As I was exploring the reason behind why some of the top micro niche sites have lost traffic, I realized that this is due to the EMD update by Matt Cutts. The same update affected my sites as well. One of the biggest impacts was seen on my new website that I recently launched on arts and craft hobby ideas. The site was launched by me just about 3 months ago and I picked up Rank 2 for the targeted keywords in no time. Unfortunately, the website lost all its ranking after the EMD update, the result of which was my site getting dropped from the 1st page to somewhere not in the search results.

I was shattered to the core and thought that all my hard work has gone waste. Then, I decided to look into the matter of what this EMD update is all about and the ways to recover from such a blow. Below I share my understanding of this update and how we all can recover from the loss.

So, what are exact match domains?

EMD or the exact match domains are the domain names that have exact match keywords. For instance, “howtomakemoneyonline” or “SEO-services-for-you” are the perfect examples of the exact match domains. Earlier, such domains have higher rankings in the top search engines even though they had low quality content. This was so because then the search engines gave importance to the exact match keyword in the URL.

But thanks courtesy the EMD update, all the exact match domain sites have now been penalized and have been thrown out from the search results.

Here is Matt Cutt’s most popular tweet confirming EMD update. 

 

Image Credit :- searchengineacademy.com

More examples of the EMD sites:

A: www.budgettravelaccomodation.com

To target the customers who are looking forward to get budget travel accommodation options and traveling tips.

B: www.best-weight-loss-supplements.com

To target the users wishing to know or buy the best weight loss supplements.

Thus, now, when you are aware of what these domains or sites are that have been penalized hard, let us not waste time any longer and know how to best recover from such a brunt.

How to recover from EMD Penalty?

This is indeed the million dollar question that is heard everywhere these days. When Penguin and Panda updates were launched, many experts gave the tips on how to recover. However, this is not the situation with the EMD update. The penalty here is for the low quality websites with EMD URLs. Though Matt Cutts reported that this will just affect the low quality websites that have the exact match domains, it is believed that many sites with the EMD have lost traffic that they were getting earlier from the exact match keywords.

So, follow the useful guidelines and tips mentioned below to recover from the update and take your sites to the position they were in the past.

Tip # 1

Take out time from your schedule to re write the poor quality content that may be there on your site or blog. Also, add high quality original, fresh and latest details or content to your site in order to survive and recover from the EMD update. Don’t just leave your site to bring in the traffic in an automatic manner. Rather, add fresh and original content on a regular basis. You even need to remove all the duplicate content and check if there are any sort of broken links.

Tip # 2

Combine various micro niche websites into one authority site. Now it is no longer a nice idea to own many small sites and blogs scattered here and there with variants of main keyword. It is better to combine them into a single, authority website.

Tip # 3

It will be nice to participate on the social networking websites such as Twitter, Google+ and Facebook. Ensure that you increase the social visibility of your site. More so, work on your website presence in the social networking websites. Make Twitter profile, Facebook pages and more.

Tip # 4

Increase the authority back links through guest posting and blog commenting on the quality websites of your niche. Even the domain age and powerful back link profile matter a lot. It has been seen that the new sites are more affected by the EMD update than the older ones. Surely, the older websites have more of natural back lines and the new ones have low back links.

Tighten your seat belts

As soon as you follow these tips, you can then move towards filing the reconsideration request to the search engines using the Webmaster Tools. It is imperative to remember that 301 Redirection will not help you out in any way. There are many people who hold the belief that through the 301 redirection to some new domain, they can solve the problem. As the domain value of the site has been busted, through 301 redirection, you will not be able to get back your rankings.

Go for it

So, to conclude, it can be said that continue with good, original, quality work and have great content and links. Just forget about domain value and instead, lay stress on branding. Try creating your brand image and invest time to promote your site in the social media platform.  Get rid of all the low quality content and broken links. Further, forget about fast recovery from the penalty. The domain value of your site has been downgraded or removed and you actually need to build it again from a scratch.