Bitch Slapped by Google?

[manny521]

Rumours are rife of a Panda update on the 17th that kicked in around 17-19Feb. Sites with lots of above the fold ads have been targeted and lots of talk about entire home page backlink networks being de-indexed causing sites to fall dramatically. I had one of mine go from pos. #2-#5 for multiple keywords to pos 400-500. Slowly recovering but looks like sites hit this way might never recover! Check your on-page SEO first before you build any more links

You can recover from a penalty, but its a matter of when, not if.

 

[manny521]

Here is a link to Matt Cutts on when penalties are lifted: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ES01L4xjSXE

I have a number of questions after watching this video.

Would I rather want a manual penalty or an algorithmic penalty? It seems with a manual penalty, google assigns a time for that penalty to be carried out, while a algorithmic penalty is carried out until the webmaster fixes the issue. I guess I would want a algorithmic penalty if I knew exactly what I did and I could fix it, but if I couldn't fix it (like removing 10,000 spammy links), then I would rather have a manual penalty so the site would come back within the specified penalty time period.

If you were to receive a message in your webmaster tools account saying you have violated the google guidelines, does this message indicate a manual penalty or an algorithmic penalty?

Can an algorithmic penalty generate a message to your google webmaster account automatically?

I am going to try and find the answer to these questions. If anyone knows or has any ideas. Please share.

 

[ILoveCSharp]

http://www.blackhatworld.com/blackhat-seo/members/222637-manny521.html as far as i know only manual penalty appears on wmt so you won't see any message if you have algorithmic penalty

 

[Marcink99]

manny I got a questions when you used private network did you always put keyword in the title of the article?

also I assume that most of the time when you used article marketing you used same 2-3 urls correct?

Maybe that trigered the penalty always the same urls and keyword in the title?

 

[manny521]

manny521 as far as i know only manual penalty appears on wmt so you won't see any message if you have algorithmic penalty

so, maybe this is a good thing for me as long as the penalty period is somewhere between 30-90 days...if its longer, well that will start to hurt me after 90 days...

 

[manny521]

manny I got a questions when you used private network did you always put keyword in the title of the article?

also I assume that most of the time when you used article marketing you used same 2-3 urls correct?

Maybe that trigered the penalty always the same urls and keyword in the title?

No, I didn't necessarily always have the keywords in the title, but I think most of the time.

I would say 90% of the time, I used 4 url's (money pages) and I mixed up the keywords, not the same keywords over and over. I optimize for 147 keyword phrases. But, I should of mixed in more variety by using anchor text such as click here, etc...

This is why I mention Google BLOOP (back link over optimization penalty)...this is also a possibility...not sure...I"m doing some link building now to try and de-optimize so if this is the case, I will have that possibility covered.

 

[Marcink99]

No, I didn't necessarily always have the keywords in the title, but I think most of the time.

I would say 90% of the time, I used 4 url's (money pages) and I mixed up the keywords, not the same keywords over and over. I optimize for 147 keyword phrases. But, I should of mixed in more variety by using anchor text such as click here, etc...

This is why I mention Google BLOOP (back link over optimization penalty)...this is also a possibility...not sure...I"m doing some link building now to try and de-optimize so if this is the case, I will have that possibility covered.

I started using no keyword in the title and random keywords. I managed to go up 30 positions in 24 hours with amr and private networks. I will keep you updated

 

[manny521]

I started using no keyword in the title and random keywords. I managed to go up 30 positions in 24 hours with amr and private networks. I will keep you updated

And you had a penalty against you before this?

Did you receive a webmaster tools message indicating bad linking practices before this?

 

[mdsurf]

I didnt actually read your thread but I thought the title of it was hilarious so I just had to come say kudos to you for that!

 

[bdr529]

Manny, your case sounds almost the same to mine.

I want to throw out a few more data points, and also thank everyone who's responding to this thread since I am going through something very similar.

I have several websites that obtain backlinks in a very similar manner. My largest site was hit Friday night, losing position for 222 keywords that I have been strong for the past couple years. It seemed to get hit by page. In other words, if a page was hit for one keyword it was also hit for several others. Conversely, I have some pages that were not hit at all.

A smaller site was also hit Friday night. Because it is a smaller and newer site, every page/keyword seemed to get wacked.

No messages in WMT for either of the two sites (yet).

A third site, that happens to be in a different WMT account (which I always access from a different IP) was hit and did receive the notice about external links. Oddly, this site has the least amount of aggressive backlinking. The site had never done well, and I gave up getting links about 6 to 12 months ago (there may still be some automated stuff going on though).

A fourth site, in the same WMT account as above, was hit hard Friday but did not get a notice.

• All of these are retail ecommerce sites with all unique high quality content. The sites themselves are squeeky clean.
• The backlinks use a high variation of anchor text. Backlinks point to various levels of the site, but mostly category and product pages.
• All of these sites obtained most of their backlinks through private blog networks using spun or semi-spun content. From time to time I have used all of the more well known blog networks.
• Most of these sites have a few blogroll links on blogs that are pretty spammy looking (spun content and long blogrolls).
• A small portion of our backlink pages (2nd tier) were reinforced by using some not-to-clean methods such as automated blog comments.

My intuition tells me that the blogroll links played a large part in this. However, the one site that actually received a notice does not have any.

So, I believe it was caused through some of the private blog network links. Perhaps one or more of these networks was recently compromised by Google. These links are unfortunately impossible to get rid of.

I suspect a certain blog network that everyone has surely heard of, but I don't want to list any specific services or networks as I could very well be wrong.

Now, what to do about it? I'm piecing together a plan, but I largely don't have a clue at this point.

 

[manny521]

Manny, your case sounds almost the same to mine.

I want to throw out a few more data points, and also thank everyone who's responding to this thread since I am going through something very similar.

I have several websites that obtain backlinks in a very similar manner. My largest site was hit Friday night, losing position for 222 keywords that I have been strong for the past couple years. It seemed to get hit by page. In other words, if a page was hit for one keyword it was also hit for several others. Conversely, I have some pages that were not hit at all.

A smaller site was also hit Friday night. Because it is a smaller and newer site, every page/keyword seemed to get wacked.

No messages in WMT for either of the two sites (yet).

A third site, that happens to be in a different WMT account (which I always access from a different IP) was hit and did receive the notice about external links. Oddly, this site has the least amount of aggressive backlinking. The site had never done well, and I gave up getting links about 6 to 12 months ago (there may still be some automated stuff going on though).

A fourth site, in the same WMT account as above, was hit hard Friday but did not get a notice.

• All of these are retail ecommerce sites with all unique high quality content. The sites themselves are squeeky clean.
• The backlinks use a high variation of anchor text. Backlinks point to various levels of the site, but mostly category and product pages.
• All of these sites obtained most of their backlinks through private blog networks using spun or semi-spun content. From time to time I have used all of the more well known blog networks.
• Most of these sites have a few blogroll links on blogs that are pretty spammy looking (spun content and long blogrolls).
• A small portion of our backlink pages (2nd tier) were reinforced by using some not-to-clean methods such as automated blog comments.

My intuition tells me that the blogroll links played a large part in this. However, the one site that actually received a notice does not have any.

So, I believe it was caused through some of the private blog network links. Perhaps one or more of these networks was recently compromised by Google. These links are unfortunately impossible to get rid of.

I suspect a certain blog network that everyone has surely heard of, but I don't want to list any specific services or networks as I could very well be wrong.

Now, what to do about it? I'm piecing together a plan, but I largely don't have a clue at this point.

Yeah, I have a plan I am trying to execute, but I don't know if it will work and in all honesty, I don't think anything I do will work until the penalty has been released (times out).

I think google took down some private networks and they penalized the websites that had links in those networks. I think the penalties will be temporary and they will eventually fall off.

Looking at past penalties that google has used to penalize sites for this type of issue, I believe it will be a 30-90 day penalty.

I recommend everyone keep doing what they were doing, minus the private blog networks, and then when the penalties are lifted, hopefully your site will bounce back to close to where it was before.

 

[cinereus]

DIVERSIFY

Google's latest algorithm update is set to destroy websites
that have been artificially "gaming" the system. I track and
monitor close to 200 separate campaigns and have seen
the results you are experiencing recently.

Most sites that were hit as hard as yours was as a result of
massive artificial linkbuilding. Chances are each of those
services that you purchased backlinked the same pages
with the same anchor text. This SCREAMS artificial linkbuilding
and a simple algorithm update could easily wipe you out (which
is what you are experiencing now).

In order to combat this, you will need to begin a linkbuilding
campaign to help make things appear more natural. Begin
backlinking your internal pages of your site. Diversify the
quality of the backlinks. Don't just get high PageRank backlinks.
Mix in natural ANCHOR texts, not just your keyword anchor texts.
That includes things like, click here, find out more, check them out, etc.
Include absolute URL links, get some image links, do what you can
to diversify everything.

Take a look at competitors that aren't buying links. What is their anchor text?
How are they receiving backlinks? COPY those methods. The simple buying
your way to the top days are OVER. Google's changed the way that link-
building is working!

Completely agree with this. I'd say it's almost certainly an unnatural link anchor text profile. See my thread too:
http://www.blackhatworld.com/blackh...ink-anchor-diversity-penalty.html#post3915775

 

[manny521]

Completely agree with this. I'd say it's almost certainly an unnatural link anchor text profile. See my thread too:
http://www.blackhatworld.com/blackh...ink-anchor-diversity-penalty.html#post3915775

Could be...did you get a penalty message in your google webmaster tools account about the penalty?

 

[googlemonster]

Google is being a stupid little vag lately. I know we all game the system but some of my sites dropped below real trash sites! I am raking higher in bing and yahoo but nobody uses these search engines. Hopefully google will continue to produce shite results and crap like google instant, google + and all the other crap they spend their time on.

I think they have forgotten that they are a search engine and this Panda mongoloid. Is not doing them any favors. This empire will fall soon and then its on to the next one.

Google seems to get more shite with each update. I blame the fact the 'search team' seems to run the shop. Well anyway it's shit so:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_W_u4UTvk9w

 

[manny521]

How many people who got hit with panda 3.3 had high pr home page backlinks pointing to their site?

I did.

 

[Georgian]

Did you use BMR? I had 1,100 posts for the site that got slapped.

I've been using almost all major blog networks out there, I've checked links and domains of those networks, most of them are PR0 & de-indexed.

I assume that my sites were hit because of Blog Network links, I am sure by 80%, another 20% is spun content, which is easily trackable.

If you've been using spun content for majority of your Tier 1 links, then you should have been hit.

How many people who got hit with panda 3.3 had high pr home page backlinks pointing to their site?
I did.

I had more than 50%, most of these links were from "private blog networks" and good number was from my own blog network.

manny521

I've been using all link building techniques known today, including what you've mentioned. My site is 300+ pages, in insurance niche, highest quality content (time on site 4+ mins etc...)

Here are the key points of what happen to me:

Feb 3

Dropped from main keywords by 5-10 positions, still was ranking on all of them, longtails and secondary keywords were NOT HIT at all.

Feb 11-12

Lost all rankings on main keywords and LSI main keywords, was thrown to nowhere. I was finding other pages of mine ranking on those main keywords on 5+ pages. Looked like main keywords and corresponding pages were hit.

Feb 12-13

All keywords were hit, including main, secondary, longtails and LSI. I was only ranking on my exact.com keyword.

Feb 25

Started receiving traffic from crazy misspellings and unusual (grammatically mistaken) long-long tail keywords, traffic was about 30% of PRE 3 Feb, this traffic was not converting.

Feb 25 -

No change...

***

Rankings in Yahoo & Bing are improving, but who needs them?

Sent reconsideration request on 13 of Feb, no major changes but Feb 25 change. Still have to figure what going on. BTW, I have not received any message in Webmaster Tools.

One interesting point: After penalty, Google updates my cache rarely .

Hope my story helps...

Please update us on your progress.

 

[Jack777]

Did you have to contact google to get that message in webmaster tools or did they send it by themself?

Could this penalty be avoided if you were not to use analytics and google webmaster tools?

1. They used to send it automatically.

2. Nope. They are just intimating you.

 

[manny521]

I've been using almost all major blog networks out there, I've checked links and domains of those networks, most of them are PR0 & de-indexed.

I assume that my sites were hit because of Blog Network links, I am sure by 80%, another 20% is spun content, which is easily trackable.

If you've been using spun content for majority of your Tier 1 links, then you should have been hit.


I had more than 50%, most of these links were from "private blog networks" and good number was from my own blog network.

manny521

I've been using all link building techniques known today, including what you've mentioned. My site is 300+ pages, in insurance niche, highest quality content (time on site 4+ mins etc...)

Here are the key points of what happen to me:

Feb 3

Dropped from main keywords by 5-10 positions, still was ranking on all of them, longtails and secondary keywords were NOT HIT at all.

Feb 11-12

Lost all rankings on main keywords and LSI main keywords, was thrown to nowhere. I was finding other pages of mine ranking on those main keywords on 5+ pages. Looked like main keywords and corresponding pages were hit.

Feb 12-13

All keywords were hit, including main, secondary, longtails and LSI. I was only ranking on my exact.com keyword.

Feb 25

Started receiving traffic from crazy misspellings and unusual (grammatically mistaken) long-long tail keywords, traffic was about 30% of PRE 3 Feb, this traffic was not converting.

Feb 25 -

No change...

***

Rankings in Yahoo & Bing are improving, but who needs them?

Sent reconsideration request on 13 of Feb, no major changes but Feb 25 change. Still have to figure what going on. BTW, I have not received any message in Webmaster Tools.

One interesting point: After penalty, Google updates my cache rarely .

Hope my story helps...

Please update us on your progress.

People seem to report different interval time periods to receiving a message in webmaster tools regarding any penatly. It took about a week for me to receive my message, but I have heard other members say it was over a month.

I think for the next 30-90 days, for all of us who have been affected, this is going to be a tough road.

Google "Panda 3.3" and you will see all the pundits talking about this update and everyone is saying this update has been extremely viscous to a large number of sites out there. Things will normalize, but start aggressively building links (no private networks and no high pr homepage backlinks).

 

[hellokitty]

One of my sites, established for 4 years, got slapped a while ago. LOTS of keywords dropped. I tried changing the layout and removing the ads above the fold but nothing really changed. Site is still dropping and the top sites for the keywords right now are PURE CRAP and they know shit about SEO. Some even copied my content! Google is funny.

Oddly enough, I have never built spammy backlinks for this site. Only natural backlinks. People who copied content also gave me backlinks while they (accidentally) kept some in-text links, that's my sauce of spam apparently.

My onsite SEO is high optimized. Now sites that don't even know what's a meta tag rank better.

I lost 40k daily hits.

Just sharing my sob story as well. I kinda gave up on this site because I have other sources of income, but I can say this thread motivated me to try to rank that site again.

Good luck OP.

 

[manny521]

One of my sites, established for 4 years, got slapped a while ago. LOTS of keywords dropped. I tried changing the layout and removing the ads above the fold but nothing really changed. Site is still dropping and the top sites for the keywords right now are PURE CRAP and they know shit about SEO. Some even copied my content! Google is funny.

Oddly enough, I have never built spammy backlinks for this site. Only natural backlinks. People who copied content also gave me backlinks while they (accidentally) kept some in-text links, that's my sauce of spam apparently.

My onsite SEO is high optimized. Now sites that don't even know what's a meta tag rank better.

I lost 40k daily hits.

Just sharing my sob story as well. I kinda gave up on this site because I have other sources of income, but I can say this thread motivated me to try to rank that site again.

Good luck OP.

How long ago did your site get penalized?