content, freshness, and seo for large sites-- a case study
DESCRIPTION
This case study reviews the SEO impact of fresh content on a large business site that had seen 70% drop in traffic after Google Panda. The study reveals how the site was able to create content at scale, what worked, what didn't work, and how they achieved a 30%+ boost in traffic for more than half the pages studied.TRANSCRIPT
Content, Freshness, and SEOFor Large Sites
Katherine VanderDriftDirector of SEOServio
The Market Leader in E-commerce Content Services
•Content Creation•Industrial-Strength SEO•Data Categorization
Customer Case Study
OVERVIEW
Leading Business Content Site
• Business Directory• Business Resources• Average Monthly Traffic: >2.5 Million• Revenue Model• Yearly Listing• Adsense
CASE STUDYROUND 1
Project 1: Create Business Tips and Advice• Add Fresh Content• 55% of Content on Page to Be
Fresh After Addition• Across 1,000 URLs in Three Months
PROBLEM?OLD CONTENT
Up to 13 Years Old
(Add “&as_qdr=y15” to end of query to see the date content was published)
I’m The Original Content!
I’m The Original Content!
PROBLEM?SCRAPED CONTENT
Competitors Scraped ContentCreated Significant Canoncial Issues
PAGE ANATOMY
METHOD
• 200 Urls Analyzed • Reviewed Ranking Data Before and After
METHOD
• 200 URLs Analyzed • Reviewed Ranking Data Before and After
RESULTS
62% Did Not Change12% Dropped Slightly 26% Increased Slightly
INITIAL CONCLUSIONS
• Page Anatomy: Not Enough Change• Poor Ad-To-Content Ratio• Important Part of Page – Not
Changed• Ratio of Fresh, Unique Content
versus Old, Duplicate Content
ROUND 2
Create Business Guides & Tips• Percentage of Fresh, Unique Content Added: 100%
PAGE ANATOMYBefore After
RESULTS
No Measurable Change
10-30% Increase >30%0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
Improvement In Search Ranking
CONCLUSIONS
• Content Ratios Are Key– Fresh Versus Old– Unique Versus Duplicate– Content Versus Ads
CAVEATS
• Adding content is one of several techniques Business.com used to improve rankings, and the results achieved should take all changes into account.
• While many pages on the site were old, this study did not separately track the age of the pages we added content to. Results may vary based on the age of pages on a given site.
