Adjustments On How To Write Content In The Post-Penguin Era

[veheme]

I feel you. Months and months of doing off-page SEO or probably adding content for your site for years but every single sweat you have invested for your site all came tumbling down when a Penguin came in a door. That's the life of an internet marketer. As a result, only those who persevere, work hard and those who adapt are the ones who survive.

Since I consider you guys as my peers in this type of business, I will be letting you on my style when writing/spinning content. Before continuing, I want you to know that I am already experienced in drawing out interpretations from certain texts (hey, the many years of studying the Bible through the 5 stages of proper Biblical interpretation has greatly contributed to this so forgive me if I over-analyze a text (especially text coming from Google)).

Here is the overview of the changes you have to make when you write content: (ALL THE QUOTED TEXTS ARE GOOGLE UPDATES)

SUMMARY

1. Avoid Symbols Between Your Keywords
2. Less Emphasis On Main Anchor Text
3. Always Incorporate The Top 2 Synonyms
4. Surround Your Anchor Text With Friends
5. State The Points First Then Expound Later

Let's begin...

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1. Avoid Symbols Between Your Keywords

Improvements to handling of symbols for indexing. [launch codename "Deep Maroon"] We generally ignore punctuation symbols in queries. Based on analysis of our query stream, we?ve now started to index the following heavily used symbols: ?%?, ?$?, ?\?, ?.?, ?@?, ?#?, and ?+?. We?ll continue to index more symbols as usage warrants.

When people write content in order to fit in the keywords, sometimes, they try to put in symbols in order for it to look good in the eyes of the robot. They are wrong here because that style is being hammered down. I will give you an example:

keyword: SEO India

If you are fairly meticulous when it comes to the quality of the content, you might possibly devise a way to make the keyword appear natural. As a result, you might go for something like this: ... you must do SEO. India has marketers... OR ... as it turns out, SEO (India actually ...

In the post-Penguin age, I discourage you to do this. Why? Your keyword is being less credit with its proper value because of the updates. That is the reason why you will often get different results for keywords with apostrophes. You want live samples? Search for these terms:

womens blog vs women's blog

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2. Less Emphasis On Main Anchor Text

Tweaks to handling of anchor text. [launch codename "PC"] This month we turned off a classifier related to anchor text (the visible text appearing in links). Our experimental data suggested that other methods of anchor processing had greater success, so turning off this component made our scoring cleaner and more robust.

This is not an attempt to discredit anchor text. However, this is my way of saying that the anchor text is not THAT important anymore. Sure, it will hit the right notes if you go for the right anchor text but the point is this: if you discredit everything else or the quality of the content solely because you focus on the anchor text more, you are surely going down in the next few updates to come. I will give you an example:

Let us say you want to rank for internet marketing and you want to do that by blasting links coming from all over the place. Let's say you are a hardcore BHWer and you are getting 1k high PR blog comments, 10k wikilinks, 1k links from article directories, 100 web 2.0 links and 1k PBN links. So what do most people do especially considering that internet marketing niche is very, very competitive? Use the internet marketing as the anchor text for ALL or for the majority of the links. Even if you are not penalized for mass spamming at the same time, the effectiveness of that is considerably lowered because you neither tried to rank for synonyms, long tails and URL keywords.

What to do? Diversify your anchor text profile. What I would usually do is this:

40% to the main anchor text
30% to the direct synonyms of the main anchor text
20% to the long tails
10% to the URL of the domain

For a more simplified actual spintax format, try to use this for your anchor text:

<a href="http://yourwebsite.com">{main|main|main|main|syn|syn|syn|longtail|longtail|*****</a>

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3. Always Incorporate The Top 2 Synonyms

Fewer undesired synonyms. [project codename "Synonyms"] When you search on Google, we often identify other search terms that might have the same meaning as what you entered in the box (synonyms) and surface results for those terms as well when it might be helpful. This month we tweaked a classifier to prevent unhelpful synonyms from being introduced as content in the results set.

Better interpretation and use of anchor text. We?ve improved systems we use to interpret and use anchor text, and determine how relevant a given anchor might be for a given query and website.

Google now reads context a little bit better. This means that so should you. When you write content for your site or for your links, always remember to be in context. Google emphasizes again and again that the synonyms can help you because they set of the notion to the robots what your site is about. Therefore, when you try to rank for a certain keyword, also go for its synonyms because that is a huge bonus for your link profile AND your status in the eyes of the search engines.

Example: instead of focusing solely on the keyword: dog, you might want to try target puppy and canine also.

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4. Surround Your Anchor Text With Loved Ones

Fewer ?sibling? synonyms. [launch codename "Gemini", project codename "Synonyms"] One of the main signals we look at to identify synonyms is context. For example, if the word ?cat? often appears next to the term ?pet? and ?furry,? and so does the word ?kitten?, our algorithms may guess that ?cat? and ?kitten? have similar meanings. The problem is that sometimes this method will introduce ?synonyms? that actually are different entities in the same category. To continue the example, dogs are also ?furry pets? -- so sometimes ?dog? may be incorrectly introduced as a synonym for ?cat?. We?ve been working for some time to appropriately ferret out these ?sibling? synonyms, and our latest system is more maintainable, updatable, debuggable, and extensible to other systems.

Sibling synonyms are a life saver for great content. Context is always given importance by Google because out of the 45 billion pages indexed in its system, context should always be valued for better search results. As a result, always fill in your anchor text or main keyword with synonyms in order for them to be highlighted better.

For example:

Most people usually spread out the keywords when writing content. Instead of doing that, simply put the synonyms inside the same sentence/paragraph in order for them to be highlighted also as supporters of context to the main anchor text. You might say that this is only applied in META descriptions but that is exactly the point. Why limit it to the META only? Why not also apply it to your content making?

Type in: seo experts in Google

You would notice that not only seo experts are bolded, but there are other "sibling" or "related" keywords being bolded also like: company, specialists, specialist, companies, expert

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5. State The Points First Then Expound Later

Better synonym accuracy and performance. [project codename "Synonyms"] We?ve made further improvements to our synonyms system by eliminating duplicate logic. We?ve also found ways to more accurately identify appropriate synonyms in cases where there are multiple synonym candidates with different contexts.

This is a continuation of point number 4. Since more weight is given to the keywords which are near your main anchor text, put them inside the same paragraph. Don't spread them around.

When writing, you will usually make subtopic or subheaders inside the content. This is still good but keep the main points or the important points present in the same paragraph of your anchor text. This will greatly help each other when it comes to context and when it comes to synonym searches.

Effective Starting Paragraph Sample

When I was young, I?m not really a dog person. At a very young age, I was bit by a big canine and that was the last time I wanted to be near a dog. However, when my mom brought in a puppy in our house, everything changed. I named him ?Hound? and I sincerely loved him. I used the internet as my guide to learn how to brush your dog, how to make your dog take a bath and how to potty train your dog.

NOTE: The 3 how's will be repeated in the article because they are 3 of the many sub-headers present.

Conclusion

Whenever I use content to build links as social bookmarks, wiki links, directory links, blog comment links, web 2.0 links, blog links or whatever, I implement these techniques. As a result, ALL MY SITES WERE LEFT UNTOUCHED by the Penguin. Actually, they were touch but positively. Every update has made my site stronger because almost every link that goes to me are coming from great content. When I buy links through BST's, you would notice that I would usually ask if I am allowed to provide my own content which is basically the reason why my SERPs are consistent and always rising.

I hope this thread has helped you. I will do what I can do answer questions. Have a great day

 

[veheme]

I would like to add point number 6 which is to group keywords by paragraph.

The most common strategy of people is to spread it around like 2 keywords per paragraph but since the emphasis on LSI and the emphasis on contextual searching are giving more weight on this, it is much better to put many of your keywords (but still maintain quality and proper transition) in a single paragraph or in selected paragraphs. The rest of the text can simply be content without giving weight on keywords.

 

[Bizmarkie40]

Thanks. This is really interesting and I might just try this for future content for both money site and web 2.0 properties / article directory submissions just to see if it makes a difference.

 

[Scritty]

Agreed with all points. This puts some flesh on the bones of a post I made yesterday about content being the main focus on penguin. In particular Googles attemps (succesful or otherwise) to parse content more accurately and with more subtlety. My posit was that content parsing was the main aim of penguin, and this would affect links in regard to the content they were put in. Especially it seems those links on 1st tier web structures such as WEB2.

I got flamed a fair bit, but that's life, I'm sticking by what I found with my own sites and glad someone has looked into the actual Google projects that were implemented or updated to support Penguin (and how they nearly all relate to "content or context" rather than "link quantity" or "platform").

Scritty

 

[finerpleasures]

The value of the content will be used to evaluate the link . However, this wont be applicable to links from high pr sites or sites with high traffic .

 

[FireTheWild]

Awesome thread. I use the tips for sure.

Thanks.

 

[Bizmarkie40]

The value of the content will be used to evaluate the link . However, this wont be applicable to links from high pr sites or sites with high traffic .

Maybe I am being overly excited here but that one comment seems to be a bit of an 'ah ha' moment for me. Rather than debating if it is the place where the link came from or the quality of the content it simply be that the content drives the value of the link unless the link is on a high PR website in which case the content does not have to be the best and it still passes link juice. My one site that got nixed might fit into that formula. I had the main domain linked with an article directory blast where the content was spun but not really well (just at the word level so when I have seen copies of it .. it really does not read well_ and the overwhelming majority of those article directories would be low PR low value sites that nobody reads. My guesss is Google looked at the links and saw it was spun content from low PR sites and realized there was no way a human did any of the work and thus penaized me

 

[veheme]

Maybe I am being overly excited here but that one comment seems to be a bit of an 'ah ha' moment for me. Rather than debating if it is the place where the link came from or the quality of the content it simply be that the content drives the value of the link unless the link is on a high PR website in which case the content does not have to be the best and it still passes link juice. My one site that got nixed might fit into that formula. I had the main domain linked with an article directory blast where the content was spun but not really well (just at the word level so when I have seen copies of it .. it really does not read well_ and the overwhelming majority of those article directories would be low PR low value sites that nobody reads. My guesss is Google looked at the links and saw it was spun content from low PR sites and realized there was no way a human did any of the work and thus penaized me

It depends. I don't think article directory blasts pose much risk when it comes to your rank and I doubt that was the reason why you got penalized or slapped. It could be that those were devalued, gone or nerfed which made the overall link juice coming to your site less. The only real problem when you blast to article directories using poorly spun articles is that the rejection rate is higher and link juice going to your site is minimal.

 

[AR!ZONA]

Thanks for such an in-depth analysis. You gave some great examples on synonyms and I can't wait to write more content. I'm glad I caught it before I went and bought cheap link services!

 

[veheme]

Agreed with all points. This puts some flesh on the bones of a post I made yesterday about content being the main focus on penguin. In particular Googles attemps (succesful or otherwise) to parse content more accurately and with more subtlety. My posit was that content parsing was the main aim of penguin, and this would affect links in regard to the content they were put in. Especially it seems those links on 1st tier web structures such as WEB2.

I got flamed a fair bit, but that's life, I'm sticking by what I found with my own sites and glad someone has looked into the actual Google projects that were implemented or updated to support Penguin (and how they nearly all relate to "content or context" rather than "link quantity" or "platform").

Scritty

Yes, everyone can't agree with this especially since we have different experiences. Thus, it's normal to be disagreed upon. I don't even think that EVERYONE truly agrees with my original post.

 

[monk13]

veheme, when are you going to go for your ba or ms in linguistics?

 

[veheme]

veheme, when are you going to go for your ba or ms in linguistics?

Not sure if this being sarcastic or a compliment. (Sorry a funny day lately so I can't interpret well)

I think I'm going to go with a compliment so thanks!

 

[monk13]

it was, your spinning skills show a mastery of linguistic fundamentals

 

[veheme]

it was, your spinning skills show a mastery of linguistic fundamentals

It does? Thanks. This is the first time I have heard of that haha

 

[albaniax]

I just hope, that you don't have anything to sell now, if you know what I mean

 

[toptoptop]

The value of the content will be used to evaluate the link . However, this wont be applicable to links from high pr sites or sites with high traffic .

I second this- I used to put links on high PR sites just as a column and it still works.

 

[vuedoolor]

How should we spin though? I mean sentence level? Paragraph level? Word level?

 

[veheme]

How should we spin though? I mean sentence level? Paragraph level? Word level?

I suggest at least once per level.

 

[Th3T3chGuy]

Just what I was looking for. Thank you!

 

[mbhmirc]

thanks gave me a good insight what to use on MNS's just starting out