Help! What would you do?

[Storebuilder]

Hi Guys,
Today I received my fifth rejection request from google to have the "thin content penalty" lifted from the casinoexpert site.

At this point I can either:

A: Give up on the site and move all the content to my sports betting site.

B: Add more content to the casino site in the hope that it solves the problem. It may not be the answer though. You could continue adding hundreds more pages of content and if google deems them "thin content" (available here there and everywhere) then you are still in the same position. Just a lot poorer.

Part of the problem is that once you receive the penalty you don't rank for anything and so you don't make any money. Normally you'd just grow the site naturally but in this situation having been singled out for treatment it's difficult to justify continuing.

Any ideas much appreciated.

[thebookiesoffers]

personally i'd remove all the flags and payment method images and replace it with actual words, same on your casino reviews page, also why not add a brief snippet overall intro or something about the casino

[Storebuilder]

Thanks for that I'll get it done. I didn't want to destroy the "look" of the site but that makes sense.

[Storebuilder]

Well sometimes it just needs another pair of eyes. That has made a massive difference already. Thanks Bookies!

[Doolally]

I have McAfee installed and it flags up this warning page when I go to your site. Lots of others will have it installed too and will avoid the site rather than take a risk.

McAfee Link to warning page: xxhttp://www.siteadvisor.com/restricted.html?domain=http:%2F%2Fwww.casinoexpert .co.uk%2F&originalURL=985022430&pip=false&premium= false&client_uid=2888183046&client_ver=4.0.2.173&c lient_type=IEPlugin&suite=true&aff_id=105&locale=e n_gb&ui=1&os_ver=6.2.0.0

[wonderpunter]

Your content is duplicated multiple times, every page has the same reviews.. bet365 homepage + casino review category pages, + main review post, I would no index category pages, or get rid of the excerpts or write some unique excerpts

[Storebuilder]

[QUOTE=Doolally;813136]I have McAfee installed and it flags up this warning page when I go to your site. Lots of others will have it installed too and will avoid the site rather than take a risk.

Thanks - I've emailed mcafee and asked them to review it.

[Storebuilder]

Your content is duplicated multiple times, every page has the same reviews.. bet365 homepage + casino review category pages, + main review post, I would no index category pages, or get rid of the excerpts or write some unique excerpts

Thanks Wonder, it wasn't a problem until I enabled the text description so I guess the best thing to do is to noindex the category pages. Thanks!

[baldidiot]

Your content is duplicated multiple times, every page has the same reviews.. bet365 homepage + casino review category pages, + main review post, I would no index category pages, or get rid of the excerpts or write some unique excerpts

I think that's a recent thing - sounds like it was implement on 'bookies advice.

Looking at the cache I can see why he suggested this - the main pages were primarily images.

But now you have an issue with duplicate content - even if you deindex the category pages the summaries still appear on both the home page and review page. Personally I'd rewrite them. Makes sense too, on these pages you should be summarising the site so the user can decide whether or not they want to read the review, rather than just the intro to the review.

[Storebuilder]

But now you have an issue with duplicate content - even if you deindex the category pages the summaries still appear on both the home page and review page. Personally I'd rewrite them. Makes sense too, on these pages you should be summarising the site so the user can decide whether or not they want to read the review, rather than just the intro to the review.

Yes introducing the text has now brought up a whole new set of problems. I'll have a think before making more drastic changes otherwise I'll end up chasing my tail.

One possibility is to do away with the category pages altogether in favour of a page of text with a simple menu.

Thanks for your help.

[RacingJim]

Google is a tough master to please, but yeh I did think the feel of the website was bit 'adverty', as if reading an advertorial rather than one of a true review/in-depth type of site. That's not to say it isn't perfectly fine for what it's trying to do and hundreds of other sites get away with the same thing without Google coming knocking. I think once Google get their teeth into you though it's tough work to come back from it.

[Storebuilder]

You're right there Jim. And it's no use moaning about it either. Coming back from this penalty will be a major achievement.

I'll strip it back to basics which is a shame because it did look a great site especially on Ipads.

[Storebuilder]

Good news! Your reconsideration request has been approved and Google has removed any manual action on your site. Bear in mind that removal of a manual action doesn’t guarantee that your site’s ranking will increase.

Thanks to everyone who chipped in with help and advice.

[Storebuilder]

And today Mcafee lifted their "this site is spam" notifications and it has a green tick! Thanks Doolally!

[thebookiesoffers]

how long do google usually take with the requests? Got a new site built on an expired domain and the domain is carrying a penalty from before it expired. put the request in last week but nothing yet

[Storebuilder]

If its the same penalty - thin content penalty - then I waited a month for the first review and after that 2-3 weeks at a time.

[thebookiesoffers]

If its the same penalty - thin content penalty - then I waited a month for the first review and after that 2-3 weeks at a time.

massive spam one with the looks of it. think they left the site and it got hacked before they let it expire, i think

[Storebuilder]

You should have a message in webmaster tools which gives you the reason the site is excluded and an error code that lets you know what you need to fix.

[thebookiesoffers]

yeah loads of spam

Some manual actions apply to entire site

	Reason	Affects
	Pure spam Pages on this site appear to use aggressive spam techniques such as automatically generated gibberish, cloaking, scraping content from other websites, and/or repeated or egregious violations of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. Learn more.

[Celebrationbird]

Avarage for a first page result website has around 1800 words on the homepage. Make sure to make all content as valuable as possible and link out to other relevant good ranking websites as an alternative to yours. Watch links as a user resource and not as a power metric in this situation. IMO.