-detector/

Might need human review though. Check that out if you want.

I am very busy at the moment, but I will get back to your issue when I can.

I will ask Incrediblehelp to have a look too.

arius · #6 (**permalink**) 10-09-2006, 05:57 PM

Thanks, but I guess that tool did not work for this case. Those are real pages.

About the other issue, I am convinced the cutoff point of some sort. It might be a duplicate content issue (due a mistake on our end between multiple domains that we did not do 302). I also had this thread where I asked the same question, I think the response make sense:

http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/...ad.php?t=14344

EArmand · #7 (**permalink**) 10-09-2006, 06:23 PM

Not really.. I see you at 27 in Google with this URL:
http://www.printcountry.com/canonpri...cartridges.asp

Is that not your site?

arius · #8 (**permalink**) 10-09-2006, 06:31 PM

Can you please tell me the keyword term that you have used?

EArmand · #9 (**permalink**) 10-09-2006, 06:40 PM

no problem, I used printcountry. I was actually amazed that you are so low (27) for your own domain word. Who is on top? Are those your affiliates?

incrediblehelp · #10 (**permalink**) 10-09-2006, 06:46 PM

I got you at 41 for these 2 keywords:

Epson ink cartridges
Canon ink cartridges

and you might be falling further.

Google is cracking down more on these types of pages and the individual credit a SE assess to page is going to count more in the future than just the credit the main domain has earned. Ok what the hell does that mean Jaan?

Well Google is getting better at judging pages of websites separately and accessing value to each instead of seeing a high PR domain and giving the "green light" so to speak at the pages and directories underneath.

You need better content on these 2 pages. I wouldn't consider these doorways as has been suggested above. I understand what your trying to do here, but the bottomline is Google doesn't. I know you want to link out to each individual product for each ink cartridge brand and that is fine, but your content is "cookie cutter" on these pages:

http://www.printcountry.com/epsonpri...cartridges.asp
http://www.printcountry.com/canonpri...cartridges.asp

Your basically cutting and pasting the different brand name in for the same content. Write some great unique content, get some product reviews in there. Look at your competitors in the top ten, what the heck are they doing that you are not?

Secondly you need better and much more relevant links to these pages instead of just to your main domain. Google is looking at this much more now, since Jagger 1-2-3. Getting links from relevant websites to Canon category page would be great and link less to your home page if the link is more relevant to Canon.

Lastly rankings are ever changing. Don't get hung up on them.

arius · #11 (**permalink**) 10-09-2006, 06:47 PM

I still see us #31 for that keyword. I wonder if we are working on different datacenter

I know we are so low on our own domain name, and that is actually the reason I think there is definetly a problem somewhere. (And I am trying to understand the problem for at least 6 months and still cannot come up with something) How can we rank same for a very competitive term and our own name (which is not very competitive).

The other links come before us are either our links, press release stuff and few affiliates.

EPageBrad · #12 (**permalink**) 10-09-2006, 06:53 PM

I'm sure it has a lot to do with duplicate content. try searching for unique strings from your site and see what you get.

I used (quotes) "Welcome to Your Discount Printer Ink Store" and got 27 results.

I tried other searchs and found that your "other" site (printecartridges.com) comes up first or near the top. For example, I searched for (no quotes) "printcountry remanufactured environmentally conscious" and got 1-5 of 21 results with duplicates omitted. Guess what? Printecartiges.com shows up in #1.

Click on the link to show duplicates and now PrintCountry shows up on top with the most of the 132 results. All have different "?ref=" codes. I also see printeink.com and print-country.com in the results.

I think you really need to manage your redirects and duplicate content first, and then see if you can show up earlier in the listings. I'm sure the penalty of position 31 is a direct result.

EArmand · #13 (**permalink**) 10-09-2006, 06:57 PM

I couldn't have said it better! However, I did not want to appear "Spammy" or as trying to promote inbound links throw WPW, but Incrediblehelp nailed it with this one...

Quote:

Secondly you need better and much more relevant links to these pages instead of just to your main domain. Google is looking at this much more now, since Jagger 1-2-3. Getting links from relevant websites to Canon category page would be great and link less to your home page if the link is more relevant to Canon.

Get quality, relevant inbound links that not only point to your home page, but that also point to your major category pages, such as Brand name pages.

You'd be surprised how quickly you move up from 31 or whatever position you are stuck in.

NameCritic · #14 (**permalink**) 10-09-2006, 07:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

I got you at 41 for these 2 keywords:

Epson ink cartridges
Canon ink cartridges

and you might be falling further.

Google is cracking down more on these types of pages and the individual credit a SE assess to page is going to count more in the future than just the credit the main domain has earned. Ok what the hell does that mean Jaan?

Well Google is getting better at judging pages of websites separately and accessing value to each instead of seeing a high PR domain and giving the "green light" so to speak at the pages and directories underneath.

You need better content on these 2 pages. I wouldn't consider these doorways as has been suggested above. I understand what your trying to do here, but the bottomline is Google doesn't. I know you want to link out to each individual product for each ink cartridge brand and that is fine, but your content is "cookie cutter" on these pages:

http://www.printcountry.com/epsonpri...cartridges.asp
http://www.printcountry.com/canonpri...cartridges.asp

Your basically cutting and pasting the different brand name in for the same content. Write some great unique content, get some product reviews in there. Look at your competitors in the top ten, what the heck are they doing that you are not?

Secondly you need better and much more relevant links to these pages instead of just to your main domain. Google is looking at this much more now, since Jagger 1-2-3. Getting links from relevant websites to Canon category page would be great and link less to your home page if the link is more relevant to Canon.

Lastly rankings are ever changing. Don't get hung up on them.

Better advice could not be given. Pay attention to what Jaan said here, especially "Write some great unique content, get some product reviews in there"

Webnauts · #15 (**permalink**) 10-09-2006, 07:08 PM

I checked with the keyword "printcountry" with google.de and I found you this http://www.printcountry.com/canonpri...cartridges.asp at position 31.

arius · #16 (**permalink**) 10-09-2006, 07:10 PM

Thanks Brad.

Incrediblehelp I got your points and will make changes on those pages but I don't think this getting the same result is directly related with the quality of content or links (indirectly of course related). Issue here is not ranking good or bad, but (at least on my browser) I keep getting the same SERP for quite a few search terms, which suggests there is probably a cap for my site in Google. And not managing this duplicate content issue is probably the key.

I think like what Brad mentioned, we are getting the domains (which are not even domains, but supposed to be redirect for typein URL traffic like printeink.com) that are not real in the search results (and most cases performing better than the real site).

SemAdvance · #17 (**permalink**) 10-09-2006, 07:14 PM

Arius

I ran into this problem a few years ago when a client ranked 21st for all terms.

Turns out my seo ranking software needed a paid update I did not know about.

Once I paid for the update...clients positions returned to normallcy...

EditFast · #18 (**permalink**) 10-09-2006, 07:16 PM

I think many of the posts have hit the mark but missed the question. Arius was asking why the site would be listed at #31 for all terms. Surely there would be some variation in the ranking depending which search term was used. I can confirm that the site is listed at #31 for "printcountry" "Epson ink cartridges", "Canon ink cartridges" This is very strange and it seems to me to be a penalty by Google which then points toward the other answers here. The cookie cutter content will get the pages ranked lower or perhaps not at all. (but why #31 always???)

incrediblehelp · #19 (**permalink**) 10-09-2006, 07:34 PM

EditFast your probably right, but lets not call it a penalty, but rather a ceiling. It is strange that the website is ranking the same for all the terms, but I think the reason it is doing this has been described above adequately. Oonce the changes are made I bet this ceiling is removed.

arius · #20 (**permalink**) 10-09-2006, 08:28 PM

Yes Editfast, that is the issue here. So I am convinced that some sort of ceiling exist, but probably the reason is not becuase of just not soo good content but more serious duplicate content issue between few domains that were supposed to be 302 having the same content indexed. I am sure about that since the site actually changed couple months ago and the issue existed on the old site that has different content (but the other domains still existed then).

Blayne · #21 (**permalink**) 10-09-2006, 09:20 PM

Go to Mcdars data center check www.mcdar.net/q-check/datatool.asp and enter your domain www.printcountry.com then search term printcountry. I get some weird results. If you check across google datacenters c-block (group b)

This came up in the # 12-13 posistion
imroz.wordpress.com/tag/news/ for that search

Blayne · #22 (**permalink**) 10-09-2006, 09:24 PM

Ok now I do the same search using the http:// in front ie http://www.printcounty.com and it shows posistion 29-32 depending on the datacenter

Peter (IMC) · #23 (**permalink**) 10-09-2006, 11:44 PM

This is a bit funny if you ask me. I just took a random page, (which I indeed found at position 31) and took a look at the HTML code:

Here are some examples of what I found in this single page (http://www.printcountry.com/canonpri...cartridges.asp):

<H1> Canon</H1>
<H1> Canon Printer Families</H1>
.
.
<h1>Cartridge Numbers for Canon Models</h1>
.
.
<h1>Canon Ink Cartridges, Canon Printer Ink from PrintCountry</h1>
.
.
<h1>Begin Your Canon Printer Ink Cartridges Search</h1>
.
.
<h1>Why PrintCountry?</h1>
.
.
<h1>Disclaimer</h1>
.
.

I think you shouldn't wonder too much about what Google is doing, but more about what you´re doing.

I don't know if Google fixed your site, but I do know that abusing H1 tags in that way can have some strange effects on rankings.

Your best bet is to make sure you use HTML tags the proper way.

NameCritic · #24 (**permalink**) 10-10-2006, 12:23 AM

His site is located in Area 31. Mysterious things that conspiracy theorists love.

webecho · #25 (**permalink**) 10-10-2006, 05:07 AM

Just a thought, but why are you using 302's to redirect all the misplet :) domain names to your main one. Surely a 301 permanent redirect is in order, you dont actually want anyone to go to the other domains and they haven't moved temporarily have they?

If your just using them as a catch all, at least switch to 301's, it will help your site (maybe all your results will be #30)

webecho

TrafficProducer · #26 (**permalink**) 10-10-2006, 11:01 AM

Is your site Spam? (Ref to Spam above)

The Block List Checker tool allows you to query a number of spam-block and server boycott lists with an IP address you specify to try and ascertain if the IP address is listed as a known spammer or an open mail relay. This can be useful if you need to check the authenticity of logs or emails.*

khurramali · #27 (**permalink**) 10-10-2006, 05:00 PM

this website has some serious duplicate content issues as i see it, among many others.

You can say, it is grey hat seo now.

rob_greenbucks · #28 (**permalink**) 10-10-2006, 10:01 PM

Checked on Google.fi (Finland) and your site is for sure found on position 31 for the query "printcountry".
Ok so that is your position on Google.

Others highlighted duplicate content and multiple H1 tags. I do not do that - I beleive the reason is much simpler. If you want your homepage to list first for this query - place the name first in the title, and repeat it early in your description - As you do in your press releases and articles!
- Or change the copy/titles of your pressreleases..
..now your press releases competes with your own domainname for that query - so you are both boosting your url but simultaneously managed to compete with yourself!

Just looking quickly on your page title - vs all the Press Releases and articles etc that are listed before your home page. Keep in mind the URL is just one factor of many.
Personally I have some fairly new websites competing with big media houses - and some of my pages are listed no1 on Google for some terms even if my site only have a handfull of links (5) and a PR 0 - while the mediahouses has + 16.000 links each and a PR of 7 resp 8. - So, don't forget the basic onsite optimisation. Organic SEO is still powerful. The assumption that the the domain name will be listed first works only if the content is equal to the pages it competes with

Most of your(?) press releases starts with the title "Printcountry.com" while your homepage does not... Also most of the Press Releases uses the term printcountry.com earlier in the first section - so it is no surprise to me that the homepage is not listed first - in particular when the PressReleases and Articles all seem to start "Printcountry.COM" including the .COM extension - So if even when the search engine considers the TLD - your page falls back because of the title and copy. Your PR department pushes your articles and pressreleases before your homepage - it is as simple as that.

Further, keep in mind that syndication is "fresh" news that searchengines just love - articles are also usually well qualified as "real content". - If your homepage looses both when it comes to the title, and introduction for the query, content, copy - and its freshness, - it simply will not be listed first - especially when the press releases and articles uses the .com extension. The releases are better optimised for that query. So this is not "spooky" at all - but a logical result.

Relevant1 Organic SEO

Hiops · #29 (**permalink**) 10-11-2006, 12:23 AM

Just checked for
Epson ink cartridges
Canon ink cartridges
and site is on 31 positions, can't believe it. Maybe it really has something to do with 301 redirect...

arius · #30 (**permalink**) 10-11-2006, 03:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by webecho

Just a thought, but why are you using 302's to redirect all the misplet :) domain names to your main one. Surely a 301 permanent redirect is in order, you dont actually want anyone to go to the other domains and they haven't moved temporarily have they?

If your just using them as a catch all, at least switch to 301's, it will help your site (maybe all your results will be #30)

webecho

Thanks Webecho. We have changed it at the domain level (since really those other domains were only purchased for type in URL traffic but no other reason and have no idea how they ended up serving the same content instead of the redirect).

Any ideas about what I should do next (since I fixed that duplicate content domains and did the adjustment). Should I just wait, or try to contact Google (probably many attempts and response at the end) support contact form that Matt Cutts talk about here: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/reinclusion-request-howto

Anybody had any experience with Google for a similar issue?

arius · #31 (**permalink**) 10-11-2006, 03:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Peter (IMC)

This is a bit funny if you ask me. I just took a random page, (which I indeed found at position 31) and took a look at the HTML code:

Here are some examples of what I found in this single page (http://www.printcountry.com/canonpri...cartridges.asp):

<H1> Canon</H1>
<H1> Canon Printer Families</H1>
.
.
<h1>Cartridge Numbers for Canon Models</h1>
.
.
<h1>Canon Ink Cartridges, Canon Printer Ink from PrintCountry</h1>
.
.
<h1>Begin Your Canon Printer Ink Cartridges Search</h1>
.
.
<h1>Why PrintCountry?</h1>
.
.
<h1>Disclaimer</h1>
.
.

I think you shouldn't wonder too much about what Google is doing, but more about what you´re doing.

I don't know if Google fixed your site, but I do know that abusing H1 tags in that way can have some strange effects on rankings.

Your best bet is to make sure you use HTML tags the proper way.

Thanks, we are taking care of this one too. You got a good point here.

Allex · #32 (**permalink**) 10-11-2006, 03:18 AM

Quote:

<H1> Canon</H1>
<H1> Canon Printer Families</H1>
<h1>Cartridge Numbers for Canon Models</h1>
<h1>Canon Ink Cartridges, Canon Printer Ink ..</h1>
<h1>Begin Your Canon Printer Ink Cartridges..</h1>
<h1>Why PrintCountry?</h1>
<h1>Disclaimer</h1>

I would agree with Peter that too much <h1> tag could be the reason...
The only thing that makes me doubt, is that there are sites, taking top positions in Google for highly competitive keywords [poker] and having even more <h1> tags [=9]... [with targeted keyword in each <h1> tag]
Example: poker.com
#3 in Google for keyword *poker*
________________
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pharmamedics · #33 (**permalink**) 10-11-2006, 04:25 AM

I've read all the comments and very glad I've done it, cause though this problem is quite unique though I found a lot of useful things for me))

Pharmamedics.com - Pharmacy Affiliate Program

amar · #34 (**permalink**) 10-11-2006, 04:51 PM

I think excessive usage of <h1> tag will be the reason for the penalty.

Regards,
Amar
Hyderabad free classifieds

kgun · #35 (**permalink**) 10-11-2006, 06:34 PM

Google KW search in Norway:

printcountry No 31.

I have read all the posts in this and the other thread at SearchEngineWatch.

I agree with the last post there

"I'd have to agree there JohnW, it seems like the pages of this website would normally rank higher for all these search phrases, but they are forcefully penalised to maximum rank #31. Having so many search terms ranking at exactly this position is just too much of a coiincidence".

Even if the results can vary accross datacenters, it is too frequent to be random.

Look at the posts above and change content and code as adviced.

Hiops · #36 (**permalink**) 10-11-2006, 09:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by khurramali

this website has some serious duplicate content issues as i see it, among many others.

You can say, it is grey hat seo now.

How did you find out about duplicate content, I'm interested in that, because I might be having the same problem?

Hiops · #37 (**permalink**) 10-11-2006, 10:15 PM

Do you use some kind of software for that?

Allex · #38 (**permalink**) 10-12-2006, 01:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rob_greenbucks

Personally I have some fairly new websites competing with big media houses - and some of my pages are listed no1 on Google for some terms..

Rob, could you please tell URLs of these *fairly new websites competing with big media houses*..

And for what terms they are *listed no1 on Google*..

Thanks.

________________
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amar · #39 (**permalink**) 10-12-2006, 07:43 AM

Hi Members,

I found a Mirror site www.printcounty.com. This site is redirected to www.printcountry.com. The mirror site is still getting crawled by Google. www.printcounty.com/+site:printcounty.com&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1]Google cache[/url]

This is the main reason for putting the site into penalty.

Coming to Google 31 position penalty, I think excessive / wrongly usage of Header tags is the main reason for this penalty.

Thanks,
Amar
Hyderabad free classifieds

arius · #40 (**permalink**) 10-12-2006, 06:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by amar

Coming to Google 31 position penalty, I think excessive / wrongly usage of Header tags is the main reason for this penalty.
Hyderabad free classifieds

Even though H1s could be excessive and not so good looking as an SEO perspective (and we are fixing that too), I am pretty sure that the penalty (or the ceiling so to speak) is 100% due to duplicate content issue (which was not done intentionally but as a error on our end).

I am sure because the H1s are done with a recent update on the site and the situation already existed then.

About the duplicate content indexation another interesting note is that those domains were not listed any where (NO WHERE) except being used in Google Adwords (and apperantly thats how they were indexed).

What is interesting and can not understand is why Google decided to assume that printeink.com was more worthy than www.printcountry.com (and appreantly was not penalized with this SERP ceiling) for this duplicate content issue? Any ideas?

amar · #41 (**permalink**) 10-12-2006, 11:45 PM

Hi Arius,

I am talking about the mirror site www.printcounty.com.
Its getting crawled regularly by Google.

Type site:printcounty.com to see the indexed pages and Google cache.

Thanks,
Amar
Hyderabad classifieds

kgun · #42 (**permalink**) 10-13-2006, 10:08 AM

May be he did not note the difference between:

printcounty

and

printcountry

I personally saw your important point the first time.

arius · #43 (**permalink**) 10-13-2006, 06:31 PM

I did notice. Thats what I am saying about the duplicate content problem that is fixed now. That printcounty (not www.printcountry.com) is there just for type in traffic (that confused customers misspelling) and also had run its own Google Adwords (so that can rank when people search for country not country), but because it was in Adwords (even though was not linked from anywhere else) Google started indexing it and the duplication problem occured. Our mistake was we did not do Permanent redirect of the domain to the main URL (i guess because a seperate ADWORDS was wanted so that it could run the keyword printcounty.com).

amar · #44 (**permalink**) 10-14-2006, 04:27 AM

I found the following network sites.

printcountry.com
printcounty.com
jupiterink.com
print-country.com
inkforprinter.com
printerinkdiscount.com

The following are the number of incoming links from the respective sites to printcountry.com.

printcounty.com - 54
jupiterink.com - 53
print-country.com - 33
inkforprinter.com - 65
printerinkdiscount.com - 31

Possible reasons for penalty:

1. Excessive number of incoming links from same site.
2. All the sites belong to one person

This might be the one of the reason for 31 position penalty. I observed similar issue in one of my clients site.

Thanks,
Amar
Hyderabad Classifieds

incrediblehelp · #45 (**permalink**) 10-16-2006, 01:17 PM

All good points here. Many levels of duplication issues, the need of 301 redirect from non-www to www, interlinking of the same co-owned and same content websites and finally blatant spamming on the pages themselves with H1 tag abuse. Much work to be done here and simple forums posts wont hope fix all of this. Hiring a professional SEO would be advisable.

seogym · #46 (**permalink**) 10-16-2006, 05:41 PM

You are right incredible help !

Regards,
Amar
Hyderabad Classifieds

kgun · #47 (**permalink**) 10-16-2006, 06:39 PM

Is this:

Google Saves Christmas, Makes Rank 31 a Penalty Box the final proof?

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