Penguin May Not be What You Think

[lablinks]

All my testings led me to believe that there is a ratio of onsite/offsite optimization. If you optimize your onsite for "seo service" & then link to it using "seo service" anchor often, you most likely won't be ranking very well. At the same time I see sites that have the same anchor text used repeatedly, but their onsite is not optimized for the keyword at all & they rank well. I currently have a client's site that's ranking for a keyword you won't find mentioned on the website once, very weird.

 

[ryannull]

All my testings led me to believe that there is a ratio of onsite/offsite optimization. If you optimize your onsite for "seo service" & then link to it using "seo service" anchor often, you most likely won't be ranking very well. At the same time I see sites that have the same anchor text used repeatedly, but their onsite is not optimized for the keyword at all & they rank well. I currently have a client's site that's ranking for a keyword you won't find mentioned on the website once, very weird.

I was kind of think along those lines too. If that is the case, you would either have to dump keywords in your title tag and use a brand name. Or, keep your optimized title tags and use raw urls and/or generic anchor text.

 

[IamNRE]

Hey,

build 100 web 2.0s......

or 100 links from sites related to your niche, and only use generic keywords (click here, visit the link here, more info, here, link, etc.), naked URLs (www.ursite.com) and LSI (keywords related to your main keywords). And ping the links. And get a few social links/proof from fiverr.com or something.

 

[Wyld88]

There are conflicting reports on exactly what the Google Penguin is.

I've read that it part of the algorithm that is always updating, and then I've read
elsewhere that its not a real-time part of the algorithm but it is more of a refresh
that is done every so often to re-evaluate all of the web sites for spam signals.

If it is a refresh, then any changes that you are making now to a site with the
penalty won't recover until Google decides to refresh the Penguin again.

 

[toysonline]

for my case post penguin, the current #1 is an exact EMD with ZERO baclink which i checked in majestic SEO. i can even send you the link if you want.

so i guess building backlinks on my site won't outrank this site.

now i'm doing more on social signals...let's see if it works.

 

[Scritty]

OK, here's some more Penguin feedback that has me a bit frustrated. I have an EMD with a few hundred links that was evidently penalized. Two of the top three sites that are now ranking are not EMD's (one of them is) and have less than 10 links for that keyword phrase. The interesting thing is that ALL 10 LINKS ARE EXACT MATCH. They have no anchor diversity. It's not a temporary thing either. They appeared right after April 24th and have stayed there.

What's up with that?

I posted an almost identical thread two weeks ago. Positing that content had been scrutinised and links had been pushed a "little" further down the scale (still well over 50% of the ranking factors IMO but down from the 75%-80% it had been a couple of years back)

This particularly seemed to be the case with content that surrounded your links in first tier structures. The more - the better - the more unique...the better you ranked.

It was met with mixed reactions to put it mildly. But this looks like a similar thing.
The content surrounding the links and on your landing page seems more important.
Also - 10 links is very low - not enough for Google to spot self promotion and lack of link text diversity. Check those with at least 100 indexed links to get a better idea..
Scritty

 

[zartania]

I posted an almost identical thread two weeks ago. Positing that content had been scrutinised and links had been pushed a "little" further down the scale (still well over 50% of the ranking factors IMO but down from the 75%-80% it had been a couple of years back)

This particularly seemed to be the case with content that surrounded your links in first tier structures. The more - the better - the more unique...the better you ranked.

It was met with mixed reactions to put it mildly. But this looks like a similar thing.
The content surrounding the links and on your landing page seems more important.
Also - 10 links is very low - not enough for Google to spot self promotion and lack of link text diversity. Check those with at least 100 indexed links to get a better idea..
Scritty

Hmmm, perhaps I should build a hundred links to the site that is curently #1 just to see if they drop...use them as my test bed instead of one of my own sites.

 

[zartania]

This theory actually makes sense. If they detected "unnatural link building" through out the sites life then all of sudden they roll out a algo that slaps a lot of sites in the index. This would make sense why no one can replicate a penguin strike on new sites. It would explain the randomness. This unexpected strike on the SERPS would mean negative seo is mostly ineffective, unless the roll out another penguin strike. This actually makes a lot of sense, because the algo behind the bmr and spam networks seemed a bit more manual/specific.

This is kinda action reminds me of the saying"kill them all and let god sort them out"

That's the direction I'm leaning. Everything is still too random, which makes me believe that the following things may have happened.

#1 - It was a Spring clean and our sites are toast forever...might as well rebuild with fresh sites...link building in quantity hasn't really changed and we could get away with spamming a new site until the next refresh/update.

#2 - The value of links have really been lowered in the G algo's. They really don't matter much anymore. (If that's true, then what does matter?)

 

[zartania]

Any definite opinions on my last post. I've been thinking about it all day and the more I think about it, the more I lean toward number 1. G has to keep links in the algo for popularity. Does anyone know what they actually turned off regarding links?

 

[assphuck]

Any definite opinions on my last post. I've been thinking about it all day and the more I think about it, the more I lean toward number 1. G has to keep links in the algo for popularity. Does anyone know what they actually turned off regarding links?

I took a Penguin smacked site from position 590 to 11 in three days. It's not a "full recovery," but not far off. Starting over is not the answer if my additional testing confirms the exact same techniques I used to recover are solid. Be patient and do not wipe out your old sites. If patience is not in your nature, much like myself, start new sites but leave the old ones alone. If nothing else, most penalties expire around 90 days or less. As a community, we will figure Penguin out... Stay tuned

 

[zartania]

Thanks for the feedback Assphuck! Please update this thread with your test results.

You are correct. Patience is not in my nature!

 

[jon_xx_x]

People need to stop making these useless fucking threads that provide absolutely no information.

 

[Nigel Farage]

So I really doubt it is about the links, I believe it is all about the content around the links that are pointing to your money site. That was the indicator.

First time I've read something like this, and the more I think about it, the better it sounds. So I'm reposting it.

 

[manny521]

I took a Penguin smacked site from position 590 to 11 in three days. It's not a "full recovery," but not far off. Starting over is not the answer if my additional testing confirms the exact same techniques I used to recover are solid. Be patient and do not wipe out your old sites. If patience is not in your nature, much like myself, start new sites but leave the old ones alone. If nothing else, most penalties expire around 90 days or less. As a community, we will figure Penguin out... Stay tuned

penguin is not a penalty, but a filter and you will not come out of penguin unless you fix the problem or google loosens the screws and it doesn't seem google does this...but, hey, there is always a first time for everything, like the first time i did underwater bong hits (j/k...i don't even know if this is possible)...

 

[zartania]

People need to stop making these useless fucking threads that provide absolutely no information.

This thread is about "open discussion". Certainly if I had all the answers, I would just create a new thread and share with everyone. It may be useless for you, but helpful for others.

 

[assphuck]

Filter or penalty is in the eyes of the beholder. For those in the IM industry, going from the middle of page one to position 590 is a penalty. Regardless, the site has improved to position 9 this morning with slight improvements on other keywords as well. And the method I used on this site is specifically targeted to correct my own Penguin related problem. The same method is being applied on two additional sites as I type so that I can attempt to replicate the same success and confirm it was not a fluke. Unfortunately, results from these tests will not appear immediately. But if/when they do, I'll post the exact method I used with the math behind it so people can try it on their sites as well.

penguin is not a penalty, but a filter and you will not come out of penguin unless you fix the problem or google loosens the screws and it doesn't seem google does this...but, hey, there is always a first time for everything, like the first time i did underwater bong hits (j/k...i don't even know if this is possible)...

 

[jon_xx_x]

If you haven't noticed, Penguin happened almost three weeks ago, and there have been atleast two or three new threads added daily, and almost all offer absolutely nothing and could have been added to previous threads.

This thread is about "open discussion". Certainly if I had all the answers, I would just create a new thread and share with everyone. It may be useless for you, but helpful for others.

 

[zartania]

If you haven't noticed, Penguin happened almost three weeks ago, and there have been atleast two or three new threads added daily, and almost all offer absolutely nothing and could have been added to previous threads.

You don't seem to have the same enthusiasm for discussion on IM methods as most others do in this forum.

If I don't find a thread helpful or something where I can offer help then I exit that thread and keep browsing/searching the forum. It's just not cool to s@@t on other people's threads.

Sure I realize Penguin was 3 weeks ago, to the tune of $11,000-$16,000 a month gone.

I have several tests running and draw conclusions from them. If I'm a bit iffy on my conclusions, I come here and ask - the reason for this thread.

 

[supportnhelp]

Filter or penalty is in the eyes of the beholder. For those in the IM industry, going from the middle of page one to position 590 is a penalty. Regardless, the site has improved to position 9 this morning with slight improvements on other keywords as well. And the method I used on this site is specifically targeted to correct my own Penguin related problem. The same method is being applied on two additional sites as I type so that I can attempt to replicate the same success and confirm it was not a fluke. Unfortunately, results from these tests will not appear immediately. But if/when they do, I'll post the exact method I used with the math behind it so people can try it on their sites as well.

You are providing good info. I leave sites alone and move on to new sites. But really want to recover my sites.

Can you tell what u doing.

I Think, it's about anchor text diversity. is that you doing?

I plan to do links with raw anchors and only few keyword links.

Thanks in advance for your feedback.

 

[caitlin]

Bit of follow up, if you read what I put in my post above, this refers to that.

I ran rank checker on 40 of my pages.. Not much change from the day penguin hit.. bit I did notice something.. I had 4 pages where I had linked youtube videos to and these sites only dropped a few positions when Penguin hit. All 40 pages had links from articles pointing to them. Every page that only had the article links got clobbered, the pages that had both the article link and the n0follw youtube link were in good shape by comparison.

So was it the naked n0follow link in the youtube what saved that page from getting destroyed? Most definitely. Was it the link itself or the content around it was so dissimilar the page being linked to was spared the brunt of the penalty?

It has to be a page by page penalty because when I do a search for my keywords in googleminusgoogle.com, everything still ranks as it did before penguin rolled out. Post Penguin, shit is all over the place and the filter/penalty is not spread evenly across the board.

It makes me wonder why Google is still maintaining the "old" index ranking and then applying the penalty when the search on google.com is done. I don't see them having 2 indexes. Everything behind the scenes is still the same. Try googleminusgoogle.com on your search terms and see if your site still ranks as it did before. If it does, why?

I am thinking this is a temporary filter/penalty. Why else would they still have the same results as they did before Penguin unless they plan to restore them at some future point? They have to know results got worse because they killed all the good content for a lot of search terms. I really don't think they see it as an improvement. I think it is more an action to scare the hell out of us.