What You Need to Know Before Conducting a Technical Website Audit

This post was originally published on White.net

You have just spent the last week knee-deep in data and technical issues whilst crawling through a website. You have identified a large number of technical issues, and a major blocker that will drastically help improve search engine rankings. You have put together the document, talked the client through it, who thanked you for putting it together and said that it looks great, and can’t wait to see the results of the changes.

A couple of days later, you get the call. Oh don’t you hate it when you get THE call! We can do the implementations no problem, but! Oh no, not the dreaded but. It’s going to take some time, the IT team have said they need to spec out the requirements, work out how to do half of it, and it’s probably going to take six months to implement the basic recommendations. Head, smack!, desk!

How many times have you heard that story? But whose fault is it? Is it the IT team, who didn’t inform you of what is required for each change, or is it yours because you didn’t ask about the process to get website changes made, no matter how simple they may be?

Below I have provided five key questions to ask before you start your technical audit.

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Investigating Panda & Duplicate Content Issues

This post was originally published on White.net

During a recent analysis of a website (blog with less than 50k visitors a week), we came across some interesting factors that led to us taking a different approach to investigation.

The Problem:

  • The site faced 20-40% drop in traffic corresponding with periods in roll outs of the Panda Algorithm.
  • The site saw a loss in rankings, but no consistency across them – some keywords moved down a few positions, while others went off the first 2-3 pages of the SERPs.
  • The site is a blog, and as a result most of the content written was original and unique, and written by a single person based on their research and experience.
  • The site has been in existence for over 6 years and attracts a lot of natural links – in fact no link building to the site has ever been carried out.

From the above, this doesn’t seem like your typical target for Panda, but the dates of the traffic drops were too much of a coincidence.

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The Internets Darkest Day

Yesterday was an historic moment in the Internets short history, with some of the biggest websites going on strike. The blackout is in protest of Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect Intelluctal Property Act (PIPA) legislation that is being put to the US Government.

We can’t let poorly thought out laws get in the way of the internet’s development. Facebook opposes SOPA and PIPA, and we will continue to oppose any laws that will hurt the internet. – Mark Zucherburg – Founder of Facebook

Some of the largest websites in the world, for 24 hours blacked out parts of, or in some cases the entire website in protest. Thus, showing what the internet could be like if the law actually came into force.

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