I diversified anchor text but still got hit by Penguin

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  • SEO
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I read many articles about diversify anchor text. (20% money keyword, the rest are long tail keywords, brand name, naked URL, click here, view, click….etc ..)
I follow that but still got hit by penguin. More details about my site.
My main keyword was about 10% ,
Long tail keyword 1: 10%
Long tail keyword 2: 5%
Long tail keyword 3: 5%
Long tail keyword 4: 5%
Long tail keyword 5: 5%
Brand name: 20% , naked URL: 20% , the rest are click here, view, click….etc ..
In my niche, the homepage has many keywords to target. All the long tail keywords above have more than 1000 searches / month. The onpage seo just target only two keyword.


I ranked all of long tail keyword above on page 1 before, but all of them were disappear.
I don’t know exactly the reason why. Is it good anchor diversity ?


But I find out the problem by myself, just want to post this article to make sure what I’m thinking is correct.


Everybody said that we have to control 20% “money keyword”, It means “20% money keyword” is not only the "main keyword" but also include all of the long tail keyword that have search.
So , the proper anchor diversity is:
20% : main keyword + all long tail keyword
80%: brand name, naked URL, click here, view…etc…..

What do you think about percentage above ? I’m building the new sites, just make sure to do not get hit again. I hope experts help me on this problem.
#anchor #diversified #hit #penguin #text
  • Profile picture of the author retsek
    Originally Posted by warroom242811 View Post

    I'm building the new sites, just make sure to do not get hit again. I hope experts help me on this problem.
    Of course, you still got hit by Penguin. Penguin is designed to hit those who don't play by the rules. It and others like it will be constantly updated and tweaked until folks understand, that they need to earn their rankings and not artificially manufacture it.

    Ask yourself what would you do to get your content noticed if search engines didn't exist. Do those things and the search traffic will come.
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  • Profile picture of the author dburk
    Hi warroom242811,

    Did you ever consider that the notion about diversifying anchor text was just wrong? :confused:

    There has been a lot of evidence that debunks that idea about anchortext diversity, your experience can be added the building mountain of evidence to the contrary. You just got caught up the latest Cargo Cult SEO theory.
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  • Profile picture of the author jxam69
    So you built crappy backlinks and diversified the anchor text and still got penalized.

    Can you see the problem here? (hint - it involves the word "crap")
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    • Profile picture of the author Kenny Odo
      Originally Posted by jxam69 View Post

      So you built crappy backlinks and diversified the anchor text and still got penalized.

      Can you see the problem here? (hint - it involves the word "crap")
      I'm asking about the percentage of anchor text. Not about crapy backlinks. I know what is crapy backlink.
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      • Profile picture of the author retsek
        Originally Posted by warroom242811 View Post

        I'm asking about the percentage of anchor text. Not about crapy backlinks. I know what is crapy backlink.
        what kind of links did you create that allowed you to assign 30% in garbage anchor text like -- click here, read more, etc. Can't be the good kind, and they most definitely seem like the easy-to-get kind.
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      • Profile picture of the author jxam69
        Originally Posted by warroom242811 View Post

        I'm asking about the percentage of anchor text. Not about crapy backlinks. I know what is crapy backlink.
        If you know so much about crappy backlinks, why did you get hit by Penguin?
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        • Profile picture of the author Kenny Odo
          Originally Posted by retsek View Post

          what kind of links did you create that allowed you to assign 30% in garbage anchor text like -- click here, read more, etc. Can't be the good kind, and they most definitely seem like the easy-to-get kind.
          No, 500 words article kind.... They were same with the main keyword kind.

          Originally Posted by jxam69 View Post

          If you know so much about crappy backlinks, why did you get hit by Penguin?
          What's your anchor percentage ? Just answer this question please.
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  • Profile picture of the author boxoun
    Penguin is not about anchor text it's about webspam.
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  • Profile picture of the author sovereignn
    Did you diversify your link sources as well?

    How was your link velocity?

    Were you far enough up to get a manual review?

    How do you know it had anything to do with anchor text?
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    • Profile picture of the author Kenny Odo
      Originally Posted by sovereignn View Post

      Did you diversify your link sources as well?

      How was your link velocity?

      Were you far enough up to get a manual review?

      How do you know it had anything to do with anchor text?
      Almost of them were contextual link 500 words come from many blog platforms.

      The site is about 6 months old.It has around 1800 backlinks right now. Do you think it was too many ?

      I'm trying to recovery, so can not public the site right now.

      I am not sure the problem is anchor text or not, because the articles are quality, 30 articles. The onpage seo was good.

      I passed EMD and PANDA , but got hit by PENGUIN.

      Originally Posted by yagnesh View Post

      got any notification in webmaster tools?
      No.
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  • Profile picture of the author yagnesh
    got any notification in webmaster tools?
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    • Profile picture of the author Kenny Odo
      Originally Posted by kilobytestechnologies View Post

      penguin is designed to tackle spam..
      I think my problem is anchor text.
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      • Profile picture of the author Ben Acharyaa
        Originally Posted by warroom242811 View Post

        I think my problem is anchor text.
        No its not. google wont slap you just becoz your anchor text isn't diversified properly. there are lots of other things to consider. ever noticed guys at WF with thousands of posts who're promoting their services through signature link? what would be the percentage of their anchor text variation?
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        • Profile picture of the author 36burrows
          Originally Posted by Ben Acharyaa View Post

          No its not. google wont slap you just becoz your anchor text isn't diversified properly. there are lots of other things to consider. ever noticed guys at WF with thousands of posts who're promoting their services through signature link? what would be the percentage of their anchor text variation?
          Hmm, although you're correct about there being lots of other things to consider, you are wrong about Google not slapping websites due to anchor text not being diversified properly.

          I work in one of the top online marketing companies in my state, and am in charge of hundreds of SEO clients. I have lots of data from clients who experienced a drop in rankings where I've focused my efforts onto diversifying their backlink profiles and experienced great success with it.
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          • Profile picture of the author Ben Acharyaa
            Originally Posted by 36burrows View Post

            Hmm, although you're correct about there being lots of other things to consider, you are wrong about Google not slapping websites due to anchor text not being diversified properly.

            I work in one of the top online marketing companies in my state, and am in charge of hundreds of SEO clients. I have lots of data from clients who experienced a drop in rankings where I've focused my efforts onto diversifying their backlink profiles and experienced great success with it.
            Your ranking will barely improve by diversifying anchor text if your link profile is a load of crap. it was never about anchor text diversity, its about the backlinks that you have. thats how google distinguishes between a crap site and a good site. just ask one question to yourself. will nytimes link to any crap website? i'm guessing you know the answer and you know why. google considers nytimes to be a very reputable source. thats the kind of backlinks you need. dont really have to be nytimes but few contextual links from authority sites with high pr will boost your ranking. but if all you have are pr n/a links from forum and blog spamming then diversifying anchor wont help.

            and besides if diversifying anchor text were that important, people would make just a single post here with a sig link and then never post again.
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            • Profile picture of the author 36burrows
              Originally Posted by Ben Acharyaa View Post

              Your ranking will barely improve by diversifying anchor text if your link profile is a load of crap. it was never about anchor text diversity, its about the backlinks that you have. thats how google distinguishes between a crap site and a good site. just ask one question to yourself. will nytimes link to any crap website? i'm guessing you know the answer and you know why. google considers nytimes to be a very reputable source. thats the kind of backlinks you need. dont really have to be nytimes but few contextual links from authority sites with high pr will boost your ranking. but if all you have are pr n/a links from forum and blog spamming then diversifying anchor wont help.

              and besides if diversifying anchor text were that important, people would make just a single post here with a sig link and then never post again.
              I think your understanding of SEO is as bad as your grammar.
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            • Originally Posted by Ben Acharyaa View Post

              Your ranking will barely improve by diversifying anchor text if your link profile is a load of crap. it was never about anchor text diversity, its about the backlinks that you have. thats how google distinguishes between a crap site and a good site. just ask one question to yourself. will nytimes link to any crap website? i'm guessing you know the answer and you know why. google considers nytimes to be a very reputable source. thats the kind of backlinks you need. dont really have to be nytimes but few contextual links from authority sites with high pr will boost your ranking. but if all you have are pr n/a links from forum and blog spamming then diversifying anchor wont help.

              and besides if diversifying anchor text were that important, people would make just a single post here with a sig link and then never post again.
              Agree completely. I think thought that getting some good links from authority domains will lift you up but it is not a bad idea to diversify anchor text. If 40$ of your inbound links have the same anchor text it will ring bells all over.
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              • Profile picture of the author Ben Acharyaa
                Originally Posted by Toyota Hilux Dealer View Post

                Agree completely. I think thought that getting some good links from authority domains will lift you up but it is not a bad idea to diversify anchor text. If 40$ of your inbound links have the same anchor text it will ring bells all over.
                I never said diversifying anchor text is bad. infact its a good way to target LSI keywords and get more traffic. however what i'm tryin to say is its not the signal penguin is looking for to tank a site. neither it will recover a penguin hit site with horrible link profile.
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          • Profile picture of the author cooler1
            Originally Posted by 36burrows View Post

            Hmm, although you're correct about there being lots of other things to consider, you are wrong about Google not slapping websites due to anchor text not being diversified properly.

            I work in one of the top online marketing companies in my state, and am in charge of hundreds of SEO clients. I have lots of data from clients who experienced a drop in rankings where I've focused my efforts onto diversifying their backlink profiles and experienced great success with it.
            Prehaps dburk would like to explain why it's a myth then. Looking at first page results, most sites seems to have either next to no backlinks or they have a diverse anchor text profile with anchors such as domainname.com, click here, etc..
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            • Profile picture of the author dburk
              Originally Posted by cooler1 View Post

              Prehaps dburk would like to explain why it's a myth then. Looking at first page results, most sites seems to have either next to no backlinks or they have a diverse anchor text profile with anchors such as domainname.com, click here, etc..
              Hi cooler1,

              It's a basic principle of science "correlation does not imply causation".

              The whole notion of non-diversified anchor text was based on correlation as implied causation, which is a logical fallacy. The evidence doesn't support it. There are many examples of non-diversified anchor text that still rank high in competitive niches, as well as diversified anchors that are still hit by Penguin. Just because web spammers had a habit of focusing on the exact keyword they were targeting in their anchortext, does not imply that the anchortext is the cause, it just suggests that web spammers were focused on their keywords. It is just a common case of a third-cause fallacy, what I like to call "Cargo Cult" SEO.
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              • Profile picture of the author cooler1
                Originally Posted by dburk View Post

                Hi cooler1,

                It's a basic principle of science "correlation does not imply causation".

                The whole notion of non-diversified anchor text was based on correlation as implied causation, which is a logical fallacy. The evidence doesn't support it. There are many examples of non-diversified anchor text that still rank high in competitive niches, as well as diversified anchors that are still hit by Penguin. Just because web spammers had a habit of focusing on the exact keyword they were targeting in their anchortext, does not imply that the anchortext is the cause, it just suggests that web spammers were focused on their keywords. It is just a common case of a third-cause fallacy, what I like to call "Cargo Cult" SEO.
                Those examples of sites you mention that are ranking high with non-diversified anchor text, are they authority sites with plenty of high quality links or are they typical IM'ers sites?

                If anchor text plays no part in Penguin then it seems odd that Microsite Masters case study found that every site which got hit by Penguin had over 65% of its money keyword as the anchor text.

                Could it be a case of if Penguin determines that your links are of low quality then an anchor text penalty is applied, but if the links are considered good quality then it doesn't.
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                • Profile picture of the author PerformanceMan
                  Originally Posted by cooler1 View Post

                  Those examples of sites you mention that are ranking high with non-diversified anchor text, are they authority sites with plenty of high quality links or are they typical IM'ers sites?

                  If anchor text plays no part in Penguin then it seems odd that Microsite Masters case study found that every site which got hit by Penguin had over 65% of its money keyword as the anchor text.

                  Could it be a case of if Penguin determines that your links are of low quality then an anchor text penalty is applied, but if the links are considered good quality then it doesn't.
                  There's no question in my mind that EMDs with a high level of anchor text matching the domain were hit. I did quite a bit of research.
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                  • Profile picture of the author 36burrows
                    Originally Posted by PerformanceMan View Post

                    There's no question in my mind that EMDs with a high level of anchor text matching the domain were hit. I did quite a bit of research.
                    Same here, but be careful, Paulgl will come in and say how absolutely wrong you are with nothing to show for it. Which pretty much sums up 99% of his 5k posts.
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                    • Profile picture of the author PerformanceMan
                      Originally Posted by 36burrows View Post

                      Same here, but be careful, Paulgl will come in and say how absolutely wrong you are with nothing to show for it. Which pretty much sums up 99% of his 5k posts.
                      He probably just picked up on one of the 'party lines' around here. When you're doing your own research, you soon learn that almost all 'common wisdom' is complete B.S.

                      I spoke with a few potential clients in the last few days. Do you know that several 'SEO Experts' (who I think were from WF) told them it was impossible to recover from the EMD update? They said '301 redirect' the old domain.

                      1) That would move the penalty to the new domain
                      2) This update is TOTALLY RECOVERABLE.

                      As I explained, if you have the budget, nothing is impossible in this world
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                      • Profile picture of the author retsek
                        Originally Posted by PerformanceMan View Post

                        He probably just picked up on one of the 'party lines' around here. When you're doing your own research, you soon learn that almost all 'common wisdom' is complete B.S.

                        I spoke with a few potential clients in the last few days. Do you know that several 'SEO Experts' (who I think were from WF) told them it was impossible to recover from the EMD update? They said '301 redirect' the old domain.

                        1) That would move the penalty to the new domain
                        2) This update is TOTALLY RECOVERABLE.

                        As I explained, if you have the budget, nothing is impossible in this world

                        Ughh ..how is the EMD update "TOTAL RECOVERABLE" ?
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                        • Profile picture of the author PerformanceMan
                          Originally Posted by retsek View Post

                          Ughh ..how is the EMD update "TOTAL RECOVERABLE" ?
                          I'm charging people to do it, so I'm not sharing any info here.

                          Do you really believe that a website that hit was by a Google filter/algo/penalty is lost forever? Do you know most of these domains still rank for their domain name by itself and are filtered out for the phrase. That's should tell people quite a bit right there.
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                • Profile picture of the author dburk
                  Originally Posted by cooler1 View Post

                  Could it be a case of if Penguin determines that your links are of low quality then an anchor text penalty is applied, but if the links are considered good quality then it doesn't.
                  Hi cooler1,

                  By "low quality" you mean web spam, right? Penguin targeted web spam, anchor text is just something that web spammers concentrate on, and web spammers were hit regardless of link diversity. Again, correlation does not imply causation.
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                  • Profile picture of the author 36burrows
                    Originally Posted by dburk View Post

                    Hi cooler1,

                    By "low quality" you mean web spam, right? Penguin targeted web spam, anchor text is just something that web spammers concentrate on, and web spammers were hit regardless of link diversity. Again, correlation does not imply causation.
                    How the hell is spamming the same anchor text over and over not considered web spam? Forget link quality, it doesn't matter where your links are coming from if all of them contain the same anchor text it's still considered spamming.

                    Natural links that the webmaster had nothing to do with almost never contain a targeted anchor text.

                    Such an easy thing for Google to see.

                    That being said, you would still get slapped if you spammed non-anchor text links from garbage sources from something like SeNuke. Obviously link quality matters, but saying that anchor text diversity doesn't is extremely ignorant.

                    I've tested this with multiple clients that dropped from a Penguin update at my company and all of them came back after diversifying their backlink profiles.
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                    • Profile picture of the author dburk
                      Originally Posted by 36burrows View Post

                      How the hell is spamming the same anchor text over and over not considered web spam?
                      Hi 36burrows,

                      Web spam is web spam, but relevant and useful anchortext is not spam, regardless of the quantity. Anchor text is found within content, that content could be regarded as spam or it could be highly valuable content, the anchor text alone does not determine whether it is regarded as spam by search engines.

                      Originally Posted by 36burrows View Post

                      Forget link quality, it doesn't matter where your links are coming from if all of them contain the same anchor text it's still considered spamming.
                      I see no valid basis for that assertion. I have never seen evidence that suggests highly relevant anchor text, that was part of useful and relevant content, being considered spam by search engines.

                      Originally Posted by 36burrows View Post

                      Natural links that the webmaster had nothing to do with almost never contain a targeted anchor text.
                      Hmm... from my experience, most webmaster try to use relevant anchor text, maybe not always targeting your preferred keyword, but this is besides the point, we are still talking about promotional content, are we not?

                      Originally Posted by 36burrows View Post

                      Such an easy thing for Google to see.
                      It seems to me that Google wants webmasters to create lots of useful, relevant, high quality content. And they want webmasters to link those documents to other relevant and useful documents in a way that is valuable to users. Naturally, they want to be able to see this, and that is a good thing.

                      Originally Posted by 36burrows View Post

                      That being said, you would still get slapped if you spammed non-anchor text links from garbage sources from something like SeNuke. Obviously link quality matters, but saying that anchor text diversity doesn't is extremely ignorant.
                      Sure, you will get your web spam devalued, but it is devalued because it is considered web spam by search engines, not because of the anchor text isn't diversified.

                      Originally Posted by 36burrows View Post

                      I've tested this with multiple clients that dropped from a Penguin update at my company and all of them came back after diversifying their backlink profiles.
                      Again, correlation does not imply causation. If you didn't use valid testing methods then you may not draw a valid conclusion from your testing. All you are reporting is a correlation, with absolutely no effort to isolate other likely causes. Looks like yet another example of Cargo Cult Science.
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                      • Profile picture of the author scottmacair
                        Google penguin is more than just anchor text variation, it's web spam so if you have lots of low quality links with great anchor text diversity you will probably be hit.

                        Whether a site gets hit or not depends on many factors:
                        1. Age of domain
                        2. Ratio of low quality links to high quality links
                        3. Variation of linking domains
                        4. Diversity of anchor text
                        5. Ratio of no follow links
                        6. Ratio of incoming links to inner pages
                        7. Ratio of expected anchor text i.e. brand, naked URL, image links and generics like 'here'.
                        8. Ratio of PR from linking domains

                        etc etc. Thinking that anchor variation alone can protect a site from a penalty is just crazy - there are many more signals in the mix.

                        If any of the above are unnatural in numbers, proportion or ratio then you could have a red flag on your hands.

                        Scott
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                        • Profile picture of the author PerformanceMan
                          Originally Posted by scottmacair View Post

                          Google penguin is more than just anchor text variation, it's web spam so if you have lots of low quality links with great anchor text diversity you will probably be hit.

                          Whether a site gets hit or not depends on many factors:
                          1. Age of domain
                          2. Ratio of low quality links to high quality links
                          3. Variation of linking domains
                          4. Diversity of anchor text
                          5. Ratio of no follow links
                          6. Ratio of incoming links to inner pages
                          7. Ratio of expected anchor text i.e. brand, naked URL, image links and generics like 'here'.
                          8. Ratio of PR from linking domains

                          etc etc. Thinking that anchor variation alone can protect a site from a penalty is just crazy - there are many more signals in the mix.

                          If any of the above are unnatural in numbers, proportion or ratio then you could have a red flag on your hands.

                          Scott
                          Good list. A lot also has to do with the keyword difficulty you're competing in.

                          For the zealots speaking about 'quality,' they should take a good look at average affiliate SERPs. Mass link blasting still works for many pages and so does mass comment spam. There's nothing quality about those methods, but they pages rank.

                          SEO is not a religion, so there's no need to be a fanatic. Research, research, and more research is all that matters.

                          These vehement arguments here about SEO are comical. Forget arguing and go rank some pages.
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  • Ben. Thanks for clarifying your point. i agree with you.
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  • Profile picture of the author jake454
    It can also comedown to how often the keyword shows up onpage, due to recent EMD updates, if your keyword is only 2% but is in the headers, imgs, text and then is the EMD along with having even a 20% anchor text linkback. googles is not going to believe or trust you!
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    • Profile picture of the author paulgl
      Originally Posted by jake454 View Post

      It can also comedown to how often the keyword shows up onpage, due to recent EMD updates, if your keyword is only 2% but is in the headers, imgs, text and then is the EMD along with having even a 20% anchor text linkback. googles is not going to believe or trust you!
      That makes absolutely no sense.

      This thread has morphed into the sublime...

      You people keep looking under the same rocks...
      Worried about numbers. Worried about this count
      and that count.

      Google could care less. But still people go on and on about
      some magical numbers.

      Don't you people get it? It's not about some percentage
      or numbers!

      But yes, I know. It's so much easier to go out and make
      30% of your anchor text diverse, count density, or some
      other such rot than it is actually doing something meaningful.

      Paul
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      • Profile picture of the author 36burrows
        Originally Posted by paulgl View Post

        That makes absolutely no sense.

        This thread has morphed into the sublime...

        You people keep looking under the same rocks...
        Worried about numbers. Worried about this count
        and that count.

        Google could care less. But still people go on and on about
        some magical numbers.

        Don't you people get it? It's not about some percentage
        or numbers!

        But yes, I know. It's so much easier to go out and make
        30% of your anchor text diverse, count density, or some
        other such rot than it is actually doing something meaningful.

        Paul
        You know that's what an algorithm is right? Mathematical numbers.
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  • Profile picture of the author nik0
    Banned
    Talking about quality links.

    Last week we placed a permanent PR5 homepage link for someone, he tanked completely for the 2 keywords that we used in it. While another article on the same homepage ranked another client very well.

    Penguin is making me a bit clueless some times.
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    • Profile picture of the author PerformanceMan
      Originally Posted by nik0 View Post

      Talking about quality links.

      Last week we placed a permanent PR5 homepage link for someone, he tanked completely for the 2 keywords that we used in it. While another article on the same homepage ranked another client very well.

      Penguin is making me a bit clueless some times.
      Were the pages related? What was the PR of your client's page when you linked it? Was the link in-content?
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      • Profile picture of the author nik0
        Banned
        Originally Posted by PerformanceMan View Post

        Were the pages related? What was the PR of your client's page when you linked it? Was the link in-content?
        Fresh setup expired pr5 domain, the article that we posted was relevant to the client's site. The domain itself was vaguely relevant.

        First link in the article went to a PR2 inner page
        Second link in the article went to the PR2 homepage of the same site

        The expired domain has a very clean link profile, no traces of spam in any way.

        When you Google the domain name it even comes up in the serps with those site wide things, or how they call it, that you see pages in colums below the actual listing so that it takes a lot of space.
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        • Profile picture of the author PerformanceMan
          Originally Posted by nik0 View Post

          Fresh setup expired pr5 domain, the article that we posted was relevant to the client's site. The domain itself was vaguely relevant.

          First link in the article went to a PR2 inner page
          Second link in the article went to the PR2 homepage of the same site

          The expired domain has a very clean link profile, no traces of spam in any way.

          When you Google the domain name it even comes up in the serps with those site wide things, or how they call it, that you see pages in colums below the actual listing so that it takes a lot of space.
          Interesting. I imagine this will straighten itself out fairly quick. I don't see how that link could hurt.
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          • Profile picture of the author nik0
            Banned
            Originally Posted by PerformanceMan View Post

            Interesting. I imagine this will straighten itself out fairly quick. I don't see how that link could hurt.
            I get the idea that Google filters anchor diversity per PR level or something, cause the odd thing is that only these 2 keywords tanked and the other ones only dropped slightly or not at all. Either way very strange situation cause it's not like dancing or anything.
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  • Profile picture of the author boxoun
    Keep spreading the myth. Diversify your anchor text and make sure it's exactly 10.23134234 percent.
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    • Profile picture of the author 36burrows
      Originally Posted by boxoun View Post

      Keep spreading the myth. Diversify your anchor text and make sure it's exactly 10.23134234 percent.
      And you keep thinking you actually know something about SEO.
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      • Profile picture of the author Ben Acharyaa
        [DELETED]
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        • Profile picture of the author 36burrows
          Originally Posted by Ben Acharyaa View Post

          Lol lets say that grammar's not my thing, just like SEO's not yours.
          I think you've been smoking a little too much of whatever's in that pipe my friend.
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  • Profile picture of the author boxoun
    Yes and our point is when people keep talking about anchor text rather than webspam people don't really understand what penguin is about. Is it about anchor text? No

    Is it about webspam? Yes
    Can over optimizing anchor text be webspam? Yes

    It's a change in mind set and when people understand that penguin is about web spam and not specifically anchor text then they will be headed in the right direction.

    Ps please don't act like you are the only one "testing" and please forgive us if we don't care because we don't know who you are and whether or not you are qualified to analyze data.

    Some of us have been varying our anchor text for over 2 yrs and btw it has nothing to do with penguin. If you figure that out then you will be on your way.
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  • Profile picture of the author mcatt
    Very helpful thread for me and I'm sure a lot of us. Thanks
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  • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
    Well, it sounds like Penguin is working the way it was intended to for the most part. You cannot just use crappy link building methods but get around being hit by varying your anchor text. Google is not that stupid.
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    • Profile picture of the author scottmacair
      Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

      Well, it sounds like Penguin is working the way it was intended to for the most part. You cannot just use crappy link building methods but get around being hit by varying your anchor text. Google is not that stupid.
      Exactly - the whole diversify mantra is just nonsense. Google didn't spend months developing Penguin to have it just look at anchor text diversity.
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  • Profile picture of the author Berkinb
    People are too obsessed to find out formulas and one-size fits all solutions like 20% exact match, 40% this, 40% that.

    There isn't a single factor or formula that determines your rankings without getting in interaction with many other factors like link velocity, content to social signals to links ratios, site speed, layout, readability, link diversity, time on site, bounce back rates, etc.
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  • Profile picture of the author Warock
    Banned
    Try to get more non-keyword anchored backlinks.
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