Comment on Stallion Responsive WordPress SEO Theme by SEO Dave.

Stallion WordPress SEO Package The Stallion WordPress Plugin is quite a simple plugin, all it does is add canonical URLs to the header of the pages you set under the options page. You’ll find the same options under “Stallion Responsive” >> “Advanced SEO Options” : “Stallion WordPress SEO Plugin”. Only around 10 options.

If you got an error message in your log files might help me track down the cause.

SEO wise the plugin is only important if you tend to noindex sections of your site (like all your dated archives). Built the plugin because of some poorly thought out features built into plugins like Yoast WordPress SEO and All In One SEO Pack. In the wrong hands those plugins can decimate a sites rankings by blocking half the site and wasting most of the hard earned link benefit!

I try to setup sites so the feature isn’t needed, there really shouldn’t be any sections (sections, not the odd webpage) of a site you don’t want indexing by Google. So you probably don’t need it.

I’ve put all the real SEO features into Stallion Responsive.

You might find this article interesting: How to Search Engine Optimize Political Blogs, it’s regarding the Naked Capitalism site http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/.

You have a similar sort of website, most of the content SEO wise doesn’t have a very long shelf life because it’s news. The old saying “Today’s news is tomorrow’s fish & chip paper” comes to mind, what news is searched for today is not a month from now. My UK General Election site on election day (in 2010) gained so much traffic it crashed the server to a degree I couldn’t login to anything, not even SHH (like a massive DDOS attack), but a month or so later the traffic died. My election site has a trickle of traffic now, not added any new content in years and those types of website need regular updates: your website would go the same way if you stopped content creation.

Looks like Naked Capitalism didn’t follow my advice regarding their title tags, they still have them the wrong way around. Looks like they’ve seen a traffic drop since Google Panda 4.0, they’ve speculated it’s a combination of some messed up search engine spider rules (blocking Chinese SPAM bots that went wrong and rules also blocked Googlebot!) and their sitewide blogroll links (relatively large) and regular posts with a list of external links. Makes their site look like a low quality link farm/news aggregator resulting in a drop to around 40K visitors a month (if I read correctly their traffic has halved).

You don’t have the not so good SEO wise title tags, you’ve added no branding to your titles which means all the SEO benefit goes to the title of posts (that’s good). You don’t have a large set of sitewide external links and don’t post regular lists of links. Ignoring the ads your sidebars and footer area is relatively clean: take away the ads and there’s hardly anything on your sidebars. Since ads tend to be served with javascript that Google tends not to index, Google reads your main content (your articles) as quite targeted.

You also have added a LOT more content and I see a lot of celebrity type content which is very popular: do more people search for who Justin Bieber dates or who their local politician dates :-) Which explains why your site has significantly more traffic, more content and it’s targeted at higher traffic niches.

Both your sites are doing poorly mobile responsive wise and this is becoming important to Google rankings.

The way I see Google SEO is a bit like the Buckaroo Game, a website makes SEO mistakes (no site is perfect), if they make too many mistakes Google slaps it hard, if it’s a small number of mistakes there will be a small downgrading for those mistakes (might not even notice them) and not a combined affect plus SLAP for doing too much SEO stuff wrong.

Naked Capitalism has made the SEO mistake of a large sitewide bogroll, that’s a big bucket added to the horses back, but not enough to make it Buckaroo.

Naked Capitalism has made the SEO mistake of creating posts with just links lists, looks like a link farm to Google, we have a pick axe added to the horses back, still not enough to make it Buckaroo.

Naked Capitalism hasn’t updated their theme to be mobile responsive, another SEO mistake, a small hammer is added to the back of the horse, still not enough to make it Buckaroo.

Unlike the Buckaroo Game, Google changes the rules on a regular basis (algorithm updates). In Google Panda 4.0 (May 2014), Google decides being a link farm warrants more of a negative SEO value, the pick axe just doubled in weight enough to make the horse Buckaroo!

Your site has made the SEO mistake of a lot of ads, that’s a small bucket added to the horses back, but not enough to make it Buckaroo.

Your site hasn’t updated their theme to be mobile responsive, another SEO mistake, a small hammer is added to the back of the horse, still not enough to make it Buckaroo.

Your site has made the SEO mistake of loading a lot of javascript and CSS files resulting in poor Google PageSpeed Insights results, we have a pick axe added to the horses back, still not enough to make it Buckaroo.

Is the above SEO mistakes today enough to warrant a Buckaroo today? Probably not, but what about at the next Google algo update and the one after that, what about Google SEO in 2015??

Never wait to get slapped by Google, once you get that SLAP you loose your Google trust and have to build it back again, even if you remove enough mistakes to not be slapped now, because you got slapped it’s not enough, you have to go whiter than white to regain the trust back!

If it were my site I’d try to reduce the negative SEO issues, figure out which ads actually convert and keep them, switch to a mobile responsive theme, try to reduce the need for so many javascript and CSS files. Check your Google PageSpeed Insights results and fix as many issues as possible, some are easy to fix like optimizing images, minifying HTMl/CSS… Remove as many reasons as possible why Google might SLAP a site when they change their algo next.

David