Hiring SEO Companies to revive from Penguin havoc?

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Has anyone here hired an SEO company to help recover their sites from the Penguin update?

I've had over 20 sites negatively affected by the Penguin, so to recover them myself would take ages even if it is possible. I was at a $2000/month level before I got hit by Penguin so im prepared to pay decent money to recover them.

I've never used any paid backlinking services, but I got hit so oddly getting penalized is making me considering paid links for the first time ever. Way to go Google.

Would it be best to hire an SEO VA who can build backlinks gradually or do you think a service which builds links on a one-off basis such as backlink packages would be better suited?

There is all sorts of SEO companies promising the earth so I know you need to be careful about which one to hire especially as backlinks can even cause harm to sites now due to Google's misguided attempt to combatting webspam.
#companies #havoc #penguin #revive #seo
  • Profile picture of the author tylerherman
    If it were me I would trust a VA who I told exactly what to do vs. some "expert" selling SEO services.

    If you read these forums much you realize that it is the blind leading the blind as far as good SEO practices are concerned.
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  • Profile picture of the author Pyramid Linkers
    I wouldn't hire a VA unless you know exactly what you need from them on a daily basis. I mean EXACTLY. If you don't, then I would definitely suggest hiring someone that knows what they are doing to do your SEO for you. I also wouldn't hire anyone on a one time basis. You need to be consistent in your link building and all of this one off services provide vary little ROI.
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  • Profile picture of the author momo3
    I am interested in what people have to say about this too...
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  • Profile picture of the author TheProgrammer
    i suggest you to start work by yourself, i think after the recent changes hiring someone is to not a good idea and more risky because there is also a chance of getting sandbox.
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  • Profile picture of the author TolyZ
    Depending on the penalty it's possible. If you were paying for SEO before then you DID buy backlinks. I run SEO company and only 1 of my customers was hit, but we got them back within first 2 weeks. Pm me your keywords and I can provide you with the advice.
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  • Profile picture of the author momo3
    TolyZ --
    You said you got someone back in the first two weeks. I dont mean to be a buzzkill, but Penguin has only been out about 9 days.
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  • Profile picture of the author nasuryono
    I would never hire an SEO company to do SEO for my site. Not that I don't trust them but most of them are scams.

    I rely more on the experiment that I did with my own site. It makes me a better SEO practicioner as well
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    • Profile picture of the author seoace
      The only time you can call a SEO company a scam is when
      1. They don't send a report

      Other than that, calling a SEO company a scam is going overboard.

      I know most business owners who just hire "SEO" companies when those companies just say they will do "SEO" for your site but they do not provide report to know what they have been doing the past 3 months and seeing no results.
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  • Profile picture of the author jasono
    It can be fine too if you hire a VA or some SEO services to help you rank back your site as long as they are going to do what you want to do - which is white hat SEO.
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  • Profile picture of the author David williamm
    It’s better to hire some professional who can suggest you what should you do to recover from Google penguin update. Its not just about create more backlinks and your website will be back in ranking. Person should have some deep knowledge about search engine and have broad ideaabout how to recover from Google penguin
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  • Profile picture of the author Cash37
    You would be better off ordering a few quality services here, than doing that. I dont trust any blind SEO
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  • Profile picture of the author BlackIrish
    I don't know, many people have said that for pretty much 99% of the banned sites it's not possible to recover.

    Probably better to re-invest in a new site, maybe even a new niche if you have better ideas developed.
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    • Profile picture of the author cooler1
      Originally Posted by BlackIrish View Post

      I don't know, many people have said that for pretty much 99% of the banned sites it's not possible to recover.

      Probably better to re-invest in a new site, maybe even a new niche if you have better ideas developed.
      Many people talk crap because they like believing the worst. Google even themselves have said that recovery is possible in most cases. Penguin is an algorithmic penalty, not a set penalty so it refreshes periodically based on signals.
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  • Profile picture of the author DPM70
    Nasuryono has the best solution for you for the long term. SEO is in constant flux. If you have a brain that likes to test and analyse, you'll do better for yourself. And you'll only have yourself to blame when things go wrong - which, in my experience, only spurs me on to improve my techniques.
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  • Profile picture of the author GodMode52
    Originally Posted by cooler1 View Post


    I've had over 20 sites .

    I was at a $2000/month level .

    I've never used any paid backlinking services
    Hi there , may I ask how did you get page 1 for 20 sites without backlinks?
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    • Profile picture of the author DPM70
      Originally Posted by GodMode52 View Post

      Hi there , may I ask how did you get page 1 for 20 sites without backlinks?
      He didn't say that he didn't use backlinks.
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    • Profile picture of the author cooler1
      Originally Posted by GodMode52 View Post

      Hi there , may I ask how did you get page 1 for 20 sites without backlinks?
      My sites did have backlinks, I only said I didn't use paid backlinking services.
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      • Profile picture of the author retsek
        Originally Posted by cooler1 View Post

        My sites did have backlinks, I only said I didn't use paid backlinking services.
        So what did you use ?
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  • Profile picture of the author GodMode52
    What was your backlink strategy then? There's a reason if you got penalized , the main thing to understand if you can recover back is to understand the reason behind your penality.
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    • Profile picture of the author cooler1
      Originally Posted by GodMode52 View Post

      What was your backlink strategy then? There's a reason if you got penalized , the main thing to understand if you can recover back is to understand the reason behind your penality.
      I used social bookmarking, articles, web directories, videos and press releases.

      I have looked at the backlink anchor text in Open site explorer. Most of the backlinks anchor text are targetting my sites primary keyword, so I suspect that is the reason for the Penguin effect.

      A few of my sites were not affected by Penguin. Those sites have less backlinks than the ones which were affected so I suspect that there is some kind of threshold where if an unnatural anchor text ratio is above a certain link amount then the penalty is triggered.

      I can't think what else it could be because my sites which were not negatively affected still used the same backlink types as the affected sites, but just have less backlinks.

      Originally Posted by Johnny Danes View Post

      You're not falling for Big G's "build it and they will come" nonsense are you?

      And how do you suggest people recover from Penguin just by focusing on creating content. There is obviously some kind of algo penalty in place and just by waiting for people to link naturally to your site to get you out of it will be like waiting for England to win the world cup.
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      • Profile picture of the author SEODallas
        Originally Posted by cooler1 View Post

        I used social bookmarking, articles, web directories, videos and press releases.
        Me too, holistic is best!

        @Cooler1 - There is a great post on SEOMoz about how he helped WPMU recover from the latest Penguin update. I am new to the forum, so I can't post links, but you should go hit up their blog and read that article, it's about 13-14 down from the top.

        Has anyone out there had any of their exact match domains penalized?
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        • Profile picture of the author cooler1
          Originally Posted by SEODallas View Post

          Me too, holistic is best!

          @Cooler1 - There is a great post on SEOMoz about how he helped WPMU recover from the latest Penguin update. I am new to the forum, so I can't post links, but you should go hit up their blog and read that article, it's about 13-14 down from the top.

          Has anyone out there had any of their exact match domains penalized?
          I read that post a couple of days ago. It sounds like Google manually revoked the Penguin penalty in that case because they are a large site and it was brought up by several webmasters.
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          • Profile picture of the author GodMode52
            Diluite your anchor's. Try a massive campaign on your sites using this type of anchor's {http://www.site .com|www.site .com|site.com} related long tails and random related keywords, of course avoid spammy links.
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          • Profile picture of the author retsek
            Originally Posted by cooler1 View Post

            I read that post a couple of days ago. It sounds like Google manually revoked the Penguin penalty in that case because they are a large site and it was brought up by several webmasters.
            Sites much larger were hit. Plus they clarified at SMX that WPMU.org recovered because of the data refresh and the changes/clean-up that they did.

            Your old methods still work good enough, IF you variate your anchor text appropriately to make it seem natural. However, methods like those are near impossible to "clean up" once you get caught, and who knows how long they'll still work even if you sufficiently variate the anchor text ?

            My suggestions:

            1. Build even more links to sort of "balance" out your link profile. (I have no idea if it'll work, but in theory it should.

            or.

            2. Start over on new domains WITH the same content and WITHOUT a 301 redirect. Sounds rash, yes, but in the long term it'll probably be easier (and a faster) way to recover versus trying to "clean up" or trying to "balance".

            If you do start over, I suggest giving a good thought to the types of links you create.

            I personally would avoid all article directories, try guest posting instead. The effort it takes will pay off if you only go after quality sites with a readership. Same goes for web directories and press releases.

            You got 20 sites. Do a split - re-luanch 10 and try to balance the profiles of the other 10.
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            • Profile picture of the author cooler1
              Originally Posted by retsek View Post

              Your old methods still work good enough, IF you variate your anchor text appropriately to make it seem natural. However, methods like those are near impossible to "clean up" once you get caught, and who knows how long they'll still work even if you sufficiently variate the anchor text ?

              My suggestions:

              1. Build even more links to sort of "balance" out your link profile. (I have no idea if it'll work, but in theory it should.

              or.

              2. Start over on new domains WITH the same content and WITHOUT a 301 redirect. Sounds rash, yes, but in the long term it'll probably be easier (and a faster) way to recover versus trying to "clean up" or trying to "balance".

              If you do start over, I suggest giving a good thought to the types of links you create.

              I personally would avoid all article directories, try guest posting instead. The effort it takes will pay off if you only go after quality sites with a readership. Same goes for web directories and press releases.

              You got 20 sites. Do a split - re-luanch 10 and try to balance the profiles of the other 10.
              Thanks for the advice.

              Is it even confirmed that Penguin is an actual penalty or just a devaluation of backlinks? The drop in rankings is big so it doesn't seem like it's merely a devaluation of backlinks. However, this large drop could be part of a shuffling process where Google is deciding where a site deserves to rank.

              I won't start over on new domains yet because it might be a waste of time and money if Penguin only actually devalues backlinks. Have you seen positive results post Penguin by starting over on new domains using your content from affected sites?

              The whole notion of starting over on new domains stinks because it means that competitors can effectively ruin people's sites in Google's eyes based on their backlink profile.
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              • Profile picture of the author retsek
                Originally Posted by cooler1 View Post

                Thanks for the advice.

                Is it even confirmed that Penguin is an actual penalty or just a devaluation of backlinks? The drop in rankings is big so it doesn't seem like it's merely a devaluation of backlinks. However, this large drop could be part of a shuffling process where Google is deciding where a site deserves to rank.

                I won't start over on new domains yet because it might be a waste of time and money if Penguin only actually devalues backlinks. Have you seen positive results post Penguin by starting over on new domains using your content from affected sites?

                The whole notion of starting over on new domains stinks because it means that competitors can effectively ruin people's sites in Google's eyes based on their backlink profile.



                Danny: What’s the deal with Penguin. Is it a penalty?

                Matt: We look at it something designed to tackle low-quality content. It started out with Panda, and then we noticed that there was still a lot of spam and Penguin was designed to tackle that. It’s an algorithmic change, but when we use a word like “penalty,” we’re talking about a manual action taken by the web spam team — it wasn’t that.

                We don’t think of it as a penalty. We think of it as, “We have over 200 signals, and this is one of the signals.”
                So they don't call it a penalty. Maybe a better word is a filter ? Either way your sites are probably not gonna recover until you make the changes that are needed.

                Starting over is not so bad actually. And it might be even easier today, as the many SERPs are now not so competitive.

                I had one site that was hit in the original penguin. I'll admit that it had alot of spammy, low quality links. I had bought it about a year before from somebody else.

                Because the content was good, it also attracted good links as well.

                So my approach to recovery was:

                - Move the content over to a better, shorter, more brandable domain without a 301.
                - Get the old links (the ones which I think are good and valuable) updated to point to the new site.
                - Build more new links.

                It is MUCH MUCH easier to get good links updated to point to the correct/new url than it is get bad links like blog comments removed. Webmasters are just more willing, especially if you send a polite email telling them you've moved to a new domain and that their link is broken.

                From a list of about 220 "good" links sources (mostly guest posts, quality directories, resource pages, curated lists, reviews, mentions, etc) I got around 160 updated within a month. A second round of emailing should get that up even more.

                The previous site had around 6,000 domains linking to it. Now its only ~200 and it's at 150% traffic of the old site but from different keywords. Which to me, is evidence that all those 6,000 domains might have been doing harm even before penguin.
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                • Profile picture of the author cooler1
                  Originally Posted by retsek View Post

                  So they don't call it a penalty. Maybe a better word is a filter ? Either way your sites are probably not gonna recover until you make the changes that are needed.

                  Starting over is not so bad actually. And it might be even easier today, as the many SERPs are now not so competitive.

                  I had one site that was hit in the original penguin. I'll admit that it had alot of spammy, low quality links. I had bought it about a year before from somebody else.

                  Because the content was good, it also attracted good links as well.

                  So my approach to recovery was:

                  - Move the content over to a better, shorter, more brandable domain without a 301.
                  - Get the old links (the ones which I think are good and valuable) updated to point to the new site.
                  - Build more new links.

                  It is MUCH MUCH easier to get good links updated to point to the correct/new url than it is get bad links like blog comments removed. Webmasters are just more willing, especially if you send a polite email telling them you've moved to a new domain and that their link is broken.

                  From a list of about 220 "good" links sources (mostly guest posts, quality directories, resource pages, curated lists, reviews, mentions, etc) I got around 160 updated within a month. A second round of emailing should get that up even more.

                  The previous site had around 6,000 domains linking to it. Now its only ~200 and it's at 150% traffic of the old site but from different keywords. Which to me, is evidence that all those 6,000 domains might have been doing harm even before penguin.
                  When you moved your site to the new domain, did you just change the nameservers on your domain registrar and rename the folder on your hosting or did you actually build the site again from scratch by installing a fresh copy of wordpress to the new domain and copying and paste the content from the old domain in new posts, install plugins, etc..

                  Google mentioned recently that they are considering releasing a backlink disinvow tool. Would this mean that you could disallow links which could be causing the Penguin filter to trigger?
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                  • Profile picture of the author retsek
                    Originally Posted by cooler1 View Post

                    When you moved your site to the new domain, did you just change the nameservers on your domain registrar and rename the folder on your hosting or did you actually build the site again from scratch by installing a fresh copy of wordpress to the new domain and copying and paste the content from the old domain in new posts, install plugins, etc..

                    Google mentioned recently that they are considering releasing a backlink disinvow tool. Would this mean that you could disallow links which could be causing the Penguin filter to trigger?
                    Yep as simple as exporting all the wordpress posts, then importing them into the fresh install of wordpress on the new domain. It could also work the way you described first by editing the domain name associated with the hosting account. You'll need to change the domain url in Wordpress settings, first.

                    The disavow tool they're promsing could be used for that, yes. But I wouldn't depend on them releasing anything like that soon. It was SMX and they had to say or do something... meanwhile Bing does a spectacular update to their webmaster tools that rivals most paid seo campaign managers and brings back Yahoo site explorer.
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                    • Profile picture of the author cooler1
                      Originally Posted by retsek View Post

                      Yep as simple as exporting all the wordpress posts, then importing them into the fresh install of wordpress on the new domain. It could also work the way you described first by editing the domain name associated with the hosting account. You'll need to change the domain url in Wordpress settings, first.

                      The disavow tool they're promsing could be used for that, yes. But I wouldn't depend on them releasing anything like that soon. It was SMX and they had to say or do something... meanwhile Bing does a spectacular update to their webmaster tools that rivals most paid seo campaign managers and brings back Yahoo site explorer.
                      Before doing any of that, do you first need to wait until the content has been deindexed from the old domain so it isn't associated with the old domain?

                      I read somewhere that you can specify in Google Webmaster tools that you are moving a site to a new domain. Did you do this?
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                      • Profile picture of the author retsek
                        Originally Posted by cooler1 View Post

                        Before doing any of that, do you first need to wait until the content has been deindexed from the old domain so it isn't associated with the old domain?

                        I read somewhere that you can specify in Google Webmaster tools that you are moving a site to a new domain. Did you do this?
                        No, you shouldn't do a "Change of Address" inside WMT.

                        No, you don't need to wait. Just remove the content.

                        You can do a "Content Removal" inside Webmaster Tools on the old domain. That will get the site deindexed faster, than simply letting it 404.
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  • Profile picture of the author Johnny Danes
    Banned
    See this post Post #14

    Originally Posted by cooler1 View Post

    Has anyone here hired an SEO company to help recover their sites from the Penguin update?

    I've had over 20 sites negatively affected by the Penguin, so to recover them myself would take ages even if it is possible. I was at a $2000/month level before I got hit by Penguin so im prepared to pay decent money to recover them.

    I've never used any paid backlinking services, but I got hit so oddly getting penalized is making me considering paid links for the first time ever. Way to go Google.

    Would it be best to hire an SEO VA who can build backlinks gradually or do you think a service which builds links on a one-off basis such as backlink packages would be better suited?

    There is all sorts of SEO companies promising the earth so I know you need to be careful about which one to hire especially as backlinks can even cause harm to sites now due to Google's misguided attempt to combatting webspam.
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  • Profile picture of the author hilarious89
    Well, according to me Hiring a SEO company will be just a foolishness to revive the penguin Havoc. I would suggest you to do SEO jobs by your own, I mean recruit some good SEO experts.
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