The latest Google penalty...

by 36 replies
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Not everyone makes it in SEO. Google wants to be sure of that.

Recently I found out just how far they are going to go to keep bad SEO's out of the market.

There is a new Google algorithmic penalty that applies to deindexed sites and sites that get links from them. This is similar to profile penalties and sitewide link penalties Google introduced.

To those who continue to argue the outdated mindset of "How can they penalize you if it's on someone else's site? It could be a competitor?, Google no longer cares. They are done trying to micro manage spammers and have started introducing larger and larger penalties, regardless of where the links come from and whether or not they know you created them.

How do I know this?

Because recently around 30 percent of the clients within this company got hit with this penalty. After a massive deindexing of several high PR link networks, client rankings nosedived and became unrecoverable.

Normally losing links due to deindexing was very recoverable. But now the game has changed. These links can literally destroy your site overnight.

So to those of you considering services like BMR, high PR homepage link networks and others to boost rankings, here is my advice for you:

STAY AS FAR AWAY AS POSSIBLE.

Google will destroy your rankings. I have seen it happen.

As for me, I will stick with safer services, web 2.0 submissions, guest blog posts, things like that. The chance of a huge penalty are just far too great with link farms.
#search engine optimization #google #latest #penalty
  • Not sure I agree here I see where your thought process is coming from but I think when sites are part of a deindexed network they lose rankings as they have just lost a load of high PR links disaster. I have seen sites recover from this by getting more links but I am yet to hear of anyone getting a WMT notification about unnatural linking.

    The problem is with some people who joint the networks is they have very few links already going to them or are thin so when and if a network dies them it hits them a lot worse. Not saying this is the case for any sites of yours but this is something I have seen and people blaming the network, even when it is still 100% indexed. Clearly these are algo updates that are hitting thier poor site?
  • Not sure I'm on your page either. The only way I can see them penalizing you for links is if they can track the IP of where the links were posted from and track it back to you. I do hear your concerns, though, & I tend to stay with the safer ones as well.
    • [1] reply
    • Here is an example:

      SEO Services

      The massive drop occurred right around the time we had numerous sites deindexed from several home page networks.

      I'm not making this stuff up.
  • I disagree. Only people that don't stick to the basics and don't give Google what it wants don't make it.
    Just give them highly relevant content and you won't have any problems ranking.
    • [2] replies
    • Seriously? I have ranked hundreds of sites. It is way more complex than this.

      If having good content was all you need not to get a penalty, this thread and many others would not exist. Google doesn't like you screwing with their system, even if your site is nice.
    • FALSE

      I do more online reputation management than traditional SEO, and I CONSTANTLY deal with situations where one single blog post, on a PR1 site, with maybe only 2-3 external links, ranks above the business's or individual's official social media accounts -- Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. -- even when those channels are a) active, b) non-duplicate content, c) real subscribers who are d) engaged, and e) plenty of legit links to those channels.

      When any rational person looks, there's no way in hell these URLs should be ranking above the others, but they are.

      GOOGLE LIES. Their algorithm does NOT follow the white hat techniques they tell you to use.
      • [1] reply
  • No offense, but I believe I remember what network you were affiliated with. That network was horrible. It left a gigantic easily identifiable footprint. They were constantly overreaching on keywords they should have stayed away from to protect their network, and more importantly their clients.

    This let search engines quickly identify sites in their network and deindex half the network or more at a time.

    So what happened to anyone belonging to that network, does not necessarily apply to what may happen to other networks.
    • [1] reply
    • Theres nothing really new here. Technically if you are putting links on a subscription SEO network then you are buying links. Can a site be penalized for buying links?

      Heh - Of course

      So it does not require an new algo change or penalty. Almost all the networks out there are pretty obvious in how they set up their links. Thats why I won't put clients on any of them - only networks I build myself and can control all the content on them.
      • [1] reply
  • I've been reading a lot about this today, a new "deindexed" penalty. It seems a little strange that BMR suddenly closed their membership just as this came out. I guess only time will tell.
    • [1] reply
    • This isn't a coincidence. Other networks besides just ours are hearing complaints from their users. Google is cracking down.

      I'd be on the look out if I were you.
  • SEO LinkVine Elite got hit.

    Seems it was the blog network sites with tons of outbound links on homepage.

    Anyone else using SEOLV Elite?
  • [DELETED]
  • I am not 100% sure yet, but I think people are getting penalized for being part of a homepage network that gets deindexed. Penalty doesn't seem to target blog posts/articles/text links, but more is looking for single pages with the same outgoing links on the page. Essentially it is a Copyscape check for links on a page. Not sure how long the penalty is going to last, but it appears this may be the new anti-seo tactic. Just like how you can destroy your competitors sites with blog comment and profile link spam attacks.

    Usually the penalty has been for entire site, but in some examples it has just been the keyword that was on the network.

    It is not negative link velocity like the forum profile/blog comment spam. This is new. This happens only when sites are deindexed. NOT if you subscribe to a network and the unsubscribe and your links are removed.

    Because I've been able to compare over 250 sites and have forced link building on to the sites which I believe to be penalized and have seen no effect or a negative impact from link building.

    Yes, I've checked other people on the networks and saw that they were also penalized. This is true for more than just one network.

    There are no tests that you can run online that will tell you if you are penalized, all of those are a joke. You need to do testing independently and none of those tests that are out there will even be new enough to pick up this penalty if they did work.
  • They got rid of two of my sites. And not because "I didn't follow the rules" or posted crappy content. I posted relevant content, yet I was taken off of Google. I quit SEO. It is too stressful to have hours of work vanished just like that.
    • [2] replies
    • you'll be back
    • SEO is stressful. Two of my blogs lost rankings for all keywords in the past few days. One was on Google page 1, can't even find it now, but it's still indexed. I'm not sure if it's just a google dance or an actual penalty. I haven't done much backlinking, just some blog commenting, ezine articles and a high PR blog network with a good reputation. I guess I'll wait and see if they're just dancing. But I get what you mean, I feel like giving up all the time.
  • I cannot agree with this, Google is not stupid and they care .. there is no reason for your competitors to subscribe to blog network and increase your ranking .. this blog network things are absolutely done by someone who wants to improve your ranking not to damage it. And this cannot be considered as penalty ( but for the blog network itself )

    I came across this thread coz I found one of my comparators ranking dropped -26 so I thought it is just manual Google penalty but seems as you said it's the blog network being deindexed .. but I still don't know how you got this information .. Did Google announced that somewhere ?

    What other blog networks affected and what remains safe until now.
    Thanks
  • Should I bring my tomato plants in? Just in case?

    Seriously, Google is trying hard to destroy "some" business and SEO is just their major target - nothing new, really.

    But keep in mind you'll be running in circles, cause next time "blog posts" or "web 2.0 link drop" might me considered "spam"...

    Just sayin'.
    • [1] reply
    • The word "destroy" is not correct here , As long as there are search engines there will be SEOs , it is just as simple as that ..
      The relation between Google and SEOs is just like Tom And Jerry. every time there is something new , new tricks , new algorithm , new update ,, but Tom will never Kill ( eat ) Jerry. Google also don't want to kill SEOs business but they just want to get the best out of them. , just my 2 cents
  • The company that runs one of the services I write about has been doing a lot of blog spamming lately.

    The crazy thing is the comments are all junk and the footprint must be very obvious. They've also done some gigantic damage to their brand amongst the blogging community.

    I'll keep my head down, do practically no link building and wait for Google to deindex my competition.
  • Can anyone else confirm this?
    • [1] reply
    • I can, yay!!!!!!!!!:rolleyes:
  • I think it is more likely for these sites to lose rank because a few of their links were discredited. If you lose 5 PR5-6 backlinks, that might cause a disturbance don't you think?

    I'm tired of seeing all these penalty threads, I know it sucks, but not everything is a penalty. Just because a site has a link to someone else and site A gets punished, doesn't mean site B will be punished. Although, because of site A being punished, site B no longer gets that link juice, which may be a bigger factor than people realize.
  • I have been in several HIGH PR Homepage networks and they have gotten deindexed. I always know because my rankings plummet since the links no longer count. However, as soon as I get into an indexed network they go right back to where they were. People are so quick to assume its a penalty when in reality it's just because those links no longer count.
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
    • [1] reply
    • This is different - Google is sending the following penalty notice to thousands of Webmaster accounts. For those without Google Webmaster Tools the penalty still applies and can be seen as a massive drop in rankings overnight.

      Google Webmaster Tools notice of unnatural links detected to yoursite.com February 26, 2012

      Dear Site Owner or Webmaster of yoursite.com ,
      We've detected that some of your site's pages may be using techniques that are outside Google's Webmaster Guidelines.

      Specifically, look for possibly artificial or unnatural links pointing to your site that could be intended to manipulate PageRank. Examples of unnatural linking could include buying links to pass PageRank or participating in link schemes.
      We encourage you to make changes to your site, so that it meets our Quality Guidelines. Once you've made these changes, please submit your site for reconsideration in Google's search results.

      If you find unnatural links to your site that you are unable to control or remove, please provide the details in your reconsideration request.
      If you have additional questions about how to resolve this issue, please see our Webmaster Help Forum for support.

      Yours sincerely,

      Google Search Quality Team
  • This is such a good discussion. yeah right Google keeps on updating more and more recently. Of course that's the only way how they can manage or maintain their SE properly.

    Well, I still believe that having a links on these high PR sites/blogs are still effective as long as you have check the website if the content appropriate to their category & just simply link mostly to your related website... of course original articles comes first!

    To fernando Veloso

    I also think about that and it is really possible. Well the secret is, we must keep ourselves updated in any changes of SE.
  • My backlinks have gotten deindexed by using BMR. But for some odd reason my pages are either staying at their ranks, or moving up slowly.

    Update:

    This just in, one of my keywords that was rank 2, is now RANK 1, page 1.
    And this is STRICTLY using BMR ONLY. The keyword itself is competitive + 1,000 local monthly.
    On top of that, this keyword got flagged from rank 1 to rank 7 because of the algorithm change (above the folds/spammy) a month ago.
  • Honestly I cannot agree more with the post above. One does not know the pain of a Google penalty till it happens. Really avoid paid links and if you must try and be wise in getting them from places that look natural and probably avoid site wide links. Getting a link inside a list is an idea I am toying with.
  • If so ,what conditions that bad SEO has? I think I should warry about that.
    Anyway thanks.
  • Some of my sites dropped ranking also, I am not sure either its because of Article Samurai or Seo link Monster.I used both services in the past.
    • [1] reply
    • Private blog networks appear to have been hit particularly hard since the Google algo update which makes sense as these have worked quite well until now and these types of links appearing are almost certainly website owners attempting to improve their rankings.

      My guess is the new algo can detect these links - it wouldn't be hard as most private blog networks generally have a few similar characteristics:
      1. all domain registration info private
      2. spun content
      3. many OBL to affiliate or new sites
      4. very few links to authority sites
      5. very few links from authority sites
      6. many posts with links to one root domain only
      7. many posts with an OBL limit, for example 2 or 3
      8. many of the blogs are incomplete eg no contact info, footer info etc
      9. the nature of the content is extremely variable and does not stay within one niche
      10. links discovered through mass pinging
      11. lacking various common elements - images, video, comments
      12. majority of OBL to home pages
      13. posts that are a mashup of one paragraph per niche all containing an OBL
      14. a complete absence of common social media OBL

      etc etc
      • [1] reply
  • It seems what Google cares now is to get rid of people who are trying to rank in their search engines and make money out of their traffic. They don't bother if you have quality and unique content on your site anymore. If you have built contextual links using blog networks and other networks with spun content used, Google seems to be able to track them effectively and put your site out of the game. I checked my keyword and found some sites that rank on top are now some old established and quality sites but with quite a lot of outdated content.
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