The Penguin Penalty Update was made to attack bad sites and level the
gaming field for web spams. This is not actually another version of
Panda Update. Because Panda is not actually a spam filter, it is rather a
priority inbox :-) i.e. Panda was introduced to like better contents,
not hate bad contents.
De-Optimize the Web Site
Just put only 8 (max 10) keywords in Meta Tags. Google has mentioned
several times that they don’t use Meta Keywords for ranking. But, after
the Penguine update, they are saying that they are now using it to hunt
you down. So, it is about time you stopped stuffing your keyword meta
tags with keywords.
I usually tell people to optimize site for only one keyword. And use
multiple deeper pages for longer tail keywords or keyword variations.
But, it is ok to optimize a page for 3 keywords. I know, I said 5
keywords few years back. But, things are getting pretty competitive,
now-a-days.
I know many people that are still obsessed with keyword density. If
you still are, then you are still in old school. Reanalyze your keyword
density and try to reduce the keyword density of any page, if it is more
than 5%. But, 2012 is the year of thick contents. i.e. quality 500+
words articles perform better than others. So, you can guess that even
5% would be more. Usually try to keep the keyword mentions right, i.e.
not more than 5 times in the page. Do not manually or automatically
count the keyword density percentage.
Try avoiding keyword stuffing in Page Titles. It is actually useless.
Doing such things are also over optimization. Page Title is the major
place to put your important keywords. But, the keywords that are
available at the end, have no power. The influence is algorithmically
discarded, but since Google is punishing you to have keyword stuffing in
meta data, it can also be true for keyword stuffing in page titles as
well.
Another place for keyword stuffing are the URLs. For Search Engine
Friendly (SEF) URLs, make sure they are also not stuffed with
keywords. So, de-optimizing your site is more about re-optimizing your
site so that keyword stuffing is taken down to a tolerable and natural
level.
According to the
article by Google on the Penguin Update,
there are really some hints about what you should do for de-optimizing
your site. Other than Keyword Stuffing, Google also mentions other
aspects that they are also looking into:
Outgoing links are completely unrelated
This means that you should be careful in what anchor text you use and
which site you link to. I don’t think that the anchor text is much of a
problem, but try to link to relevant site from your article. Even LSI
keywords are also relevant. Try to link to the sites that talk
about relevant stiffs.
Page text has been “spun” beyond recognition
I searched for the keyword “spin”, “spinning”, and “spun”. Looks like
Google Inside Search Blog has mentioned the overly popular term
Content Spinning for the first time. Though some are based on guesstimation, but
see this old video from SENuke to understand the level of intelligence that Google uses for identifying near duplicate and spun contents.
Increase Quality Links to Pages
I get many questions from people asking me what is quality links.
Well, this should not be answered from the perspective of an SEO
professional, rather from the perspective of Google. A
Quality Link
is voluntary in nature and is provided naturally (or organically) to
your site from relevant pages. A Quality Link is always a free and
enthusiastic link and not influenced by money or any other benefit.
If you have been doing link building from high PR but irrelevant pages just to increase the Page Rank, then you might be a
Prime Prey for Penguin Penalty.
It is pretty easy to suggest you to remove the bad quality links, but I
know how hard it is. If you have already purchased links, try to find
highly relevant pages on their site and try to get links from those
relevant pages. If you are out of luck in finding relevant links, then
propose them to create some relevant pages and have them linked from
their high PR pages and get a level deep link, but from highly relevant
one.
In future, make quality contents, so that they are either newsworthy
or share-worthy. Actually social media marketing plays a great role in
having your contents found now-a-days. And getting mentions is
secondary. e.g. I found Barry’s article in Facebook and now giving link
love to his blog with very relevant page title. I am not boasting, but
this is indeed a quality link to Barry’s article.
You can also try to use link baiting technique on related topics to
your business. e.g. if you sell Diamond Rings, you can start celebrity
gossips around Diamond Rings. Or talk about most controversial story in
your industry. Another good way to get quality links is by providing a
news faster than CNN, BBC, Reuters. The first provider of a breaking
news always gets link love.
Make Sure Link Anchor Text is More Natural
Anchor text has been the driving force in passing relevance to a
site. But, in recent years, exact match keywords in Anchor Text is
thought to be manipulative. If you evaluate the anchor texts of
voluntary links, then you might find that most of them are not using
exact match keywords. So, it is high time to alternate your anchor texts
from backlinks.
Those who were complaining about Penguin Penalty, most of them were
complaining that the sites that were targeting less than 5 keywords were
affected in some way. But, those who targeted more than 10 keywords,
were in sound health. This is also an indication that anchor text
alteration is crucial now.
It is ok to have exact match keywords in anchor text. But, try not to
make it wide spread. It looks very much manipulative in the eye of
Google. Always try to get links from relevant pages and don’t care about
what your anchor texts says. Google also recently
announced that
they have turned off some classifier for anchor texts. Not sure which
particular classifier they were talking about. But, you can help
yourself in making the anchor texts look pretty natural.
Actually, Google Webmaster Tool does has this insight
here
(change yoursite.com with your site). If your anchor texts are natural,
you should see varied keywords and many anchor texts listed in Google
Webmaster. So, if you see limited number of anchor texts, then you have
something to worry about.
Remove Links from Blogrolls
Actually the suggestion should be:
Avoid Sitewide Links.
Site-wide links does pass some page rank but in most cases, it may also
link to you from irrelevant pages, which does not help you in ranking.
In recent Penguin Penalty, sites having sidewide links have been
affected. Sitewide links are actually indicative of link purchase.
Try to avoid getting sitewide links from other sites, unless the site
has all article or contents related to the keywords you are targeting.
However, for natural looking linking, always try to get links to deeper
pages, instead of the homepage. If you are using
topical satellite blog or
topical spokes in link wheel, try to link to deeper pages as much as possible. By
topical, I mean having separate blogs in specific topic, not diverse topics and building it as micro-authority in a relevant niche.
If you are selling links from Blogrolls, then Google also tells you
to use rel Nofollow tags on links. It is also a good idea to nofollow
link to your homepage from spokes as well. But, favor only the deeper
links.
Scale Back the Internal Link Anchor Text
Not sure what exactly Barry wanted to mean by this. But, in most
cases, keywords in anchor text plays a great role in passing relevance
to deeper pages. That’s why for sites in flash, footer links with
relevant anchor texts plays a great role in making Google find the most
relevant page for your keyword. However, there are people that over do
it and try to get as many links possible without considering Content
Siloing. Content Siloing through anchor texts in now more effective than
just random internal links.
Exact Match Domains Hurt
In Penguin Penalty, many exact match domains have seen less traffic.
Exact match domains have been a part of the manipulation process. But, I
personally don’t think that Google would be hurting your site if you
have built a good brand and authority around your keyword. If you don’t
have a good brand or authority, then there is reason to make
Google believe that you are manipulating Google. So, to get out of the
penalty, you should build a good brand as well as authority around your
site.
After the Penguin Update, I really don’t think, exact match domain
are NO (totally zero value). There is still some value in it. It is just
that, sites that does not have much authority, should not get the
Google love for having exact match keyword name of the domain.
Practice Negative SEO
Recently, Google has sent mails to many webmasters through Google
Webmaster that they have suspicious backlinks for their sites. This has
led to the idea that you can make a site look suspicious in the eye of
Google. May not be a good one, but this is also another idea to make
your way to the top by hurting other competitors.
But, personally I think you would be wasting your time. Because, Google has been working with Google Bowling for long time.
Google Bowling is
the term where Google discards any back link influence, i.e. they
become nofollow even if they are dofollow. Moreover, Bruce Clay in
SEO FB Group suggested a nice option in Google Webmaster:
I am hopeful that there will be a WMT disavow option soon so that
recipients can essentially “nofollow” a link from the receiving end.
And with the Penguin Update and the negative SEO fear, I also think
Google should be serious about Google Bowling and you might see similar
feature in Google Webmaster soon. So, all the time you spend on negative
SEO will be waste of time.
Move Content to a New Domain
Well, I don’t think you need to do that. Actually, sub-domains are
also ok for doing this. Google treat each subdomains as separate sites.
And that’s how you see WordPress and Blogspot blogs multiple times in
SERPs. But, this might also deprive you from age scores. I’d suggest you
to build your site as authority. If you are determined, then fight it,
not quite it.
Build a Smaller Site with Very Few Pages
Not a good one and I really don’t support it as an option. Sites with
fewer pages rose in rankings as other heavily optimized sites’ ranking
dropped. But, sites with good authority still are standing strong.
Having fewer pages does not help you grow authority. Moreover, it is
like doing nothing for your site. Serious businesses prefer having more
and more contents. That is how they reign by becoming authority in their
industry.
Write Better Content
This is perhaps the most important piece of suggestion for both Panda
and Penguin update. The better the content you have, the more the
probability that others in the same industry will prefer you above your
competitors. That will also help you build natural links.
Add More Social Elements, i.e. Google+ Sharing
Social SEO is real guys. You can not deny it. Many webmasters are
running after only dofollow links. But, Social SEO made nofollow links
worthwhile. And having only dofollow links also looks suspicious. But,
to make proper balance of both nofollow and dofollow links, enabling
social sharing is a good way.
Search Plus Your World was not only meant to make searches more
meaning, but also to convert Google from a search engine to
recomendation engine. If you asked someone, what is better than a search
engine, then the obvious answer would be a freind or trusted person who
knows about the keyword I am searching for. And Google always wanted to
be that recommendation engine. And Google+ was not just meant for a
social media, it has much wider purpose.
Social Signals from Facebook and Twitter is also important. Banded3 did a
nice research
and found that twitter mentions has great influence in rankings. If you
are looking into the marketing in future, you should also invest much
time in Social Media Marketing.
Site Audit to Determine Problem Areas
Whenever a new algorithm update happens, this is the first thing you
should do. In perspective of the Penguin Update, the audits you should
do are:
- Various diagnostic reports in Google Webmaster Tools
- Traffic analysis in your major web analytics app (Google Analytics)
- Keyword ranking analysis for your important keywords
- Competitor ranking and search engine performance analysis
- Backlink popularity and quality analysis
Think More Long Term, Stop Taking Shortcuts
This has always been the last suggestion for every algorithm update. And
Shortcuts
were never an option in White Hat SEO. Every shortcuts are actually
manipulating Google and Matt Cutts is also simultaneously taking actions
against such short cuts.
Long term thinking also helps you to reduce the loss of effort you
spent on your site. Moreover, the effort you put into the site steadily
becomes an asset. Otherwise, the spammy links you made through money and
effort are now a disposable expenses.
If I talk something about the future of SEO, then my opinion is that:
SEO can not be done by agencies anymore in future. Though, it is still
possible through agencies. But, people will need to build inhouse SEO
team that understand the business well. SEO Agencies in recent times,
need to have training centers or resources to train companies to market
themselves. Or they can build specialization in specific areas. I
already see this happening, because you can find Real Estate SEOs,
Celebrity SEOs, Mortgage SEOs, etc. and in future you might see more
product or service SEO specialization.
Moreover, Google is steadily transferring the power of SEO to
individual level. I predicted this shift long ago in May of 2008 on my
blog
13 Prophecies of Internet Marketing on
Marketing Pilgrim (Prophecy #10: Personal Power to Influence Purchase
will Increase). Some of the indications are shifting power of influence
from forum to blogs, search plus your world, social signals, etc.
Moreover, I strongly support
AJ Kohn that
Google will bring AuthorRank soon, which will revolutionize SEO to the
next level and SEO will be more person oriented than website oriented.
So, it is not sites that can make another site rank well in future,
it’ll be individuals or group of relevant individuals that can help a
site or business rank well in search engines. So, SEOs in future will be
great marketers like Oprah who’s endorsement is worth millions of
dollars.
Additional Penguin Recovery Tips
Penguin has hit sites that were doing much spamming and building low
quality links. While Panda hit mainly onpage factors, Penguin has
targeted offpage factors. Many people already have mentioned some nice
tips to recover from it. Some are:
Link Pruning
The term Link Pruning was initially invented by Bruce Clay, which is
really the opposite of link building. It is the process to keep quality
backlinks and delete the bad ones. The best tool that can give the the
insight for quality links is
Majestic SEO’s ACRank (replace yoursite.com with your site). See the video below to understand more about Link Pruning and also read the
blog on Stone Temple.
Create Microsites or Micro-Authorities
In a recent
post
in Microsite Masters, they have suggested using Microsites. Initially
this has been a greyhat technique. But, personally I think that it can
be a good option to Silo Contents from external sites.
I think microsite does not need to be outside your domain. it can be
in subdomain. Specially after panda, subdomains have been good way to
Silo Contents. If you target and promote keywords and services like: Web
Design, Graphic Design, Web Development, etc. then you can use
External Authority Content Siloing
for each keyword. External Authority Content Siloing from authority
sites will help you to become bigger authority. But, for that you need
to create separate authorities.
For commercial sites, there is really not much engagement. Rather,
you can start the engagements on external educational and news sites or
subdomain. I really don’t support having 20-50 blog for Graphic Design
only. Just create one blog which you create as an authority (which is
not really that easy). And another blog for Web Development and try
promoting deeper pages of the bigger authority site instead of
homepage.
Affiliate Marketers actually do that for you and it is already
happening. Large companies are already doing it. But, their microsites
are really not that micro. The philosophy here would be
External Authority Content Siloing
and I think since Microsite has less reputation, “External Authority
Content Siloing” would be the best word that I am trying to support.
Again, if I support that future of SEO will be more people oriented
than website oriented, then if you can create a strong supporter for
your domain from external domains, you can stay at top in future as
well. So, try not to create crappy microsites, just create a strong
supporter for you.
Guest Blogging
Guest Blogging is actually not a new concept. It has been around for
long time, as Ann Smarty has been supporting it for long time. And when I
am speaking about AuthorRank, guest blogging will be more prominent in
future. Since you really can increase your AuthorRank even by blogging
on other sites.
It’s pretty hard to get quality links. Again it is also hard for
people to get quality contents for their blogs. This is
the phenomenon where synergies can happen. While other blogs are looking
for quality contents, you can jump in to provide that, even by buying
quality articles. That’s why in recent future, I think the SEO industry
will be seeking for quality contents than backlinks.
Update: In recent
discussion between
Matt Cutts and Danny Sullivan at SMX Seattle, Matt Cutts revealed that
Google is coming up with new feature in Google Webmaster that will help
Webmasters to disavow some bad links, which will eventually turn a
dofollow link into nofollow. This mean that the suggestion for such
feature by Bruce Clay in SEOFB Group is finally seeing life. And this
will help webmasters to fight negative SEO better and also make link
pruning more effective and easy. Here is the exact word for the news:
He also mentioned — and this will be good news to many search
marketers — that Google is considering offering a tool that allows web
masters to disavow certain links, but that may be months away if it
happens.
Disclaimer
Google Penguin update is relatively new. The update went live at
April 24, 2012 and this article was written a week later. So, most of
the suggestions based on best guess and some of the strategies have not
yet been tested.
