Penguin 5 Update Learning’s so Far

[Killix]

Hey all,

So I have written a post around what I have learned about this update so far even though it is still too early to tell. But me and my friends had set up a few sites ages ago with different types of backlink profiles to see if we could learn anything from the next update. The time has now come and this is what I have so far for everyone.
http://www.seostyx.com/news/penguin-5-update-learnings-so-far/

Hope all are well,

Thanks.

 

[UNCLEBUCK]

Appreciate your post

 

[ficfroc]

Useful post, you could make even more useful by posting :

1) the anchor text ratios , the amount of backlinks isn't important as it depends on the niche.
2) The velocity you've been using during your link building.
3) if you have been building 2nd tier to the 1tier properties.
4) Percentage of do/no follow links.

After reading your article I come with the conclusion that the websites you've been deversifying the links types have been doing well - even if thoses were web2.0 . I'm saying this because a lot of people are starting to think that these are what caused them to drop.

And before members start flaming OP because of the age of the new websites, I can garantee to you that this update is not age-related, Saw new websites (less than 3 months) being penalised and shot outside of the serp.

Good contribution.

 

[DunDidIt2X]

Thanks for the post. Very helpful. From my own notes, new sites were not affected by the update, or sites that refresh content were not affected. Older sites that do not update content were all affected.

 

[Hubba]

Thanks for the post. Very helpful. From my own notes, new sites were not affected by the update, or sites that refresh content were not affected. Older sites that do not update content were all affected.

I had 1 month+ sites affected (brand new not affected). Some of the hit sites had new content added regularly and non-spam link profiles, but the keyword density was a bit high.

 

[ficfroc]

Thanks for the post. Very helpful. From my own notes, new sites were not affected by the update, or sites that refresh content were not affected. Older sites that do not update content were all affected.

New sites gets affected with this update. I Promess

 

[bartosimpsonio]

Quick note: there's a gigantic image loading which takes over your entire site: http://www.seostyx.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/SEOSTYX-2.png

I couldn't see anything as this image covered the entire screen.....

 

[mikie46]

You were using bran new domains? What about aged domains? Google is far more forgiving when it comes to aged domains and many Imers are getting away with murder. Iv seen aged domains ranking #1 in the home security niche and 70% of the backlinks are coming from comment spam for instance. The #1 site in the home security niche is doing everything you were told not to do. It also has backlinks from directories and has ranked in that position for over 2yrs. My point is, if your site is aged and has authority nothing will knock it down. Your tests were done with new domains. I wonder what the results would be with domains 1yr+.

 

[bigballin6161]

So from this I gather that social signals are more and more becoming the most powerful backlinks?

 

[mikie46]

So from this I gather that social signals are more and more becoming the most powerful backlinks?

Iv been pushing social signals to one of my 3yrs old domains for over 5 months. It has not ranked based on this alone. In fact, its dropped 7 positions in that time.

 

[ficfroc]

You were using bran new domains? What about aged domains? Google is far more forgiving when it comes to aged domains and many Imers are getting away with murder. Iv seen aged domains ranking #1 in the home security niche and 70% of the backlinks are coming from comment spam for instance. The #1 site in the home security niche is doing everything you were told not to do. It also has backlinks from directories and has ranked in that position for over 2yrs. My point is, if your site is aged and has authority nothing will knock it down. Your tests were done with new domains. I wonder what the results would be with domains 1yr+.

Hello mikie46,

I had a look at some penalized websites what I can tell you is :
-One website was not using any comment backlinks still got penalized
-the second website was using almost only comment spam he was wiped out of the search. (those comment were holding the money anchor text) and these comments almost all do*ollow

How ever those two websites had an anchor text over optimization issue.
Is the website you are talking about using his anchor text in the comments ? Are these one do or nof0llow ?

 

[gossapril]

Man, my anchor text ratio is 1-2% density and I was warned by Google about spamming keywords.
Don't know what logic they use now?

 

[ficfroc]

So from this I gather that social signals are more and more becoming the most powerful backlinks?

For You and For all of you who think that social signals will save you from penguin read this post carefully : http://www.blackhatworld.com/blackhat-seo/black-hat-seo/612808-google-update-just-now-10-4-a-8.html#post6128688

Think you can do better than him 350k real fans and 22k real followers on twitter ?

 

[freeport2008]

In my case I see possible pattern of linking from same domain with different anchors plus over 10% anchor ratio
In other words, linking from similar pool of domains was a main pattern and then:
Keywords with anchor ratio under 10% are still top40-80 ( from top 3 )
Anchor ratio above 10% - all keywords went to hell ( from Top3)
With the above in mind and based on 4 websites in 3 niches over 6 months period.
All 4 received 100% unique content and social signals build weekly.
Age of domains: 2 - 12 years
The only 1 out of 4 above sites that survived P2.01 and still holds top1-3 positions was a site that had very little BL build and relied mostly on social signals and unique content.

 

[TheAdvertisingMan]

I believe that social signals became very important in the eyes of big G. However, it depends on other factors and types of backlinks. I don't think just the social signals would rank site with some serious competition.

OP, thanks for useful share.

 

[bartosimpsonio]

By social signals you probably mean them trying to promote Google+ at all costs?

Twitter and FB are great for their collateral effects, but I don't have any evidence to support that Twitter and FB signals themselves trigger any SERP increase. The links and mentions as consequence of a FB post will help, but not the FB post itself. Don't know if making myself clear....

Story's different with Google+ though - those are powerful links and do influence SERPs IME. Which some may question as unfair business practice....

 

[the-kashish]

Useful post, you could make even more useful by posting :

1) the anchor text ratios , the amount of backlinks isn't important as it depends on the niche.
2) The velocity you've been using during your link building.
3) if you have been building 2nd tier to the 1tier properties.
4) Percentage of do/no follow links.

After reading your article I come with the conclusion that the websites you've been deversifying the links types have been doing well - even if thoses were web2.0 . I'm saying this because a lot of people are starting to think that these are what caused them to drop.

And before members start flaming OP because of the age of the new websites, I can garantee to you that this update is not age-related, Saw new websites (less than 3 months) being penalised and shot outside of the serp.

Good contribution.

Wrong....
It's all about age and number of indexed pages, so called authority.
I've multiple sites in the fashion, beauty and the clothing niches.
It's always same old sites surviving all Googles penalties.

Basically 0 diversity when it comes to backlinks, most of them have practically no social presence, keyword stuffed content, titles and meta, maximum 200 - 300 words / page and exact kw anchor footer links from Russian or Poland.
I met one dude that works for an seo company that does the seo for one of the sites, and I asked him about Penguin.
You know what his answer was?

What Penguin?

He thought Penguin was something that rolled out once, never knew there was a refresh or a Penguin 2.0.

 

[Killix]

Useful post, you could make even more useful by posting :

1) the anchor text ratios , the amount of backlinks isn't important as it depends on the niche.
2) The velocity you've been using during your link building.
3) if you have been building 2nd tier to the 1tier properties.
4) Percentage of do/no follow links.

After reading your article I come with the conclusion that the websites you've been deversifying the links types have been doing well - even if thoses were web2.0 . I'm saying this because a lot of people are starting to think that these are what caused them to drop.

And before members start flaming OP because of the age of the new websites, I can garantee to you that this update is not age-related, Saw new websites (less than 3 months) being penalised and shot outside of the serp.

Good contribution.

Thanks for the advice buddy, ill write up in more detail the questions you asked and anything else i can think of would be useful. Have it all stored on a few excel spreadsheets so will have to gather them up

I believe that social signals became very important in the eyes of big G. However, it depends on other factors and types of backlinks. I don't think just the social signals would rank site with some serious competition.

OP, thanks for useful share.

Totally agree with what you are saying, they seem to give a nice amount of strength to the site and therefore important. However you are correct in saying that vs a competitive niche, you will never rank first page with solely social signals. Just about finding the perfect balance.

 

[UNCLEBUCK]

... So in conclusion... Nothing makes sense...

 

[Killix]

... So in conclusion... Nothing makes sense...

When does anything they do make sense but yeah still to early to tell yet.