Google's updates turn peoples entire lives & businesses upside down without warning but there has also been lots of winners feeling the opposite effects. Here are 5 sites that survived the Google Penguin 3 update, we'll take a close look at their link building strategies, traffic & rankings!

1. matthewwoodward.co.uk http://www.matthewwoodward.co.uk/experiments/penguin-3/
5 Sites That Survived Penguin 3 & Their Link Building
Strategies Revealed
On October 17th Google rolled out a refresh for Penguin marking the 6th update to the algorithm since it was
launched in April 2012.
A lot of the posts I have read have focused on the ‘losers’ of the update so I want to take a look at some winners.
What You Will Learn
All about the Penguin update
Examples of 5 sites that survived & their link building strategies
Why this is the best Penguin update so far
What you should be doing
What you shouldn’t be doing
2 simple link building rules I follow
Google really choose their times to roll out these updates, not only did they drop it on a Friday night that had
millions cancel their weekend plans but they have done it right before the start of the Christmas shopping season.
As with every Google update peoples entire lives & businesses have being turned upside down without warning.
But on the flip side there have been a lot of winners feeling the opposite effects.
I’m going to show you a few sites that have won during the update and reveal key details like site age, number of
indexed pages, content strategy, were they using analytics/webmaster tools, link building strategy & niche.
But before we get into that let’s take a closer look at what we know about Penguin 3 so far.
What We Know About Penguin 3
On Monday Pierre Far posted a message on Google+ confirming Penguin 3 which is embedded below-
You should always pay attention to how Google word things and from that we know that-
1. It started on October 17th (Friday night)
2. The update is still ongoing
3. It’s a global update
4. So far it only affects 1% of US search queries
5. It is a refresh, meaning the actual algorithm hasn’t been updated
Really all that means is the update hasn’t taken full affect yet and as of Monday had only affected US search
queries. So if you haven’t been hit, don’t start celebrating just yet.
A Friendlier Penguin
What is evident is that this update has been a very soft Penguin update compared to past updates.
Granted Google say they haven’t finished rolling it out yet but usually in the initial days everyone is going stir crazy
– this is like a gentle tickle compared to previous uppercuts.

2. If we take a look at MozCast you wouldn’t even know an update happened-
That is also backed up by SERP Metrics that shows little activity around the update time but showed a huge spike
at the start of October.
However if we look at the SERPS volatility tracker they did register a very small fluctuation around the time of the
update.
It is only really when we look at Algoroo does the update really stand out from the crowd-

3. But even so there wasn’t that much of a fluctuation – no way near that of Penguin 2.0 so it does appear that
Google haven’t really introduced anything new to the algorithm and simply refreshed it’s data.
In fact the Moz team went all out on their criticism of the update and just how little it actually did.
The Good News
One of the biggest problems with the last Penguin update was that it was over a year ago on October 4th 2013.
That means that anyone that got hit at that point has been unable to recover even if they cleaned up their link
profiles and submitted reconsideration requests. Until the data is refreshed it is all meaningless as its an
algorithmic penalty not a manual one.
This has created a lot of frustration and in response Google have confirmed that Penguin refreshes will happen
much more regularly now just as they do with Panda.
Have You Been Hit?
Everything indicates this is nothing more than a refresh of the updates they added over a year ago.
So if you have being hit it is because your link building strategy was not Penguin 2.0 or 2.1 proof to begin with.
Not because Google have added new signals, they have just updated the data.
What that does mean though is we already have a good idea of how to recover a site that has been hit with
Penguin 3. There is nothing ‘new’ to work out and is just a case of cleaning things up and awaiting the next
refresh.
So if you have been penalised do not worry, it is easier to recover from Penguin now than ever before.
Penguin 3 Recovery Case Study
Yesterday saw the first Penguin 3 recovery case study come to light. This tells the story of a site that got hit by
Penguin 2.0 but recovered with Penguin 3.
They lost 66% of their organic traffic which had huge real world knock on effects for everyone in the business.
After cleaning up their link profile nothing happened – until Penguin 3 was released and they saw a 300%
recovery in organic traffic.
Over the coming weeks more and more of these case studies will be published, which will help you analyse and
improve your own SEO efforts in time for the next refresh.
I will be including these in my monthly link round ups as I find them!
Sites That Beat Penguin 3
So let’s take a look at some real world examples of sites that either beat Penguin 3, saw huge increases or
recovered with the update.

4. All of these examples are client sites. One of the advantages of an SEO agency is you get to work with a lot of
sites of all different shapes and sizes across a wide variety of niches.
I’m going to reveal as much as I can about the sites without breaking client confidentiality.
Site 1 – IT Software
This site is for a big international IT software company that my team have been working with for the past 3
months.
This is a particularly strange example because the site has took a hit across some lower traffic terms while high
traffic target terms have jumped.
At this stage it is hard to say if this is directly related to Penguin but it certainly correlates with the update.
Site 1 Details
Here are all of the dirty details of the site-
Age Of Site: Created Feb 2002 (12 years old) – no drops
# Indexed Pages: 172,000
Hosting: Dedicated
Whois Protection: No
Using Google WMT: Yes
Using Google Analytics: Yes
Content Added: Weekly
Type Of Content: Sales & info pages for products & regular blog posts
Link Building Strategy: White hat out reach & PR
Budget: £3,500
Site 1 Ranking
Here is a screenshot of the rankings-

5. Site 1 Traffic
Here you can see how the update affected traffic-
Site 2 – Kids Clothing & Toys E-Commerce

6. This is a unique site my team work with since August that sells a range of clothing & toys for children online.
Looking at rankings you can see they have had great increases during the Penguin 3 update with traffic growing
steadily.
Interestingly they made the swap to HTTPS 2 weeks ago which results in a fluctuation in the number of indexed
pages as Google replaces the HTTP version with the HTTPS version of the site.
Site 2 Details
Here are all of the dirty details of the site-
Age Of Site: Created 1994, acquired by current company in 2013
# Indexed Pages: 652,000
Hosting: Dedicated
Whois Protection: No
Using Google WMT: Yes
Using Google Analytics: Yes
Content Added: Daily
Type Of Content: New products with unique content are added daily along with the occasional blog post
Link Building Strategy: White hat out reach & PR bolstered by a few exclusive private blog networks
Budget: £2,700
Site 2 Ranking
Here is a screenshot of the rankings-

7. Site 2 Traffic
Here you can see how the update affected traffic-
Site 3 – Dieting/Nutrition
This site is one of the longer serving clients that focuses on dieting and nutrition which has quickly dominated the

8. entire niche.
As the site has been ranked with private blog networks it has delivered consistently good quality content seeing
over 400,000 Facebook fans which in turn earns a lot of natural links.
It has remained steady since April and throughout the Penguin 3 update ranking for some big terms including
27100, 90500, 110000 & 555000 monthly volume keywords.
Previously the site owner had been wiped out by Penguin and started this site while 301’ing the old Penguin
penalised site to this new one.
Site 3 Details
Here are all of the dirty details of the site-
Age Of Site: October 2013
# Indexed Pages: 2,100
Hosting: Shared
Whois Protection: Yes
Using Google WMT: No
Using Google Analytics: No
Content Added: Weekly
Type Of Content: Recipes & diet information
Link Building Strategy: Pure private blog network strategy but now earns tons of natural links due to
niche dominance
Budget: £2,700
Site 3 Ranking
Here is a screenshot of the rankings-

9. Site 4 – Pet Products
This is an Australian site that my team have been working on since May with a spammy link history and got hit
with Penguin previously.
It is an exact match .com.au domain and solely targets Australian SERPs.
Site 4 Details
Here are all of the dirty details of the site-
Age Of Site: Created 2009, acquired by current owner in 2012
# Indexed Pages: 2,840
Hosting: Dedicated
Whois Protection: No
Using Google WMT: Yes
Using Google Analytics: Yes
Content Added: Rarely

10. Type Of Content: Product pages with unique content, no blog or content marketing
Link Building Strategy: Pure private blog network
Budget: $1,500
Site 4 Ranking
Here is a screenshot of the rankings for the Penguin 3 update-
And here you can see a longer term look at the rankings-

11. Site 4 SEMRush
Unfortunately I don’t have the long long term data available as they have only been with the agency since May.
But this screenshot from SEMRush shows their organic search growth since 2011 and shows when they hit with a
previous Penguin update in October 2013.
Site 5 – Playground Manufacturer

12. This company manufactures and sells children’s playgrounds and have been working with them since June.
When they first started they had absolutely zero search visibility.
Site 5 Details
Here are all of the dirty details of the site-
Age Of Site: Created 1998, acquired by current owner in 2011
# Indexed Pages: 505
Hosting: Dedicated
Whois Protection: No
Using Google WMT: Yes
Using Google Analytics: Yes
Content Added: Rarely
Type Of Content: Product & info pages about the business with a few blog posts
Link Building Strategy: Pure private blog network with a couple of 301’s
Budget: $2,000
Site 5 Ranking
Here is a screenshot of the rankings-

13. Site 5 Traffic
Here you can see how the update affected traffic-
So What Has Changed?
Well not a lot really – this is just a data refresh and because of that we already know what doesn’t work and what
does.
Many people have evolved their link building tactics since the last Penguin update by using much more varied
anchor texts surrounded by relevant content, while others haven’t.
So here is a guide of what you should be avoiding and what is working as of now.
Things To Avoid
1. Irrelevant spammy links
2. Over optimised anchor text
3. Unnatural spikes in link velocity
4. Single links – eg no surrounding content just the link
Things That Work
1. Truly private blog/site networks built right (there is a clue in the wording)
2. Relevant links with relevant content
3. Spun content
4. Mixing up your anchor texts & using branded/generic terms
5. Traditional outreach, broken link building, PR (not press releases)
6. Strong social followings/engagement
I also think you should spend some time thinking about Scrittys predications – bear in mind they are nothing more
than opinion, but that is opinion rooted with years of hands on experience.
Always think to the future with your link building. Experienced SEO’s that have ridden the waves of the past few
years have great insights on what could come next and are worth you spare thoughts.
Even so – despite all of the updates my link building still lives and dies by 2 simple rules.
2 Simple Link Building Rules
I have 2 simple link building rules one is defining the holy grail of links as a relevant link surrounded by relevant
content from an authoritative domain.
You can not get a better quality link than that and that is exactly the type of link we can create with truly private
blog/site networks and have full control of. Nothing has changed in that regard.

14. The other link building rule I live by is simply “If it’s good enough to be in Google’s index, it’s good enough to link
to my site”.
Spun content is still indexing well for me and as such it is good enough to point to my sites. The same is true if a
domain is indexed in Google, a link from that domain is good enough for my site as long as its surrounded by
relevant content with a relevant link.
This has remained true throughout all of the updates and if you combine the simplistic approach of both you end
up with a diverse profile in terms of relevancy and authority.
WARNING: Steal Your Competitors Search Rankings, Traffic & Income
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