Protecting Sites from Penguin without Cutting Own Throat?

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Hello,

I manage many websites for small, local businesses. Although I pride myself on filling these sites with original, unique content, I've admittedly had exact match anchor text link building done for these sites to increase rankings in the past.

Most of my websites have been impacted by Penguin 2.0 and Penguin 2.1. I also feel that the websites that I own that have not been impacted by Penguin yet are at high risk for taking hits in future updates.

At this point, I am looking to find the best way to protect my websites.

I presume that the way forward is to gather a list of links we've had created on Web 2.0, forums, blogs, etc. with exact match anchor texts and disavow these.

However, because the loss of traffic and rankings we've experienced has already been quite severe, I'm afraid that the disavow tool will essentially kill whatever is left.

I really do just want to find out how to move forward in the best way possible, so please help guide me however you can. Thank you.
#cutting #penguin #protecting #sites #throat
  • Profile picture of the author jinx1221
    Too high ratio of exact match anchor might not have been the whole case. Were the properties you created links on heavily blasted? And if so, did those blasting pages contain poorly spun content?
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  • Profile picture of the author TheHust
    Originally Posted by SEOSuperHero View Post

    Hello,

    I manage many websites for small, local businesses. Although I pride myself on filling these sites with original, unique content, I've admittedly had exact match anchor text link building done for these sites to increase rankings in the past.

    Most of my websites have been impacted by Penguin 2.0 and Penguin 2.1. I also feel that the websites that I own that have not been impacted by Penguin yet are at high risk for taking hits in future updates.

    At this point, I am looking to find the best way to protect my websites.

    I presume that the way forward is to gather a list of links we've had created on Web 2.0, forums, blogs, etc. with exact match anchor texts and disavow these.

    However, because the loss of traffic and rankings we've experienced has already been quite severe, I'm afraid that the disavow tool will essentially kill whatever is left.

    I really do just want to find out how to move forward in the best way possible, so please help guide me however you can. Thank you.

    I know this is going to be hard to hear but your best bet is to start again on a fresh domain. You could try a 301 redirect to the new site but 99% of the time the penalty follows you after a week or two.

    Penguin recovery stories are few and far between.

    Alternatively try diluting your anchor text so that keywords are no more than 15% of your total links, it does work sometimes but I wouldn't bet the farm on i and if you have tens of thousands of links it is often easier just to switch to a new domain.
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    • Profile picture of the author Newven
      Originally Posted by TheHust View Post

      Penguin recovery stories are few and far between.
      Exactly ... and why? If a webmaster corrects the situation should a recovery be a consequence?

      To answer your question exact match anchor text is not what Penguin is about. It's about lots of spammy links. If you had none of those and got hit then there is nothing you can do.
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      • Profile picture of the author Jeffery Moss
        Originally Posted by Newven View Post

        Exactly ... and why? If a webmaster corrects the situation should a recovery be a consequence?

        To answer your question exact match anchor text is not what Penguin is about. It's about lots of spammy links. If you had none of those and got hit then there is nothing you can do.
        Unnatural spikes in links gained could be cause for suspicion by Google, so it's good to keep any type of backlinking to a moderate amount daily or monthly and just get backlinks from only the most relevant and related sites which match content theme closely.
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  • Profile picture of the author DizenSounds
    You need a clean backlink profile these days to stay on top and prevent backlink penalties and algorithm penalties.

    And that doesnt mean disavow, that means removing the links or never building them in the first place. Disavow wont do anything if you havent shown google you try and remove the links
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    • Profile picture of the author Newven
      Originally Posted by DizenSounds View Post

      You need a clean backlink profile these days to stay on top and prevent backlink penalties and algorithm penalties.
      If you're google and trying to create the best search results for surfers, does that make any sense whatsoever?
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