Move or Remove? The Where, Why and How of Penguins and Penalties

Presenter: Sha Menz

Lead Software Architect,

Rmoov

Twitter: @ShahMenz @rmoov
http://www.rmoov.com

Perhaps there’s a
Penguin
lurking nearby...


“Where do I Start...?”
 Understanding your Link Removal Problem

 Where to find out who is Linking to your Site

 Which Links do you need to Remove?

 Analyzing your Backlink Profile

 Tools and Tips for Link Analysis and Link Removal


Understanding your Problem
Are you facing Penguin or a Penalty?
Penguin is an Algorithmic “filter”.

It’s aimed at punishing tactics which are intended to manipulate Search Engine results.
Essentially, it is the “over-optimization” filter Matt Cutts once talked about at SMX

Penguin changes will occur when the filter is updated

What should I do?
Clean up the problems

Monitor future updates

Don’t forget On-Site Manipulation issues!

Should I just get a new Domain?
The choice is yours, but make it a “Business” choice


Understanding your Problem
Could it be a Penalty?
A Manual Penalty, or “manual Spam action” is applied by the Webspam
Team, independent of Penguin. It is entirely normal to feel crushed!
What should I do?
 Be Honest, first with yourself, and ultimately with Google!
 Don’t be overcome by feelings of powerlessness! You must keep your eye on the ball!
 Learn how to identify a Link Penalty
 Make a good faith effort to Remove offending links
 Document every step of the process
 Clean up On-Site Manipulation issues
 Lodge a Reconsideration request
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/identifying-link-penalties-in-2012


Don’t Ever Forget:
There is way more to manual penalties that just bad Links!
Any breach of Google’s Webmaster Quality Guidelines can result in a
manual penalty...

Did you know the Quality Guidelines were updated very recently?
You will find them here:
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35769

Read them often and make sure
you KNOW what they mean


That ain’t no fluffy little Penguin!
Look for these issues on your site:
Paid links that pass PageRank – Read the FINE PRINT!

Cloaking

Scraping

Doorway pages

Link schemes – Read it AGAIN!

Keyword Stuffing on a Mass Scale

Sneaky redirects

Abusing Rich Snippets Markup!!!

Sending Automated Queries to Google

Creating sites that exhibit malicious behavior

...and there are more. READ THEM!!

How do I Find Links to My Site?
Use as many sources as possible
Google Webmaster Tools is the most obvious place to
start, but there are many other places to look for link data
Try these:
• Open Site Explorer opensiteexplorer.org
• Majestic SEO www.majesticseo.com
• Ahrefs ahrefs.com/
• Bing Webmaster Tools!
• Google Analytics + Excellent Analytics !


Which Links to Remove?
Understand why a link might be troublesome
When it comes to link based penalties and more specifically Dancing With
Penguins, you need to r understand as much as possible about the issues that Google
is on the focusing on.

Be on the lookout for these:

 Sitewide footer & Blogroll Links

 Over-use of exact match anchor text

 Paid Reviews or Advertorials

 Being seen in Bad Neighborhoods

 Sytematic use of manipulative tools and techniques


Analyzing Your Backlink Profile
Link analysis should be
done by humans, with
eyes on sites.
There are lots of

helpful resources available.

This one from bruceclay.com
is good for beginners.

http://www.bruceclay.com/blog/2012/06/link-removal-flowchart/


Nothing good comes easy...
U will haz ishoooz!
Protected Domains
Country Specific Domains
Javascript Widgets used to hide content
Blogspot Blogs & other Subdomain driven blogging platforms
“Moving links” on heavily paginated sites
Links inserted via iframes from external sites – Guess Who??!


Understanding the link removal landscape
is key to managing the process and
PROCESS is what matters to Google
“make a good faith effort to remove links...”
Matt Cutts, October 2012


Let’s talk about some
of our favorite things
....


What happened at Pubcon 2012?
Matt Cutts announced the arrival of Google’s
Disavow Links Tool, but...
 Use with CAUTION
 Make every effort to physically remove links before using
 Remember that your submission is treated as a “suggestion”
 Understand that the effectiveness of disavowing links is tied to crawl
activity...it won’t happen by midnight!!!!
https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/disavow-links-main


Get the full story from Matt

 Watch the video on Youtube http://youtu.be/393nmCYFRtA

 Read the official blog post
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/a-new-tool-to-disavow-links.html


How Do I Create A Disavow List?
Most link removal tools now do this for you
rmoov auto-generates a Disavow Report for every closed
campaign
Three critical things to remember:
• Disavow entire domains
• Save .txt file with UTF-8 encoding
• Overwriting your Disavow list effectively
“reavows” the links that were there!


What about Bing’s Disavow Tool?
Bing was first to introduce a Disavow Links Tool
The Bing tool works differently

We asked Duane Forrester if Bing would provide an
upload facility similar to the Google format in the future

Duane could not confirm anything that constitutes “forward work”,
but he did say it was an interesting idea!!

If you would like Bing to accept the rmoov Disavow Report
as an upload for its tool, tweet @DuaneForrester 


What happened in my Campaign?
Summary Reports must provide complete Campaign overview

About the Report:
Upload it to Google Drive
Include clickable links to mail sent,
domain notes and screenshots
Provide a complete
summary by Domain


You have everything required
to lodge a
Reconsideration Request
and we even gave you a Checklist!
http://www.rmoov.com/google-
reconsideration-request-checklist.php


The Reconsideration Request
What you should include...
 Describe your situation
 Be honest about what has happened in the past
 Describe the manipulation issues that you are aware of
 Describe the steps you have taken to rectify issues
 Include the link to the Summary Report Google doc
 Include the link to a Google doc version of the Disavow Report if you have
disavowed links with the Google tool
 Include the date that you uploaded the Disavow list
 Ask politely for the Webspam Team to reconsider the way your site is
indexed


Move or Remove? The Where, Why and How of Penguins and Penalties

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Move or Remove? The Where, Why and How of Penguins and Penalties