IamNRE's Sum-up of The Penguin Update! - Problem & Solutions

Unnatural Links
For companies that have been hit by the Penguin update, one common theme appears to be a severe lack of natural links, according to a blog post by Glenn Gabe at G-Squared Interactive. He noted five common issues these sites are all facing:
1. Paid text links using exact match anchor text: For companies that want to rank for a certain term (such as "red widgets") one way to accomplish this is by buying links from other websites with that exact matching anchor text. This is against Google's guidelines, as Google would consider this a paid link that exists solely to manipulate PageRank, rather than to provide any value to visitors.
2. Comment spam: Two things proved problematic for websites trying to unnaturally rank for specific keywords: signatures in comments that contained exact match anchor text; and people who used a spammy user name (e.g., Best India SEO Company) as exact match text.
3. Guest posts on questionable sites: Although guest posts are a legitimate way to earn links to your site, sites dinged by the Penguin had links pointing to their website from sites filled with low-quality articles where the focus was on the anchor text rather than the content.
4. Article marketing sites: Thin content featuring links with exact match anchor text were another common factor among affected sites.
5. Links from dangerous sites: Do you have inbound links from sites that have been flagged for malware, numerous pop-ups, or other spammy issues? This was another factor that caused websites to lose their Google rankings, so links to and from web spammers or "bad neighborhoods" are a danger.
6. Links from None Spun Content: Basically links from websites that has duplicated content.
7. Links from Content that is TOO spun: Links from sites that has spun or "unique" content, but is just un-readable and poor reading quality for human beings.
8. Links From None Related Sites: Links from Sites that have nothing to do with you keywords or LSI! - Seems legit!

WHAT WORKS:
1) Links from Sites that are related to your Niche/Keywords/LSI.
2) Links from pages/sites with HIGH PR.
3) Mixture of the 2 above.
4) WEB 2.0 tier 1, Directories/wiki/social as tier 2.
5) Guest Posts from High Pr domain (niche related). And blogroll links (IMO) as long as its from the same Niche.
6) Social Links as tier 1



Tip of the year - find a way out of the Google Rat Race!

Sources:
www.blackhatworld.com's many users including: paddler, InternalSoul, (your name here if I forgot it).
Trafficplanet
WF (not warrior - the other one)
Search engine watch!
SEOMOZ

USEFUL LINK tweeded by Matt da cunt! - I suggest you sort out your site before sending the form!

Useful link tweeted by Matt da cunt, lmfao. Thanks for the information, I'll continue submitting articles to directories and web 2.0

Nice one, Thanks. I agree on most of your points, especially the "niche related" issues...

I concur the update seems to try to nip bots or 'cheat services' in the bud, but it's only a matter of time before new services arise that outsource or speed up the "what works now" particulars of linking from related niche sites et al. But as day follows night, whatever Google wants (or claims it wants) 'good' sites to do, somebody will figure out a way to automate it.

Will Google penalize SEO that follows the new relevancy emphasis, but simply speeds up or short-circuits the process? If a Scrapebox 2.0 comes up that only discovers relevant high PR sites to guest post in, while omitting blog comments and profiles, will that get penalized nonetheless?

zebrahat said:

Will Google penalize SEO that follows the new relevancy emphasis, but simply speeds up or short-circuits the process? If a Scrapebox 2.0 comes up that only discovers relevant high PR sites to guest post in, while omitting blog comments and profiles, will that get penalized nonetheless?

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You seem to think someone here works for Google.

7. Links from Content that is TOO spun: Links from sites that has spun or "unique" content, but is just un-readable and poor reading quality for human beings.

big g is getting bigger and smart :S

FuryKyle said:

You seem to think someone here works for Google.

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Given the amount of SEO labor being done, and the attention most people give to every Google change, it seems most of us here do work for Google.

Social Links for Tier 1 is what I have found to be the key.

So the anchor text shouldn't be an exact match to the keyword? What should it be instead?

joshweaver9 said:

Social Links for Tier 1 is what I have found to be the key.

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what do u mean by social links. like buying fb likes?

Nope. Twitter ReTweets. Which of course is also what I sell here. But it really works. A couple of reasons why it works, the URL is not anchor text driven but you are still able to use keywords without putting it as anchor text.

zerofoxtrot said:

So the anchor text shouldn't be an exact match to the keyword? What should it be instead?

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AGman said:

what do u mean by social links. like buying fb likes?

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Use Google's Keyword tool and type in your keyword, use the most relevant keywords that show up (use exact) aka the LSI keywords.


Social links .... links from sites like Facebook, twitter, digg, reddit etc. etc.

AGman said:

what do u mean by social links. like buying fb likes?

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I agree completely with social links for tier 1. You should take a look at socialadr and synnd

IamNRE said:

Use Google's Keyword tool and type in your keyword, use the most relevant keywords that show up (use exact) aka the LSI keywords.


Social links .... links from sites like Facebook, twitter, digg, reddit etc. etc.

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Nice thread OP. Don't forget to include these:

- Use the URL itself as the anchor text.
- Use your site domain in articles but without hyperlink (as plain text).
- Use generic keywords used like "click here", "here", "click to visit", etc.

Also, making contextual links remains important as always.