There’s been a lot written on the subject of how to recover your website from the Google panda penalty – but not many people I’ve seen have actually done it. One man who has is Andy at Make Money Ninja – and in this revealing interview he tells us how it’s done. Visit: http://www.contentchampion.com/how-to-recover-from-panda

1. cont ent champion.com http://www.contentchampion.com/how-to-recover-from-panda/
All talk of SEO aside, how cute is this?
Loz James
How To Recover From Panda With Andy of Make Money Ninja
There’s been a lot written on the subject of how to recover your website f rom the Google panda penalty – but
not many people I’ve seen have actually done it. One man who has is Andy at Make Money Ninja – and in this
revealing interview he tells us how it’s done.
I also talked to Andy about what’s currently working in SEO, the content arms race and building your online
business. Enjoy
1. For readers who don’t know youAndy, could you outline where you
blog and what your online business model/philosophy is please?
Sure, I blog at www.makemoneyninja.com. The site is basically my personal blog
where I talk about SEO and running online content businesses.
My core business model is the same. I run multiple websites in the iGaming industry
based almost purely on SEO as a traf f ic source.
My main business philosophy is around being prolif ic. I honestly believe I am one of
the hardest working people in the industry and I perf orm a lot better than my competition not by knowing

2. anything unique or amazing, but by working harder on my business than them.
2. Again, for people reading who might not know about Google panda, could you explain a bit
of the background on this and how it differs from the penguin penalty?
Panda is a Google algorithm that was designed to separate sites with good content and bad content. It’s been
Google’s attempt to weed poor quality and spammy sites f rom the index. It’s almost purely based around on-
page f actors and the user experience visitors get.
Penguin on the other hand is a newer algorithm that was released to target link spam and webmasters
manipulating the core of Google’s algorithm. In short it penalizes webmasters with unnatural link prof iles.
3. Before we get into your panda recovery strategies, could you tell us where you’d got to
with your online business before your sites tanked. You were making a six-figure income I
believe?
Yeah I was doing quite well bef ore I suf f ered a bunch of penalties over the last two years, some I recovered
f rom and some I didn’t.
4. What SEO techniques were you deploying to rank your sites pre-panda?
Pre panda everything about SEO was simple. It was just about content and links. Get as much content on your
site as possible, targeting as many keywords as possible, then get as many links of whatever kind to your site.
It was easy to rank, all it took was a little bit of hard work.
Now SEO’s have to jump through many more hoops in terms of quality and need to watch out f or Panda,
Penguin and other algorithmic f ilters. It really has gotten a lot tougher to stay ranked over the long term.
5. Ok, so we get to the day your sites started to crash when the panda penalty hit – was it a
gradual process or did they all tank at once?
I would say the process has been gradual. Since Panda was launched I have had multiple sites be penalized by
various iterations of Panda.
Because I have quite a lot of sites, I will of ten get a couple of them drop with each Google update/data ref resh.
At the same time I will of ten have a f ew recover as well. So f or the most part it is a mixed bag with my mini
sites.
I do however have a couple of authority sites in the niche I target. These are large sites of between 100 and
2000 pages and have had a lot of work and investment go in to each one, so when I suf f er a penalty with
these sites it’s kind of a big deal because each site is earning me over 4-f igures a month.

3. Thanks for your input Darth.
6. Obviously, you were
using some
aggressive SEO
strategies on your
money sites, but what
slammed them
hardest and why?
I think with most major
updates, like most people,
I see a big f lux in my sites
traf f ic, some doing better
and some doing worse. No
single Panda or Penguin
update has completely
wiped me out or
dramatically ruined my
business.
The thing that makes really
competitive industries like
casino, poker and other
iGaming industries
dif f erent is that that no natural links exist, period.
Well let me rephrase that, it’s possible to get natural links and PR in some cases. But the actual rewards f or
doing that in these industries will just be dwarf ed and spammers, link buyers and intelligent SEO’s will outrank
you.
I know this sounds a little bit cynical, but the tactics like link outreach that are the pillar of white hat SEO don’t
really work in this niche as well as others. Af ter all, who wants to link to an online casino review, or a site about
a poker bonus code, quite simply no one does.
But to answer your original question, the main tactics that tanked my sites were:
• Low quality, thin content. • Mass links, f rom bad neighbourhoods with optimized anchor text. • Too many
af f iliate links onsite.
Essentially in order to rank you need to break the rules in this niche. So it’s all about breaking the rules in the
smartest and most intelligent way to create a sustainable and prof itable business.
In order to do that I have basically created a strategy that works around creating my massive authority sites
that are very non aggressive and unlikely to get penalized. And then creating various churn and burn satellite
sites with the main aim of ranking f or a f ew individual keywords, not spending too much time on them, and just
f ocusing on a good ROI.
7. What exactly have you done to recover from the panda penalties on your site, and how did
you work this out. Has your income returned to what it was before?

4. On the sites that have been penalized, the ones that I haven’t been able to get back tend to be my small sites.
Once these sites are penalized either f or bad links or Panda related f actors, it’s almost impossible to get them
back without making some huge changes and making the site much better. These sites I tend to let die and just
leave them like that.
The sites I have recovered have been my large authority sites. The main things I have changed on these sites
to get them ranking again are:
• Increasing content length and helpf ulness. • De-optimize content and target keywords less aggressively. •
More images and rich media. • Responsive themes. • Less af f iliate links and adverts.
Personally, I think the easiest way to get a site un-penalized is to look at a selection of sites that will never get
penalized by Google and copy the page f ormatting aspects of these sites, as well as how the content is
structured. This will ultimately lead to you create a site that is 1) f lat out better than it used to be and
resonates with humans, and 2) Google will algorithmically reward, or at the very least, not penalize.
I’ve written more detail about this process on my blog here.
8. What’s the best strategy going forward, short-term churn and burn SEO on small money-
makers, or long-term ‘white hat’ brand building on authority sites – what’s your take on this?
Right now I implement both strategies.
Although Google is heading in a direction that is making it harder f or churn and burners to rank, you can never
tell what they are going to do next. Personally I have had several sites that were banished just pop up again
ranking f irst page in the last f ew months, and when I look at them objectively, I know these sites should not
rank, yet they do.
But at the same time, the trend is clear; these sites won’t be around f or the long term, I can almost guarantee
that.
I think what is cool about my own personal strategy though is that these satellite sites are a great way f or me
to:
• Test out what is working and not working with aggressive SEO. • Launder links and create good properties to
link back to my less aggressive authority sites.
The second part is key. Let’s say I have XYZ casino authority site, getting natural and good links to that site is
actually very hard due to the niche. Sure I can reverse engineer my competitors prof ile and steal their best links,
which I do, but at a certain point you are all getting (or purchasing) the same links, so you have no competitive
edge.
At that point, if I create my own network of satellite sites, by pointing aggressive links at them, I create some
kind of buf f er between my less aggressive, long-term sites and my aggressive short terms sites. I call this
strategy “link laundering” and allows me to get the link juice f rom other sites without taking huge risks with my
authority sites.
Personally I f ind this strategy ef f ective, although you have to be very clued in and good at SEO to get away
with this. I would not endorse this strategy f or a newbie, quite simply because the amount of ef f ort needed to
create something like this is hard, the money investment is large overall and you have to be very intelligent and
not make quite a f ew easy mistakes.

5. Bit aggressive but you get the point.
Other than this, the only other sustainable strategy I see working is creating huge authority sites, with lots of
good content and be very non aggressive with links and do everything by the book. If you can create good
sites, this is basically the only way to do things without risking penalization.
Doing churn and burn sites on their own is simply not a good long-term business model. I am sure some people
can do it, and I have respect f or anyone who can do it as a f ull time business, I just f ind it very risky, and a hard
way to get long-term returns, so I would not recommend that.
9. What SEO and
link building
strategies do
you see working
going into 2014
– are social
media signals
and other
factors now
gaining more
importance?
Right now I think we
have a content
arms race. Creating
large sites that are
f requently updated
with content the
algorithm thinks is
good is important.
When it comes to
link building a lot of
the low quality link
methods are becoming more and more inef f ective. At a certain point in the next f ew years, almost all
automated tools will become more and more inef f ective to the point where it’s not worth spending your time
using them.
For example, take a tool like SE Nuke, a couple of years ago it was quite easy to rank a site purely with that
tool, now it’s possible (not out of the box) but the ef f ectiveness in general is going down as time goes on. So
over the next couple of years I am almost positive we will see diminishing returns with automated tools.
Right now high PR/PA authority links are still working. The core of the algorithm hasn’t changed all that much.
Links still matter; it’s just the right type of links that are important.
Private networks, link purchases, press releases, guest posting and all that still work.
As f or social signals, I can’t say that they have had a massive positive ef f ect on my sites. I f eel like they are
still much less important than links. I have also f ound them temporary in nature, so the positive ef f ects don’t
seem to last long, unless you are getting say a constant drip of new signals.

6. 10. What’s your view on producing high quality content – does it really make a difference
writing ‘magazine quality’ 3000 word multi-media posts, or can you still rank a thin page with
the right links?
You can rank thin pages even without links if they are sitting on a domain that has a lot of authority/trust and
is linked well internally.
In general content length is not that important. How users respond to the content is much more important than
its length. I have pages on my main sites ranking with 200 words and some with 2000 words. I just write the
appropriate amount to cover a topic well.
I generally try to create sites that are a good user experience and get lots of page views. So to me, the design,
structure and setup of the site is actually a lot more important compared to the length of the content.
Generally speaking I try to better my competitors. So let’s say I am writing an article on XYZ topic, I will load up
the query in Google, see what they cover, then do the exact same thing but a little bit better. This is not really
an SEO decision (Although it helps) but just because I want my sites to be better than my competitors.
On top of that, doing this practice will almost always lead to good on-page SEO, because you will unwittingly
create content that is similar to the content already ranking, which will probably use lots of LSI terms,
synonyms, co-occurring terms that the algorithm deems important on-page.
11. What advice would you give someone new to this who wants to start making a full time
income building affiliate sites – can it still be done?
Not only can it still be done. Now is a great time to get started.
This is f or a couple of reasons, the main ones being:
• A lot of your competition is either penalized or has given up. • It’s a lot harder now (More barriers = more
rewards f or the best). • Google seems to be over rewarding f reshness, at least in my industry anyway.
My biggest tips would be spend an allocated amount of time researching things and getting up to speed with
everything SEO related, make a plan and then get to action.
I think the most important thing though is to pick the right niche. A lot of people talk about doing something you
are passionate about. For me though, a lot of the things I am passionate about are either ridiculously
competitive or there is very little money in them.
Personally I am quite passionate about business, so the topic of my websites is not that important. I def initely
go where the money is. For example, it’s possible f or someone to make a living in my niche with a website that
gets just 100 visitors a day.
When you attack money niches, which have visitor values of over £1 per visitor, it’s impossible not to make
money if you build a site that gets traf f ic.
A lot of the keywords I rank f or charge an Adwords CPC of £10-£20 per click, which when I end up ranking f or
them, you don’t need much traf f ic to do well.
On top of that I would suggest they look f or some kind of industry that has continuity-based revenue. Most of
my income is based on recurring revenue. The people I sign up to services, keep using them month in month
out and I make money over and over again. If my SEO business was to collapse I would undoubtedly take a big

7. This is actually terrifying and will hopefully never happen.
hit, but I would have enough recurring income to rebuild bef ore it drops too f ar.
12. I’m fascinated; you’re incredibly hard working at this – that’s what sets you apart – so how
does your average working day pan out?
My average working day is pretty simple. For the most part it’s either creating content or building links. The
content side could be anything f rom writing product reviews to creating YouTube screencast videos.
The link building side could be purchasing links, researching what my competitors are doing (And copying them
obviously), managing my own blog networks/mini sites, or looking through SEO f orums f or new potential link
building sources.
I try to keep a to-do list, which I update as I go along and I add new items at the end of each day.
Honestly, it’s not very glamorous and it’s a lot of hard work, but like anything worthwhile in lif e, creating a large
semi passive income is not an easy task.
I try to keep distractions to a minimum (Of ten f ailing, but nobody’s perf ect).
I also have a couple of mentors who run some of the largest sites in the industry (Much bigger than mine)
which I have bef riended and talk to on a regular basis. I heard a while ago, “you of ten have the average income
of the 5 f riends you hang around most”, or something similar to that. Once I heard that, I decided to try and
spend as much of my time as possible around other rich and successf ul people.
13.

8. Are the days of the ‘little guy’ making a fortune online effectively over, do we need to invest
a lot of money in building our online empire after these Google changes – i.e., is it now out of
most people’s reach?
Tough to say. I think it’s always possible to be successf ul if you are willing to put in the ef f ort. I think the
problem with most of the ‘little guys’ if I am being honest is that they are not willing to put in the work to build
something truly awesome. There is a reason why get rich quick scams exist. Humans are inherently lazy and
just want an easy solution to tough problems. One thing that really resonates with me is that in order to live a
lif e other people can’t live, you have to be willing to do things people are not willing to do.
I think generally speaking with SEO, a lot of people incorrectly assume Google is targeting the little guys. They
are just making changes that are closing up loopholes that made it easy to rank. Consequently most of the
people taking shortcuts, using loopholes tended to be these little guys who got penalized. Conversely most of
the little guys tended to have the lowest quality sites.
I think as long as people are using Google to search f or stuf f , there will always be money to be made. It might
take more hard work and investment now to claim your sport permanently in the top 10 f or all the keywords in
your niche, but I see that as a good thing long term f or people willing to invest in their business. In short, higher
barriers to entry are good f or anyone who is willing to invest and do more than anyone else.
14. Who are your favourite SEO experts and why do you continue to take their advice?
Not sure if I have any f avourite experts. I try to keep updated with the SEO industry, but in all honesty, not that
much new happens and there are very f ew people coming out publicly with new knowledge and secrets.
I tend to not take advice f rom people with vested interests in any f orm of SEO. So f or example, listening to
SEO advice f rom Matt Cutts is like asking a girl’s f ather how to get in his daughters pants. Sure he can say
some helpf ul things, but as an SEO you need to realise his interest is in helping Google and not you. The same
thing goes f or people who sell certain SEO services.
I think the best thing someone new to SEO can do to get better is spend a certain period of time taking things
in, f rom both sides of the black hat/white hat spectrum and then spend some time in the trenches testing out
ideas, theories and methods f or yourself and adapting as you go on. Personally I am quite an analytical person
and love testing out new things, which is why I enjoy SEO so much.
Also spying on your competition and what they are doing is incredibly important. I am a huge f an of modelling in
every f orm f or any skill whatsoever. So let’s say you want to get the biggest site in your industry. Start doing
exactly what they are doing (within your budget) and try and emulate them. The same goes f or any skill
business related or marketing related. See what the best do, and then copy them.
Thanks for your time Andy – great interview. If you’ve got any questions on this folks, I can answer them in the
comments section below.
Panda image credit Co nt ent arms race image credit Dart h Vader image credit Flying mo ney image credit