I Thought Penguin Fixed This

16 replies
  • SEO
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I found a great keyword phrase that gets almost 9k searches and pays pretty well, but with very little competition.

I started building the site, but my problem is, ONE site owns the top six positions.

Here's what I'm up against. It's a wordpress site with 5 articles (plus contact, about, privacy). All articles are BADLY spun content. They hardly make sense. I though Google hated spun content?

I checked the backlinks on Google, and Google only shows 34 backlinks--ALL to the main page. I checked the site on Alexa and it shows 72 unique domains linking to it. I then checked the site on ahrefs and learned it has 72 unique domains linking to it, but they account for 7,000 links

THEN I see nearly ALL backlinks are from the footers of wordpress themes the guy has distributed. Apparently Google doesn't count those thousands of backlinks, but the site is still rewarded with the top 6 positions on the first page. There are also only 3 variations to the anchor text in those 7,000 links all going to the main page. There are no other backlinks to the other 4 pages.

Can this guy's site survive? Seems like he did everything Google claims they're trying to eliminate. The entire site is pure garbage and it actually makes me mad so many of my sites I worked so hard on got nuked while this site thrives.
#fixed #penguin #thought
  • Profile picture of the author retsek
    He probably won't last much longer

    The multiple listings has nothing to do with Penguin. There were a few updates last month that had to do with "Host Crowding". I think it's a safe bet to say that they'll continue tweaking this month as well.
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  • Profile picture of the author jakecoop79
    Retsek is right, it probably won't last much longer. But you never know with google anymore. I'm not really convinced that quality search is the highest priority anymore.
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  • Profile picture of the author sleeperz
    Spun content is dominating the SERPs now, not so much on page 1 of results, but page 2 and beyond. Penguin wasn't about penalizing spun content.
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  • Profile picture of the author Stuart william
    May be your competitor is using any network blog services that's why they are getting links from blog section, six url is displaying because of Host Crowding update. If you want to get top position then you should do article marketing, web 2.0, press release and all sort of content distribution
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  • Profile picture of the author Ndot India
    You don't worry about your competitor try to build back links naturallly definitely you can beat them.
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  • Profile picture of the author Beardo
    Well I know what you mean. I have a competitor in the top spot with 10 pages of spun garbage, a big add above the fold, 7% kwd and overoptimised titles etc and all backlinks come from spun articles. It's been number one for a good 4 months now.
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    • Profile picture of the author Carl Brown
      I would never do this to legitimate competition, but can you turn them in and ask Google to take a look at the site? It's not good for them to have sites like this dominating the top spots and it's not good for me or you either.
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  • Profile picture of the author Mantasmo
    For the 100000th time Google doesn't penalize spun content. The computational complexity of Panda is enormous, otherwise they'd be running it daily or real-time. Same goes for Penguin. Simple tasks take weeks to tweak->test->tweak->test->deploy.

    This is especially true for Penguin. If they had the computational power, they would be running their spam-link-filters 24/7, but they can't. It's an enormous task, and is the reason why link spam and crappy stuff ranks so well in between updates (Panda/Penguin).

    And yes, the site probably won't last very long.

    edit: for you white hat knights - I'm not advocating link spam or ranking ****ty pages.
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  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    Originally Posted by Carl Brown View Post

    THEN I see nearly ALL backlinks are from the footers of wordpress themes the guy has distributed. Apparently Google doesn't count those thousands of backlinks, but the site is still rewarded with the top 6 positions on the first page. There are also only 3 variations to the anchor text in those 7,000 links all going to the main page. There are no other backlinks to the other 4 pages.
    This is exactly why I tell people on this forum to rank multiple internal pages for the same [exact] keyword.

    Once the first page is ranked, the rest of the internal pages can usually be ranked by passing keyword authority to the other relevant internal pages & those pages most times will also rank with little to no external backlinks. It's that simple.

    Also, the competition looks at all those ranked pages per individual keyword & is intimidated. The average IMer will back off & skip the keyword (too much work to compete).

    Ranking multiple pages per keyword is the best thing Google ever made available in the SERPs.

    BTW, ranking multiple pages per keyword has nothing to do with Penguin.
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    • Profile picture of the author tompk242
      Originally Posted by yukon View Post

      This is exactly why I tell people on this forum to rank multiple internal pages for the same [exact] keyword.

      Once the first page is ranked, the rest of the internal pages can usually be ranked by passing keyword authority to the other relevant internal pages & those pages most times will also rank with little to no external backlinks. It's that simple.

      Also, the competition looks at all those ranked pages per individual keyword & is intimidated. The average IMer will back off & skip the keyword (too much work to compete).

      Ranking multiple pages per keyword is the best thing Google ever made available in the SERPs.

      BTW, ranking multiple pages per keyword has nothing to do with Penguin.
      What 's benefit of rank multiple keywords per keyword ?
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      • Profile picture of the author yukon
        Banned
        Originally Posted by tompk242 View Post

        What 's benefit of rank multiple keywords per keyword ?
        More traffic.

        If position #1 in Google SERPs gets 1,000 traffic per month, position #2-3 will also get traffic for the same [exact] keyword.
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        • Profile picture of the author tompk242
          Originally Posted by yukon View Post

          More traffic.

          If position #1 in Google SERPs gets 1,000 traffic per month, position #2-3 will also get traffic for the same [exact] keyword.
          Do you have any article about this method ? Can you show me please . Thanks
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      • Profile picture of the author chazkey
        Originally Posted by tompk242 View Post

        What 's benefit of rank multiple keywords per keyword ?
        He meant ranking multiple pages for keywords. Hence you get 2 or 3 listings on the front page of Google instead of just one. More listings, more clicks. Elementary my Dear Watson...
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  • Profile picture of the author chazkey
    Honestly, the so called "Penguin Update" should have been called the "Sniper Update"...

    Here's my point. Google sent out hundreds of site violations in Google Webmaster tools. I think it was a trick! Yea, I just said it was a trick. I have a wordpress site that pretty much will take the front page of Google just about anytime I want to and may I mention in less than a minute(most of the time). I use the site for live trainings and live rankings. You know that shock and ah crap, that nobody knows how to do.

    Anyway back to the Sniper update... Google tricked website owners into revealing where they got there links. Can you give me a big "oops" for all those website owners that ratted each other out. Seriously, Google was demanding that you tell them where you got your links from and how you fixed it... Really like you're going to go back and say "excuse me mr. blog owner, please take down my links". Yea right, you can't even speak their language...

    Now look here is how I see it. The last update was nothing more than a snipe hunt to trick you into reveling the blog networks. Now here's the problem for Google, the guys who built their networks the right way, they never go hurt by the last update.

    Now back to your original problem. Reverse engineer his site. Find out what he did and do it better. As far as I know, you might be talking about one of my sites... That would suck...

    Have Fun,
    Chaz Key
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  • Profile picture of the author SirKonstantine
    CCNBook/Language - Computational Cognitive Neuroscience Wiki

    Disengage your Group Think.

    The site I linked to is from a professor who is on the frontiers of machien learning. If you read his research, you can see that spun content is difficult as hell to detect.
    We also know Google uses the same principals as this professor therefore we can know that Google's spun content detector isn't that good as well.

    Also, the evidence is right in front of you. If that dude can rank with spun content, SOMETHINGS UP.

    Even duplicate content can still rank. Look at this: https://www.google.com/search?sugexp...al+Purposes%22

    If duplicate content is bad, why are there so many results?

    //believe less what Matt Cutts tell you. Believe more of the evidence.
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    • Profile picture of the author retsek
      Originally Posted by SirKonstantine View Post

      //believe less what Matt Cutts tell you. Believe more of the evidence.
      I don't think anybody is saying you can't rank with junk links and junk, spun content.

      The real question is how long will you last before Google decides, oh today ..let's step up enforcement of the webmaster guidelines another notch.
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