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Google Panda 3.3 Update Backlinks Quality Backlinking

by consultant1027
24 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Lots of websites that used backlinking services have gotten hit by the Google Panda 3.3 Update a week or two ago. I'm currently working with one of them to provide data used to try to reverse engineer what is new in the Google algo that is being used to determine backlink quality. I think obviously it has to be something to do with over usage of certain domains for creating backlink that you get one ore more service providers going to for backlink creation to often.

This makes me pretty leary about trying any new services including Fiverr services. It is obvious Google HATES being manipulated and they have immense resources to battle this on an ongoing basis. You will always be able to 'game' the system and 'cut corners' by doing things artificially rather then letting the backlinks occur naturally. But it seems like maybe in the long run it may not be worth 'rolling the dice', at least on your most important site(s).

Has anyone heard any theories on what Google is doing differently? More importantly, are there any services our there anyone has used for some time for backlinking that didn't lose at least some SERPs from 3.3? On the keyword phrases we did backlinking on, we say on average about a 4 SERP drop (from top 4 to around 6-10) and these are on keywords that have ranked high for many months.
#backlinking #backlinks #google #panda #quality #update
  • Profile picture of the author MaxReferrals
    I am also interested in hearing from Warriors on this.

    From personal experience, a lot of money we invested with Warriors and other higher-tiered link builders has gotten smoked.

    Link pyramids and other legit strategies seem to have gotten baked in this
    last go-round.

    I know we dropped some rank, on very high quality sites and content
    build we did, supplemented with some of these lb strategies.
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  • Profile picture of the author options
    Yeah me to, I think most of the services on here and certainly across the whole net will be useless. They might help you for a few weeks or months but eventually you are going to get stung.

    It's all about building links naturally and that comes down making your site popular with the general public, ie through social media.

    Create a buzz on the Internet world, thats harder than it sounds..
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  • Profile picture of the author consultant1027
    MaxReferrals - Your situation describes one of my client's exactly. They have a huge, high-quality site. Been on the net for 15 years. What is troubling is that in a few circumstances the rank has dropped below what it was PRIOR to using any backlinking services. We have some a minor recovery on many keywords like we went from 4 to 12 and now back to 9. (Google adjusting based on complaints I imagine) All of the keywords we did no backlinking on are unchanged. I suppose the good thing is, the ones that have gone down are back to where they were pre-backlink or no more than one or two positions lower. So no penalty and no letter. This would make sense as Google cannot penalize for backlink building, only remove the link juice. Otherwise you could easily sabotage your competitor's rank.
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  • Profile picture of the author rjd1265
    lets ask this question..if google goes away with backlinks...which is basically what I read you are writing in a nutshell, then how will they rank sites? content? how can you do that since there might be 1,000 quality sites?

    Backlinks will forever be the way google ranks the sites but they are just getting stricter on how it is done. Autosoftware and giant 4500 link linkwheels are the sites getting hammered.
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  • Profile picture of the author Aromo
    Google Panda 3.3 brings a lot of new and interesting changes. Here you can read the official highlights Search quality highlights: 40 changes for February - Inside Search
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    Panda and Penguin friendly link building services for your money making site. Or boost your backlinks power with 2nd tier backlinks.

    Click here now => http://backlinkboost.net/

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  • Profile picture of the author 808glass
    stop investing in link farms, pyramids, etc... SEO's always expected Google would start cracking down on these at some point. Start getting quality link building done by hand... it makes all the difference - 1 quality backlink > then thousands of crap.

    -Guest blog posts,
    -contact websites and blogs in your niche (technorati),
    -or hire a link builder (ODesk/eLance)
    -or link building team (LinkFool)

    Bottom line: if you want to rank amidst the plethora of Google Panda defenses you've gotta build quality links (and content). Stop looking for shortcuts.
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    • Profile picture of the author TBInternetMarketing
      Originally Posted by 808glass View Post

      s1 quality backlink > then thousands of crap.
      Agreed completely. High PR links are they way I do it.
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  • Profile picture of the author GeeWhiz1
    Dont use link pyramids, link wheels, farms etc. Only use good providers if youre going to outsource some link building. Make sure links are spread across unique ips/domains, use good anchor text variety and make your links look like they've been "dripped" over a good amount of time.. not just random blasts of links.

    Honestly, you should be doing your black hat seo to look natural.
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  • Profile picture of the author michaelrox27
    Yes, Google Panda 3.3 update have gotten hit lots of websites that used back linking services and this will directly give importance to those sites which are using unique and fresh content.
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  • Profile picture of the author Clint Faber
    It's the same old problem with a different name. This is a continuous thing in the SEO game as Google is constantly changing their algorithms. If you're outsourcing this work are relying on a third party service make sure that they are constantly evaluating their own systems and staying on top of things.

    Yes, there are services that are services, methods and strategies that are beyond the panda update. It is typically easy for us to spot what the algorithm changes are as we are constantly testing and utilizing many different resources and methodologies at once.

    Like they say don't put all of your eggs in one basket so make sure the services that you invest in are following this idea.
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  • Profile picture of the author consultant1027
    I'm seeing some preliminary indication that Google is more sensitive to links coming from pages that have links to non-existent websites or parked domains on the same page or across the same site. This would make sense in that many people start new businesses/scheme and create a website for it. Then they look to jump in the SERPS quickly and use a backlink building service then later, the business fails and the site no longer exists but the links to it still exist on the sites the backlinking service keeps going back to and adding new links.
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  • Profile picture of the author consultant1027
    Ran across this old e-mail. It provides what I think could be another theory of one of the main changes in the aglo - too many backlinks with exact matching anchor text (where the anchor text isn't related to the name of the website I would expect.)

    Which Type of Link Anchor Text is the Most Effective? [An Experiment] | SEOmoz
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  • Profile picture of the author alinak
    My website is badly hit by panda 3.3 and ranking of all keywords drop. One of my competitor copied my content. I think this is the main reason behind it. I have filed DMCA against them (now all content removed from google indexing). But i don't know how much time it will take to rank again. What more i can do to gain traffic?
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    • Profile picture of the author st0necol
      Originally Posted by alinak View Post

      My website is badly hit by panda 3.3 and ranking of all keywords drop. One of my competitor copied my content. I think this is the main reason behind it. I have filed DMCA against them (now all content removed from google indexing). But i don't know how much time it will take to rank again. What more i can do to gain traffic?
      In my opinion, you should make sure that not any of your other actions are causing a drop because as far as I know, even if someone copies your content then Google will hurt the site who has duplicate content, not the original site because they can verify it with the date when the content went online. It's strange though......and if they've really penalized you because someone else had copied your content then it should be back very soon.

      For traffic, you can participate in forums related to your niche or blogs especially as they can bring huge amounts of traffic but you should make genuine and intelligent comments. Also you can participate on various social media sites. All of these sources will help you build traffic and backlinks as well.
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  • Profile picture of the author alinak
    Thanks st0necol

    I have already joined some community and social networking sites.

    Hope this will increase traffic
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  • Profile picture of the author uoftenwinny
    Google Panda 3.3 update more or less will do effect website ranking.
    Like ours, it drops.
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    • Profile picture of the author seoleaf
      My site was hit as well. I was ranked #1 for a single keyword. A moderate keyword. Have at least 800 backlinks (very few from network links), around 30 unique content pages. My site was PR 3 and 2 yrs old. After panda 3.3, my rank drop to 9. The smaller site have creep up the ladder. I have been monitoring this site, which contain only 5 pages. The content is less then 300 words. Some infolinks ads in there. And 0 PR, 40 days old site. It was ranking 2 for the same keyword yesterday, and today #1. And it's beating webMD or MayoClinic site or the like which is more more powerful.

      Seriously.....what's with the stupid panda update? I've done SEO for more then 2 years and I know my stuff quite well. But how on earth Panda 3.3 update could let this happen?? I'm just jealous at this stage he's taking all my income
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  • Profile picture of the author jficarro
    Many of my sites were hurt by 3.3. I was/am using some backlinking services that post to pr sites with junk content. I went from #2/#3 to page 2 for most of my words.

    My competitor that has a crap website with all ads above the fold is unchanged (actually stole my spot one up). I check his links and they are all from related sites (basically like link exchanges).

    I believe this 3.3 update was about the quality of backlinks. It's unfortunate because with all the competition, I can't understand why anyone in the same niche would willingly want to link to my site - just to be nice?

    Can't wait to hear anyone with a solution (other than the same old - build quality backlinks by asking site owners... bla bla bla (sorry, but that works better for some niches than others)
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  • Profile picture of the author dmtaylor247
    I don't think that's a bad drop considering you used them alot, -400 then I would be worried. There are some varying degrees I've noticed with Google i.e if you build too many backlinks from the same site with the same anchor then they will surely hit you however, with some sites like Blogger, Tumblr and web 2.0 this is just not the case.

    Everything is about relevance, even more since 3.3. I thinks it's better just to stay on the right side of Google build good content, focus on good on page seo and user experince and the social signals should follow. In terms of links it looks as if less is best for now, keep the content to links ratio equal, they are not stupid and know what natural links look like, more deeplinks, fewer high quality links to homepage and so what if you need to go back to exchanging links with quality sites? if it does the job then why not?
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  • Profile picture of the author MikeWalker
    Can anyone share some of the best ways to get quality back links?

    How do you find them?

    (We don't use any link spam methods and always write very good original content for our few sites. But natural link building always seems to take too long. Waiting (hoping) people link to your good content just seems a poor strategy and isn't very proactive).

    Thanks,
    Mike
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    • Profile picture of the author jficarro
      Originally Posted by MikeWalker View Post

      Can anyone share some of the best ways to get quality back links?

      How do you find them?

      (We don't use any link spam methods and always write very good original content for our few sites. But natural link building always seems to take too long. Waiting (hoping) people link to your good content just seems a poor strategy and isn't very proactive).

      Thanks,
      Mike
      I just had a conversation today about this with a client that was unaffected by this last update and makes incredible money on his sites. He just sent me a sample email that he uses where he simply asks to exchange links.

      But I think it depends on the niche. For some of my niches, the content is really good and relevant, so doing guest posts would be an option. (I've never been asked to :rolleyes:

      But I personally wouldn't mind allowing someone to be a guest author on one of my sites (if the writing was excellent and on topic of course).

      I've had clients in the past that were literally asked by extremely popular blogs to submit their article. One was a priest and one was a journalist. It was major link juice each time.

      So I guess that "human connection" and reaching out to other professionals in your niche is key. (shame - I was enjoying hiding)

      If you'd like, PM me with your niches or topics and we can see if we would be a fit. If we have compatible niches we could write an article or two. In the current SEO atmosphere - I am convinced that it would be helpful (as opposed to "giving away link juice")

      If anyone has any additional suggestions - I'd love to hear them too.
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