These slides were presented during SMX Paris in June 2013 by an ex-Googler from the Search Quality team, Sebastien Monnier, now a SEO at Woptimo International. He gives a few insights on how Google engineers think penalties.
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AGENDA
1. Google Penalties : Where we are now
2. Google‘s Data
3. How to create a good algorithm
4. What about this new Penguin?
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AUTOMATIC PENALTIES
Automatic penalties are based on data and try to fix breaches in Google’s
algorithm.
Examples :
Fight against automatic gibberish text (charabia)
- Check every n-grams on a page. If less than n% of the n-grams can be
found anywhere else on the web.
Apply a high probability of spam
- If a page has more than 10 highly competitive keywords separated by
comma
Classify it as keyword stuffed page
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MANUAL PENALTIES
Manual penalties are specific fixes for one or several websites. They are
mostly applied by Search Quality team.
Based on specific guidelines for issues usually too difficult to tackle with
algorithms
Ability to semi-automate them with simple rules
Example:
This website is ranking for this query. However, it has 15 links with the same
anchor from blog articles that do not seem legitimate
This website should not get benefits from these links and future links
with this anchor should be discounted until the webmaster removes bad
linking.
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PANDA
Suggestion for a Panda recipe:
Number of bounces back to serp in less than 30 sec
+
Number of visits that end up clicking on ads or useless websites
-
Number of people searching for your brand
-
Number of social shares
=
Panda adjustment notation
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PENGUIN
Main Penguin algorithm is about links
Example:
If 10 sites linking to you with the same anchor have already been
neutralized, the 5 others links with this anchor may be neutralized as
well + decrease in ranking on this keyword.
These 5 websites may also be automatically neutralized if there are many
suspicious links.
This hurts a lot link-wheel, spam comments and other BH techniques
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SIGNALS GOOGLE IS USING OR MAY USE
What are Google’s source of information:
• Your website: HTML code, images, videos…
• Other website: Backlinks, mention…
• Specific website: Social signals, interaction…
• The Serps: click-trough rate, bounce back to serp, number of search for a
given query…
• User’s behavior: based on
• Google Toolbar ??
• Chrome ??
• ISP data ??
• Web browser emulation ??…
• Quality Rater’s feedback
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What is Google’s approach for new algorithms?
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WHAT GOOGLE CARES ABOUT
• SPEED: Never slow down a query
• Serp quality: Are the provided changes actually making things better
• Collateral damage: Do I hurt something else?
• Cost: Is this algorithm too expensive?
• Communication: Will spammers change their behavior in a good way?
It seems that communication is now more important than collateral damage
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CREATING A GOOD ALGORITHM…
• Isolate a quality issue
• Divide between good and bad user experience
• Check data associated to good experience and to bad experience
• Find a good mix of data and set up a threshold
• Launch an A/B serp testing
• If quality is increasing, launch it…
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What about this new Penguin
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WHAT WE KNOW
• Penguin 4 goes much deeper into the websites
• It also hit adult websites
• It is global
Penguin can’t be too specific (ex : fight against advertorials…)
Mostly about bad linking
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NEW APPROACH
Manual battle against bad links is expensive and not that efficient…
Google may want to change its approach regarding backlinks.
What could by this new approach?
Discount any backlinks that is not white-listed
By default, 1 new backlink is suspicious unless considered otherwise.
All backlinks that have just a small amount of suspicion should be
neutralized.
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DANGER
Danger of this method: Serp quality can decrease…
As linkspammers can be very good sites too.
Webmasters need to be educated and the serp should still be relevant.
How to solve this problem?
Google Penguin !!!
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STEP BY STEP GUIDE TO PENGUIN
Step By Step :
1st – communicate (a lot) about bad links
2nd – go gradually. Do not penalize all the backlinks in 1 shot
3rd – hold the changes and assess the post-penguin Serp quality
4th – If everything’s ok, release the beast
5th – Reiterate with other backlinks / sites
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Thank you
Follow me @smonnier
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