A review of what you need to do to recover from link penalties.

1. Penguin Unnatural Links Recovery

2. First Off... Who Am I?
 Co-author: The Art of SEO
 President: Stone Temple Consulting
25+ person SEO and PPC firm
 Trainer: Instant E-Training
 Founder: Web Site Publishing Companies
Publish web sites, grow them, then sell them
2 significant exits so far
 Twitter: @stonetemple
 Google Plus: +Eric Enge
@stonetemple / + Eric Enge

3. Penguin Drove Traffic Drops
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4. @stonetemple / + Eric Enge

5. Unnatural Links Version 1
 No immediate traffic drop
 Likely to result in a traffic drop if not addressed
 How quickly is NOT known
 My personal belief is that it is likely to be 30 days
 YOUR RESULTS MAY VARY
@stonetemple / + Eric Enge

6. @stonetemple / + Eric Enge

7. Unnatural Links Version 2
 No immediate traffic drop
 Some links were discounted by Google
 Further action not impending (according to Google)
 For most sites, no need to act panic
 May be a good time to consider some link cleanup as
a precaution
 YOUR RESULTS MAY VARY
@stonetemple / + Eric Enge

8. Panda/Penguin Algorithm Structure
Questionable SEO /
Link Building Tactic Ranking
Identified Adjustment
Score
No Can we
Write an Penguin/Panda
Algo to Algo Scheduler
Flag it?
Yes
Master
Create the Algo Google
Run the Algo Index
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9. Article Directories
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10. Directories, forum posts, bookmarks, …
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11. Guest Post Spam
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12. Does Your Anchor Text Look Like This?
6% 12%
10%
11%
11%
13% 23%
14%
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13. Or, Like This?
Domain
Brand Name
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14. Sample Link Profile
 Links: 1,273,452
 Linking Domains: 11,897
How do I get started?
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15. Start by Categorizing
 For example:
 Blogs
 Pages with multiple links
 Sites with more than one linking page
 Rich anchor text links
 Links from comments
 Links from the same “C” block
 NoFollow’ed Links
 Speeds analysis and clean up
 Example: 1M links vs. 10,000 linking domains
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16. Open Site Bing
Explorer WMT
Analyze : Analysis Team
Google Can Specialize
WMT Identify Bad
Build List Linking Pages By Link Type
Of Links
Majestic
SEO
Get Contact Email, Phone
Info Twitter, Snail Mail
Categorize:
•Blogs
•Multi Link Pages
•Rich Anchor Text
•Comment Links Request
•Multi Link Sites Removal Reconsideration
(Multiple Request
Times if
Necessary)
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17. Reconsideration Guidelines
 Be very thorough in your cleanup first!
 Don’t waste their time
 Be respectful!
 Don’t whine or talk about what you lost
 Be short and to the point
 Nature of problem (stats are good)
 What you did to clean it up
 Clearly state that you intend to abide by Webmaster
Guidelines going forward
@stonetemple / + Eric Enge

18. Unnatural Links Messages (V1)
 Worth filing a request here too
 Same general guidelines
 If you can’t get totally cleaned up quickly:
 Consider sending a reconsideration request in to
buy time
 Show significant progress
 Show commitment to totally clean it up
 May give you more time before they act
 YOUR MILEAGE MAY VARY
@stonetemple / + Eric Enge

19.  How STC Can Help
 SpamLink Detective automates categorization
 Experienced resources to lead the effort
 We can do 100% of the work …
 … or coordinate your internal resources
 Extensive link clean up experience
 4 recent projects with sites with over 1M links
 3 had actual penalties
 1 had the unnatural links (V1) message
 100% recovery success rate
@stonetemple / + Eric Enge

20. Thank You!
Eric Enge
eenge@stonetemple.com
@stonetemple
+ Eric Enge
(508) 485-7751
www.stonetemple.com