Over Optimization. Does it really exist?

For those who are doing SEO, you may have heard of the dreaded Penguin update. With that, several news have been spread regarding anchor text over-optimization.

But?Does it really exist and did Google implement it into their latest algorithm update? Let?s find out!

Note: Before we begin, I have backlinked all my sites with multiple anchor texts to each page/post (min of 5) and have saw no real threat in my rankings but rather a good continuous boost in their rankings.


Duration of this case study will be 30 days of daily backlinking to 2 keywords. The only difference between these 2 keywords are 1 will be singular and the other plural.
E.g: Dog Book & Dog Books.

Start date: 20 June 2012
Ending date: 20 July 2012

Oh yes, it does exist. I was playing with an ingenious automated SEO tool (that I'm in the middle of developing) in which it created unique/original content, posted it on various blogs and pinged that crap out of multiple ping sites.

While testing the script I inadvertently had a cron job running in the background which called the script 'frequently'. The result was too many backlinks too soon. My rankings dropped immediately and the website in question is pretty much a write-off. I was number 1 for certain keywords and now it's more like 'somewhere on page 5'.

That was two months ago and while I haven't touched the site my rankings have not improved. There is no way to simply 'bounce back' or 'recover' from over-optimization. I've bought other domains and starting over.

Unfortunately, it took this tweaking or experimentation to determine how often I should use the script that I'm working on. Now I know. My advice is don't be cocky - and I mean this with the utmost respect. Secondly, think of the challenge against BIG G (where SEO in concerned) as more of a marathon instead of a sprint.

Your experiment: Two anchor-text-backlinks per day - will not have an effect where over-optimization is concerned IMO. You can probably be safe with up to five, assuming they are spread out throughout the hours of the day.

From what you stated, it must be because you built too many links in a short period of time which caused the drop. I actually did a case study on a site with a similar situation.

May 5th: I did 800 blog comments to 2 keywords for the site which got indexed in 1 hour. Note: the site was a 2 weeks old domain. The rankings for the 2 keywords rise from N/A to #22 & N/A to #56 and as expected a spike in backlinks and none after that = disaster. Here's the link.

May 5th: At the same time, I did my own backlinking plan and the results just kept dropping and it dropped below 100.

May 9th: Same site again, I did a case study on my new backlinking plan, the 2 keywords (keyword 3 & 4 on the graph) were now N/A. After constant backlinking for 30 days...

June 9th:

Today June 20th: Its now sitting at 41th.

The way I backlinked which caused the penalty might not be the same as yours but the concept is the same of having a spike in backlinks and no link velocity after that. In addition, this site was 2 weeks old which just worsen the penalty. But with constant backlinking, I manage to bring the site back up.

and for the experiment, I'm not doing 2 anchor-text-backlinks per day but constant backlinks (ranging from 10-100 per day) with just 2 anchor texts for 30 days.
From experience, I can say this experiment may cause a drop in rankings in the 2 keywords but curiosity got the better of me

The key is that Google's analyzing all variables to determine over optimization, not just backlinks.

For example, increase your onsite variables for this test, make it ridiculous. Have your articles have a keyword density of 25%, use the keyword in every H tag. Make your title only the keyword. Optimize the image alt tags with your keyword. Internal link with the anchor text.

Match that with over optimizing your offsite anchors, and you've got a recipe to test the effects of over-optimization.

My onsite seo is quite heavily optimized as well. With the keyword being in every h tags + alt tags. However, I would just leave the keyword density at ~2%. I`ll update the case study on my site to make things clearer as I only stated the keyword density.

Update: I`ll include 2 more images in each of the post with the 2 of the targeted keywords. Let's see how it goes.

Offsite SEO has already begun with backlinking with just the 2 targeted keywords.

I'm willing to bet this case study shows its true colours on the next penguin refresh.

From all your posts on this thread, you seem to be doing the right things. You are actually not over optimizing and hence will not be able to make case out of this. If you really need to make a case on 'over optimization' you should do something similar to what 'Superlinks' has said in his post.

I would definitely be curious to see the outcome of such an experiment.

Good luck... . Will follow this thread closely.

akazzz said:

Updates on 10 July

The keyword has been sitting at #1 for the past 1 week and its still sitting at #1 until today.

We shall see what will happen after the end of this case study. I might even continue to update this case study for another month.

Link to the case study

Click to expand...

Case study has been completed !

Results can be found here

After claiming and maintaing our #1 spot for 14 days, with just 2% keyword density we have already seen the drop in rankings.

We will keep backlinking to the same url with the same 2 anchor texts for another 20-30 days. To see a more clearer view of over optimization results.

Great that you have proven an over-optimisation will cause a drop in rankings. It has been written everywhere but it is good to see it really happen, thanks

Its Weird But I have Article's on my website with LSI's that outrank the article's optimized for 1 keyword

example :article optimized for Kw. "Making money online" with alot more backlinks links
is getting outranked for the keyword "making money online" by article for keywords
(Making money online the easy way, how are people making money online.)
Wich has no backlinks what so ever.