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How can I recover penguin 2.1 update?

by WebMastersEye
67 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Hi Warrior Friends, Kindly help me to do the steps in order to recover from this penalty Please guide me that the web 2.0 strategies, article directories, and the standard SEO methods are useless now or can be used with some quality guidelines?
#penguin #recover #update
  • Profile picture of the author Make Money Ninja
    My biggest earner got penalized. $5k month down the drain.

    As for my links, i have MASSIVE anchor variation, i have high PR links, i have lots of bad links too.

    From what i can tell (compaing the ones that rank and the ones that tanked), so far i think it has nothing to do with anchors, more likely spun content or web 2.0 links.

    It has got to the point where, on my new sites, i am just building pure quality links, with massive anchor variation. Anything other than that, now carries a massive risk factor.

    As for recovery, wait it out for a few days and see where the dust settles. You may want to remove some links, disavow etc. Recovering from something like this (if you have spammed) will be harder than say recovering from Panda.

    Good luck!
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    • Profile picture of the author online only
      Originally Posted by Make Money Ninja View Post

      My biggest earner got penalized. $5k month down the drain.

      As for my links, i have MASSIVE anchor variation, i have high PR links, i have lots of bad links too.

      From what i can tell (compaing the ones that rank and the ones that tanked), so far i think it has nothing to do with anchors, more likely spun content or web 2.0 links.

      It has got to the point where, on my new sites, i am just building pure quality links, with massive anchor variation. Anything other than that, now carries a massive risk factor.

      As for recovery, wait it out for a few days and see where the dust settles. You may want to remove some links, disavow etc. Recovering from something like this (if you have spammed) will be harder than say recovering from Panda.

      Good luck!
      Anchor text variety is a myth - imho
      People who use spun content for backlinks in 2013 are plain stupid - imho

      But I think OP don't know much about linkbuilding since those web2.0s, article directories are all pre 2011 stuff.

      If you want to continue doing SEO then you have to stop thinking about all the fake links you can possibly build.

      To OP: How can you recover? Buy a new domain, create a new site, build legit links - it's actually easier than it looks at first glance. It's not a rocket science. Google wants to rank sites that are useful/valuable + have legit links and that's it!!!

      Who's the winner in this scenario?

      You = you get traffic = WIN
      Visitors = they find the information what they are looking for = WIN
      Google = respect and trust from the users = WIN

      If you are not fully blackhat guy who banks a lot of $$$ then it's no point in finding loopholes that might work. Even if they do, penguin 2.2 comes and your site is vanished once again.

      I have been there done that, I used to build tiny sites with nonsense content then I used blog comments and web2.0's to rank it. Yes, they worked quite well in the past, but updates came my $$$ was gone and it was a reality check for me.

      Then I spent few months reading reputable SEO blogs, followed advice from people who work for large authority sites and basically copied their methods. And guess what, since then I haven't had any issues with Google. Google is milking my sites with traffic since they know my sites are legit, my links are legit and they have no intention to decrease my rankings.

      Google has said:

      "The best way to get other sites to create high-quality, relevant links to yours is to create unique, relevant content that can naturally gain popularity in the Internet community. Creating good content pays off: Links are usually editorial votes given by choice, and the more useful content you have, the greater the chances someone else will find that content valuable to their readers and link to it."

      Obviously you won't get any links by just creating awesome content. You have to show it off to potential linkeratis and/or people who are interested in the content you provide.. How to do that? Pick a phone, write e-mails, donate, make JV's/sponsorships, help other people, suggest your sites, give advice etc.

      And once you are ranked well on Google, you can sit back and relax. You will get stable traffic from Google, people will see your awesome content that you have made and you will start receiving those "natural" links that Google wants you to have.
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      • Profile picture of the author Make Money Ninja
        Originally Posted by online only View Post

        Anchor text variety is a myth - imho
        People who use spun content for backlinks in 2013 are plain stupid - imho

        But I think OP don't know much about linkbuilding since those web2.0s, article directories are all pre 2011 stuff.

        If you want to continue doing SEO then you have to stop thinking about all the fake links you can possibly build.

        To OP: How can you recover? Buy a new domain, create a new site, build legit links - it's actually easier than it looks at first glance. It's not a rocket science. Google wants to rank sites that are useful/valuable + have legit links and that's it!!!

        Who's the winner in this scenario?

        You = you get traffic = WIN
        Visitors = they find the information what they are looking for = WIN
        Google = respect and trust from the users = WIN

        If you are not fully blackhat guy who banks a lot of $$$ then it's no point in finding loopholes that might work. Even if they do, penguin 2.2 comes and your site is vanished once again.

        I have been there done that, I used to build tiny sites with nonsense content then I used blog comments and web2.0's to rank it. Yes, they worked quite well in the past, but updates came my $$$ was gone and it was a reality check for me.

        Then I spent few months reading reputable SEO blogs, followed advice from people who work for large authority sites and basically copied their methods. And guess what, since then I haven't had any issues with Google. Google is milking my sites with traffic since they know my sites are legit, my links are legit and they have no intention to decrease my rankings.

        Google has said:

        "The best way to get other sites to create high-quality, relevant links to yours is to create unique, relevant content that can naturally gain popularity in the Internet community. Creating good content pays off: Links are usually editorial votes given by choice, and the more useful content you have, the greater the chances someone else will find that content valuable to their readers and link to it."

        Obviously you won't get any links by just creating awesome content. You have to show it off to potential linkeratis and/or people who are interested in the content you provide.. How to do that? Pick a phone, write e-mails, donate, make JV's/sponsorships, help other people, suggest your sites, give advice etc.

        And once you are ranked well on Google, you can sit back and relax. You will get stable traffic from Google, people will see your awesome content that you have made and you will start receiving those "natural" links that Google wants you to have.
        Not trying to defend the model. But i make $10k+ month pure grey hat.

        Times are changing though. You can be on your high horse, but i doubt you are earning anywhere near this level.

        Fact of the matter is this: Grey hat works, at least short term. Long term the only thing sustainaible is pure quality, white hat authority sites. Neither is right or wrong, i use both models.

        Whilst people like you were preaching white hat, i was ranking and banking over the past 3 years, whilst your white hat sites were ranking much lower than crap i could throw up and spam within a day. Now things are changing, and you can all be like "i told you so", but the smart dudes hedge there bets. Google is far to fickle to just listen to what they say. You need to cover yourself and your assets. Its just common sense business.
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        • Profile picture of the author online only
          Originally Posted by Make Money Ninja View Post

          Not trying to defend the model. But i make $10k+ month pure grey hat.

          Times are changing though. You can be on your high horse, but i doubt you are earning anywhere near this level.

          Fact of the matter is this: Grey hat works, at least short term. Long term the only thing sustainaible is pure quality, white hat authority sites. Neither is right or wrong, i use both models.

          Whilst people like you were preaching white hat, i was ranking and banking over the past 3 years, whilst your white hat sites were ranking much lower than crap i could throw up and spam within a day. Now things are changing, and you can all be like "i told you so", but the smart dudes hedge there bets. Google is far to fickle to just listen to what they say. You need to cover yourself and your assets. Its just common sense business.
          First off, I don't want to brag, but I'm making way over $10k per month through my niche sites that are purely built on solid, whitehat links that are acquired by purely contacting other webmasters and showing off my great content.

          I haven't used any article directories, no social bookmarks, no private networks, no web2.0's. Heck, I don't even do guestposting and still manage to rank sites for fairly difficult keywords.

          However, I'm not that much of SEO person anymore, because I'm mostly targeting Adwords nowadays - more sustainable, faster results, more scalable etc, but let it be.

          If you read my post carefully, you must have seen that I actually wrote that I wasn't doing whitehat previously. I was doing semi-gray-hat or whatever you call it. It was successful at first, but all my sites were bashed after the first penguin.

          I'm glad if your sites didn't, you probably did something better than I did. I think most of SEO folks have tried or did some gray/blackhat in the past. Some are still doing, for some it doesn't work anymore.

          At the end of the day, everyone should do their own SEO that works well for THEM. If you are into short-term projects and you can milk the shit out of your sites then sure, go ahead. If you are looking for long-term rankings, I personally don't think grayhat works well anymore. Or maybe I suppose to ask you what's the grayhat definition for you? A mixture of good and bad links?
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  • Profile picture of the author Make Money Ninja
    Yeah man, i agree with pretty much everything you just said.

    Pretty much all of us with sites with affiliate links are doing something grey hat. By definition, Google says any link that is gained as an attempt to rank or manipulate SERPS is link spam, so that puts stuff like guest posting in that bucket.

    The way i operate now is actually really simple.

    Aggressive grey hat - high pr links, EMD's, parasite sites.

    White hat - no link building, other than high PR directories, high PR authoritative sites guest posting/paid links. Now you can argue this is grey hat, and it is. But doing this is pretty much the only way you can do SEO and keep the risk freeshold down. The good news about this model is that massive content sites are standing more and more on their own, without the need for link schemes.

    My 2 cents.
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    • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
      absolutely no one knows so soon after an update what specifically will make you recover but given this is an update to Penguin it stands to reason that getting better organic or organic looking ink will help .
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    • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
      Originally Posted by Make Money Ninja View Post

      White hat - no link building, other than high PR directories, high PR authoritative sites guest posting/paid links. Now you can argue this is grey hat, and it is. But doing this is pretty much the only way you can do SEO and keep the risk freeshold down. .

      Well the confusing part to me of reading some of what you have written today is that you are using the terms very selectively and in contradiction of their real meaning. You can't call buying links white hat without creating confusion. Its just not white hat.
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  • Profile picture of the author nik0
    Banned
    You guys, Online Only and Make Money Ninja have totally no clue and base your assumptions on a hand full of sites.

    Go rank 100's of sites and try again.

    Silly comments that anchor diversity is a myth and preaching white hat link building.

    You think the local business around the corner is interested to spend thousands of dollars a month on link building and reaching out to your made up "linkeratis" nonsense? Perhaps that works in some niches but most don't allow for that so wake up for once.
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    • Profile picture of the author online only
      Originally Posted by nik0 View Post

      You guys, Online Only and Make Money Ninja have totally no clue and base your assumptions on a hand full of sites.

      Go rank 100's of sites and try again.

      Silly comments that anchor diversity is a myth and preaching white hat link building.

      You think the local business around the corner is interested to spend thousands of dollars a month on link building and reaching out to your made up "linkeratis" nonsense? Perhaps that works in some niches but most don't allow for that so wake up for once.
      Haha,

      I don't need to rank shitty Adsense sites or amazon doorway pages like you do on a daily basis.

      Local businesses don't need your links either.

      You are so biased about your network, you really think that is the only and real way to rank sites.. It's ridiculous.

      You nik0, just wait until someone reports on your network or adds your fake links to disavow tool and your "HIGH PR LEGIT NICHE RELEVANT BOOST SERP NETWORK" is blown up.

      Cheers

      .. and yeah go tell n00bs how they need to have generic anchor texts like:

      click here 35,1% (this is my favorite one, who uses that phrase anyway? Maybe some amazon page, but not much of a real sites)
      brand name with a keyword in it 11,78%
      main keyword 8,37%

      Go tell that BS to real SEO people, they will laugh u out
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      • Profile picture of the author nik0
        Banned
        Originally Posted by online only View Post

        Haha,

        I don't need to rank shitty Adsense sites or amazon doorway pages like you do on a daily basis.

        Local businesses don't need your links either.

        You nik0, just wait until someone reports on your network or adds your fake links to disavow tool and your "HIGH PR LEGIT NICHE RELEVANT BOOST SERP NETWORK" is blown up.

        Cheers
        Local business definitely need my links or they won't rank anywhere near the top of page 1. Good luck ranking a lawyer in a medium sized city or a photographer in a fairly large city without back links. It's not all electrician in city we never heard of.

        You think my links are never added to the disavow tool by some idiot client who doens't care and does everything to recover after he spammed his site to death? If that Disavow tool would be so dangerous my network would already be toast so it again shows that you don't know what you're talking about (pure theories in your head that don't apply).

        Just in case, as multiple disavow reports can never be good, I took a wise decision months ago by splitting up my network, one for affiliate type of sites, one for legit businesses.

        And that legit business network is now split up in 8 broad niche networks and 30 more narrow niche networks.

        Good luck taking that down in one blow. The worse that could happen is that I lose 6.25% and 1.67% of my domains as clients never get links on more then 50% of domains in a certain niche, I'll replace that in a matter of days when needed.
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        • Profile picture of the author nik0
          Banned
          Just removed some long ass replies as I don't have any need to deal with nitpickers who take a concept out of line cause once up on a time someone mentioned 33/33/33 as a very broad guideline, that gladly everyone understood besides some number nerds.
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      • Profile picture of the author HeadStartSEO
        Originally Posted by online only View Post

        Haha,

        I don't need to rank shitty Adsense sites or amazon doorway pages like you do on a daily basis.

        Local businesses don't need your links either.

        You are so biased about your network, you really think that is the only and real way to rank sites.. It's ridiculous.

        You nik0, just wait until someone reports on your network or adds your fake links to disavow tool and your "HIGH PR LEGIT NICHE RELEVANT BOOST SERP NETWORK" is blown up.

        Cheers

        .. and yeah go tell n00bs how they need to have generic anchor texts like:

        click here 35,1% (this is my favorite one, who uses that phrase anyway? Maybe some amazon page, but not much of a real sites)
        brand name with a keyword in it 11,78%
        main keyword 8,37%

        Go tell that BS to real SEO people, they will laugh u out

        I'm a real SEO, and we do gray hat all the time. To be honest there no such thing as hats. It's what works and what doesn't work. I would say 95% of SEO guys are doing gray hat, but are really calling it white hat.

        I know white hat SEO companies that buy PR post all day, and think it's white hat.

        Anything with scale can't be purely white hat. It has to be a mixture. White hat doesn't scale very well, and check some of the more known companies. They are using gray hat.
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        • Profile picture of the author nik0
          Banned
          Originally Posted by HeadStartSEO View Post

          I'm a real SEO, and we do gray hat all the time. To be honest there no such thing as hats. It's what works and what doesn't work. I would say 95% of SEO guys are doing gray hat, but are really calling it white hat.

          I know white hat SEO companies that buy PR post all day, and think it's white hat.

          Anything with scale can't be purely white hat. It has to be a mixture. White hat doesn't scale very well, and check some of the more known companies. They are using gray hat.
          I totally agree, I know some huge SEO firms that charge a ton of money and all they do is placing links in the sidebar of restored sites. Well not fully restored but they try to keep the content a bit relevant to the previous topic of site and only build it up to 5 pages so that the sidebar link doesn't really end up like a huge sitewide link. (mostly html sites btw).

          They rank sites like crazy that way and none of the links come from relevant pages as they just place the link with anchor text with zero surrounding content.
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      • Profile picture of the author nik0
        Banned
        Originally Posted by online only View Post

        .. and yeah go tell n00bs how they need to have generic anchor texts like:

        click here 35,1% (this is my favorite one, who uses that phrase anyway? Maybe some amazon page, but not much of a real sites)
        brand name with a keyword in it 11,78%
        main keyword 8,37%

        Go tell that BS to real SEO people, they will laugh u out
        They would laugh me out or would they laugh you out cause you are so retarded to completely pull it out of context.

        Hmmm....
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    • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
      Originally Posted by nik0 View Post

      You guys, Online Only and Make Money Ninja have totally no clue and base your assumptions on a hand full of sites.

      Go rank 100's of sites and try again.

      Silly comments that anchor diversity is a myth and preaching white hat link building.

      You think the local business around the corner is interested to spend thousands of dollars a month on link building and reaching out to your made up "linkeratis" nonsense? Perhaps that works in some niches but most don't allow for that so wake up for once.

      Sorry but if you believe that there is some magical percentages that should be used in the anchor text of backlinks, then I'm afraid you are the one clueless in this case. I completely agree with Online Only on this. Anchor text diversity, when you are talking about keeping to some artificial percentages, is a total myth.

      And nobody needs to rank 100's of sites to prove it. Just go look in the SERPs . The proof is there.
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    • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
      Originally Posted by nik0 View Post

      Silly comments that anchor diversity is a myth and preaching white hat link building.

      You think the local business around the corner is interested to spend thousands of dollars a month on link building .
      Nik I am with you when people try to say all link services are bad but seriously. Why can't people preach white hat? and no it does not take thousands to do white hat. Yes it takes more than people here want to pay but not always "thousands". Lots of real businesses pay from $500 up to $10,000 and more per month for other forms of advertising (and lets not forget white hat quit often brings immediate traffic because the sites you get the links from actually have readers . ) So no its not out of their budget.

      I am not going to join people here and say anchor text diversity is a total myth. If you have twenty thousand links and they are all "burial life insurance" then I think it could be a factor in determining"over optimization". However lets face it. this whole set percentage thing (ie 20%) is just sketchy and unfortunately people have taken this to mean their garbage links take on value because they "diversified"

      Anyway I know you don't want to hear it but they are right about most services on WF. If you guys do not evolve (and yes that will mean charging more because of the extra work required) you ARE going to go the way of Angela backlinks.
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      • Profile picture of the author nik0
        Banned
        Originally Posted by Mike Anthony View Post

        Nik I am with you when people try to say all link services are bad but seriously. Why can't people preach white hat? and no it does not take thousands to do white hat. Yes it takes more than people here want to pay but not always "thousands". Lots of real businesses pay from $500 up to $10,000 and more per month for other forms of advertising (and lets not forget white hat quit often brings immediate traffic because the sites you get the links from actually have readers . ) So no its not out of their budget.
        Yeah well..., I still have to meet the day that someone spends more then $400/month with me on one single site and if they do it's often a pretty tough niche so maybe I'm a bit biased.


        Originally Posted by Mike Anthony View Post

        I am not going to join people here and say anchor text diversity is a total myth. If you have twenty thousand links and they are all "burial life insurance" then I think it could be a factor in determining"over optimization". However lets face it. this whole set percentage thing (ie 20%) is just sketchy and unfortunately people have taken this to mean their garbage links take on value because they "diversified"
        I can't imagine that someone is so stupid that when someone tells that they have to use 20% branded keywords that they use their domain name in the exact way as you type it in as a url in 20% of their links, instead of using a variation wiht the www. in front of it, with and without http:// part, even the trailing slash and so on, ok maybe that happens, but when someone says 30% generic anchors then that does not mean 30% of the time the individual phrase "click here" instead of using a whole list.


        Originally Posted by Mike Anthony View Post

        Anyway I know you don't want to hear it but they are right about most services on WF. If you guys do not evolve (and yes that will mean charging more because of the extra work required) you ARE going to go the way of Angela backlinks.
        They are right about most services, about 6 months to 1 year ago I yelled it all the time that there is only garbage being sold on this forum, with a few exceptions here and there but those often don't have threads in the for sales section. After some time I got tired of it so I just didn't touch that topic anymore.

        Not saying that my service was that incredibly great back then, but back then it did survive every single Penguin update so I was definitely steps ahead of the majority that's still selling those Angela backlinks.
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    • Profile picture of the author Make Money Ninja
      Originally Posted by nik0 View Post

      You guys, Online Only and Make Money Ninja have totally no clue and base your assumptions on a hand full of sites.

      Go rank 100's of sites and try again.

      Silly comments that anchor diversity is a myth and preaching white hat link building.

      You think the local business around the corner is interested to spend thousands of dollars a month on link building and reaching out to your made up "linkeratis" nonsense? Perhaps that works in some niches but most don't allow for that so wake up for once.
      Im in the SERPS daily and can see whats happening in my niche and over a great deal of competitive niches, targeted by affiliates.

      Anchors matter. Of course they matter. But i am seeing sites going down where 5% of anchors are their most used keywords. This is the first time sites with massive anchor diversity are going down. This is a fact. I am observing it.

      To sumarize my observation is this:

      - Anchor variety obviously helps.
      - But at the same time if you have links from LQ sources. LQ defined as anything automated or spun. Then it doesn't matter if you have totally diverse anchor profile. YOU WILL STILL GET HIT.

      These arent just best guesses from looking at a few sites. I've done the leg work. I am positive this is whats happening. Before it was just link semantics. Now its link quality as well combined.
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      • Profile picture of the author nik0
        Banned
        Originally Posted by Make Money Ninja View Post

        Im in the SERPS daily and can see whats happening in my niche and over a great deal of competitive niches, targeted by affiliates.

        Anchors matter. Of course they matter. But i am seeing sites going down where 5% of anchors are their most used keywords. This is the first time sites with massive anchor diversity are going down. This is a fact. I am observing it.

        To sumarize my observation is this:

        - Anchor variety obviously helps.
        - But at the same time if you have links from LQ sources. LQ defined as anything automated or spun. Then it doesn't matter if you have totally diverse anchor profile. YOU WILL STILL GET HIT.

        These arent just best guesses from looking at a few sites. I've done the leg work. I am positive this is whats happening. Before it was just link semantics. Now its link quality as well combined.
        I know, sometimes I also see sites going down with only 3-5% of the same anchor. Often surprises me a bit when I look closer at their back link profile cause in some cases it's not even that spammy at all, ain't saying 100% natural but it's not like it has 100's of bookmarks, profiles, comments, low directories and so on.

        Anchor is not the magic that solves all the solutions, never said that, but it does have a pretty large impact on things, especially when you combine it with partial or full EMD's, the closer to the EMD it gets the harder it is to survive when having to many money keywords, seen it too often so that it can't be coincedence.

        Anyway, right now I see sites go down with links from only like 50-60 referring domains where most the links are money keywords. At the same time I'm analyzing a batch of sites that didn't go down but remained stable and there it's mostly mixed anchors so anchor diversity plays a huge role, still those Mike F and OO put it off as a myth.

        So far:

        12 out of 20 domains that went down only have money keywords
        1 out of 20 has a lot of spammy links
        1 out of 20 is an EMD with 60% money keywords
        1 other one is partial EMD with 70% money keywords

        So that is 15 out of 20 domains that went down that either have to do with EMD, too many money keywords or just a whole bunch of spammy links.

        Now let's look at the ones that didn't go down:

        - only 7 domains analyzed thus far
        - 6 out of 7 have decent mixed anchors
        - the only with only money keywords only has links from 20 referring domains so probably the penguin filter isn't triggered with so few linsk

        I know it's a tiny sample right now but:

        - 80%+ of those domains with primarly money kw's tanked
        - 15%- of domains with mixed keywords tanked and that's a case with only 20 linking root domains.

        Can't find any differences between the 5 domains with mixed anchors that tanked and the 5 domains with mixed anchors that didn't tank so that's like a bit of a grey area right now, might have to do with age or quality of the site, have to look later at that.

        First got to increase my samples a bit to see if the observations stick.
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  • Profile picture of the author tdanz
    White hat takes ages to rank..using grey/black hat can be beneficial if you can create a list and engagement for that list, money is in the life time value of the customer.
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  • Profile picture of the author Make Money Ninja
    The whole white/grey/black definition is a load of BS. Its a continum in terms of risk.

    White = no link building, low risk.
    Grey = everything in between.
    Black = hacking.

    Its all on a continuum.

    I often refer to sites that guest post and get high PR relevant links from just a few sites as white hat. They are not. Sorry if that confused you.
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    • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
      Originally Posted by Make Money Ninja View Post

      I often refer to sites that guest post and get high PR relevant links from just a few sites as white hat. They are not. Sorry if that confused you.
      Its not a matter that it confuses me. Its that the the phrase has a meaning and people on this forum - not just you - have now made up meanings that are entirely different from the rest of the SEO world.
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    • Profile picture of the author hipeopo02
      Originally Posted by Make Money Ninja View Post

      Black = hacking.

      Actually hacking=hacking and is generally illegal. Blackhat isn't illegal and the only "risk" as far as blackhat tactics go fall in the link building category (auto-link software like those xrumer fanatics). google updates are an obstacle more than ever.

      that's why blackhat linkbuilding is a waste of time but blackhat is alive and well.
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      A crappy product or service by people that disappear from the forum for a long period of time to make it look like they were working on something so when they come back you will want to click on their crappy product or service link

      CLICK HERE! LOL
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  • Profile picture of the author Make Money Ninja
    Its not a question of hats. Its a question of risk level. Every link you build to your site has some level of risk attached to it. Each Google update shifts the risk spectrum and makes more and more stuff more risky. Simple as that.
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    • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
      Originally Posted by Make Money Ninja View Post

      Its not a question of hats. Its a question of risk level. .
      Then leave hats out of your posts. In your posts today you are talking about going white hat, not optimizing, building no links and dumping on all "services" and then turning right around and talking about buying links which is a service and a link service at that. You can't eat your cake and have it too.
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      • Profile picture of the author Make Money Ninja
        Originally Posted by Mike Anthony View Post

        Then leave hats out of your posts. In your posts today you are talking about going white hat, not optimizing, building no links and dumping on all "services" and then turning right around and talking about buying links which is a service and a link service at that. You can't eat your cake and have it too.
        Stop getting ur panties in a twist
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        • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
          Originally Posted by Make Money Ninja View Post

          Stop getting ur panties in a twist
          Don't wear those but whatever floats your boat. . I think the same sometimes though about people who cry this or that is dead or dying. chill....relax..services will still be here for long time.
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  • Profile picture of the author jinx1221
    I don't think there is such thing as 'hats' anymore. Pure "whitehat" I would say falls more under the term "site promotion and exposure", and along with that naturally comes SEO and linkbuilding, only that SEO in terms of link building being an afterthought.. an effect of the cause. Anything left over, as in, knowingly and purposefully building links for the purposes of boosting your rankings is, well, not "whitehat" (grey, black, purple, polkadot, whatever).

    And yes, guest posting, emailing webmasters with broken link requests, just about everything under the sun not promoting the site and specifically the site itself is, all effectiveness aside, no more and no less cleaner than any one other way. It just becomes a matter of, how dusty is your white hat starting to get?
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    • Profile picture of the author Make Money Ninja
      Originally Posted by jinx1221 View Post

      I don't think there is such thing as 'hats' anymore. Pure "whitehat" I would say falls more under the term "site promotion and exposure", and along with that naturally comes SEO and linkbuilding, only that SEO in terms of link building being an afterthought.. an effect of the cause. Anything left over, as in, knowingly and purposefully building links for the purposes of boosting your rankings is, well, not "whitehat" (grey, black, purple, polkadot, whatever).

      And yes, guest posting, emailing webmasters with broken link requests, just about everything under the sun not promoting the site and specifically the site itself is, all effectiveness aside, no more and no less cleaner than any one other way. It just becomes a matter of, how dusty is your white hat starting to get?
      Right, anything manipulative is BAD according to them.

      The difference is risk. 100 spun web 2.0's are a lot more risky than a guest post. A low PR link directory is more risky than a guest post. But maybe less risky than a purchased high PR link etc.

      I could go on forever. Everything has risk assosiated with it. Its how much risk you want to take, for the reward you might get. Now it just seems like the risks are getting bigger and the rewards smaller (rank for less long) than previously.

      Hence ******* up the business model a little bit.
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      • Profile picture of the author nik0
        Banned
        Originally Posted by Make Money Ninja View Post

        The difference is risk. 100 spun web 2.0's are a lot more risky than a guest post. A low PR link directory is more risky than a guest post. But maybe less risky than a purchased high PR link etc.
        What's more risky, 500 low PR directory links or 500 high PR links, LOL.
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        • Profile picture of the author Make Money Ninja
          Originally Posted by nik0 View Post

          What's more risky, 500 low PR directory links or 500 high PR links, LOL.
          Depends on the high pr links. stfu. lol.
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          • Profile picture of the author nik0
            Banned
            Originally Posted by Make Money Ninja View Post

            Depends on the high pr links. stfu. lol.
            At least those 500 high PR links make you money, can't say that of the low directory links
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        • Profile picture of the author yukon
          Banned
          Originally Posted by nik0 View Post

          What's more risky, 500 low PR directory links or 500 high PR links, LOL.
          The correct answer would be, over advertised public link networks.
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      • Profile picture of the author jinx1221
        Originally Posted by Make Money Ninja View Post

        Right, anything manipulative is BAD according to them.

        The difference is risk. 100 spun web 2.0's are a lot more risky than a guest post. A low PR link directory is more risky than a guest post. But maybe less risky than a purchased high PR link etc.

        I could go on forever. Everything has risk assosiated with it. Its how much risk you want to take, for the reward you might get. Now it just seems like the risks are getting bigger and the rewards smaller (rank for less long) than previously.

        Hence ******* up the business model a little bit.
        Exactly! I wouldn't do most things aside of site promotion for a mom and pop store. I'm not necessarily supporting the churn and burn model either, but it just, more and more lately, seems like trying to focus on just one site and keep everything squeaky clean to abide by the rules is like constantly performing CPR on something that's doomed to die anyways. With risk comes possible failure, with no risk means certain failure. Take your pick.
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        • Profile picture of the author Make Money Ninja
          Originally Posted by jinx1221 View Post

          with no risk means certain failure. Take your pick.
          I have a site that earns over $XXXX month, it has virtually no links whatsoever. A hand full of guest posts and some old respected high pr directory links.

          I then got to work and wrote 500 posts (i like writing a lot). It ranks, it banks, its hard work. But is there risk? I dont know, not much imo. Especially since i monetize less than 10% of the pages with affiliate links.
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          • Profile picture of the author jinx1221
            Originally Posted by Make Money Ninja View Post

            I have a site that earns over month, it has virtually no links whatsoever. A hand full of guest posts and some old respected high pr directory links.

            I then got to work and wrote 500 posts (i like writing a lot). It ranks, it banks, its hard work. But is there risk? I dont know, not much imo. Especially since i monetize less than 10% of the pages with affiliate links.
            That's awesome man So yeah, stay safe and as low risk as you can, while still doing what you can do to be successful, and don't be afraid to try new things. (now I sound like my first grade teacher :p)

            Originally Posted by hipeopo02 View Post

            Actually hacking=hacking and is generally illegal. Blackhat isn't illegal and the only "risk" as far as blackhat tactics go fall in the link building category (auto-link software like those xrumer fanatics). google updates are an obstacle more than ever.

            that's why blackhat linkbuilding is a waste of time but blackhat is alive and well.
            Not sure what I just read.. Blackhat is not illegal but blackhat linkbuilding is waste of time but blackhat is alive and well but blackhat is not hacking? Lol!
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            • Profile picture of the author hipeopo02
              Originally Posted by jinx1221 View Post

              Not sure what I just read.. Blackhat is not illegal but blackhat linkbuilding is waste of time but blackhat is alive and well but blackhat is not hacking? Lol!
              no, that's right.
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  • Profile picture of the author Make Money Ninja
    Stop being pedantic with your definitions of white, grey, black. You ask 100 people you get back 50 different answers. Stop getting in a dick measuring contest, were here to help each other ya know?
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    • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
      Originally Posted by Make Money Ninja View Post

      Stop being pedantic with your definitions of white, grey, black. You ask 100 people you get back 50 different answers. Stop getting in a dick measuring contest, were here to help each other ya know?

      Thats right and telling people crap helps no one.
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    • Profile picture of the author hipeopo02
      Originally Posted by Make Money Ninja View Post

      Stop being pedantic with your definitions of white, grey, black. You ask 100 people you get back 50 different answers. Stop getting in a dick measuring contest, were here to help each other ya know?
      Are you talking to me? I am just clearing up your example of black hat being hacking. Something that is illegal.

      Yes, hacking has been used to further the profits of online estates but hacking is something that started before internet marketing ever existed so you can't say black hat equals hacking. That is the most extreme, unlikely example you could give.

      Black hat is about manipulation, unethical but not illegal.

      People coming on this forum posting questions they either already know the answer to or really don't care about just for the purpose of furthering their signature promotion is black hat.

      10 sites about the same thing with copy written articles to on different servers/IP addresses targeting the first page of G is black hat.

      Creating a site that calls another site/product/service currently trending a scam for the sole purpose of that site to target those keywords and sell it's own site product service is black hat.

      Ten's of thousands of watermarked videos/pics across popular social media platforms is black hat.

      Negative SEO is black hat

      Scripts can be black hat...

      Scripts that reveal content if a link is shared by a user are black hat

      (the "see my girlfriend/celebrity naked script" is a good example of this)

      Scripts that trade links/traffic are black hat

      (I have a good example that I am not revealing because I use it )

      Automation like syntax spinners and multi-account creator/link submitters can be black hat

      (a good example of this are things like Scrapebox and Xrumer)

      Re-branding can be black hat as in copying popular site models/trends

      (a good example of this is pinterest and how other established domains copied suit ie. sex (dot) com and deemed it "pininterest for men" hahah porn is notorious for this)

      and yes hacking can be black hat

      (a good example of this notorious "Pharma Hack" that targeted WP blogs)

      and finally...

      PBNs can be black hat

      We got plenty of examples here
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  • Profile picture of the author powerofschool
    Originally Posted by WebMastersEye View Post

    Hi Warrior Friends, Kindly help me to do the steps in order to recover from this penalty Please guide me that the web 2.0 strategies, article directories, and the standard SEO methods are useless now or can be used with some quality guidelines?
    Google penguin update only hurts those sites have poor and low quality back links. Check first your backlinks and try to remove low quality back links either through manually or by disavow tool. You can request for reconsideration request after this to Google.
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  • Profile picture of the author FrankRumbauskas
    I haven't read all of the Ford vs. Chevy pissing match that's going on here, but I'm 100% with HeadStartSEO on this one - there are no "hats" - there's no such thing as white hat or grey hat or black hat - if you read Google's TOS carefully, ALL SEO is prohibited and therefore black hat.

    This nonsense about "content" etc is bull - my top earning money site is over 10 years old, is PR4, and *only* ranks for its brand name. Sure there are blog posts that rank for long-tail stuff but the idea that you're going to rank a site for high-volume, high-profit keywords based on this myth of content, get good authority links, etc. is all just that - a myth.

    In any case, as far as Penguin 2.1 is concerned, it appears to have slapped multi-tier linking schemes, and I'm really surprised that it took them this long to do it, but then again Google has gotten very big and slow and corporate. The bottom line is that getting or creating high-value/high-authority Tier 1 links and then blasting them with link spam doesn't work anymore, Tier 2 must now be high-quality as well. For large/national SEO we use our link network and it has never failed, but for small local SEO we use multi tier, with very high quality hand-built sites and Web 2's, press releases (no PRWeb since their link juice has been devalued since 2005 no matter what their sales agents will tell you), guest posts (for example one of my blogs that is syndicated on Yahoo Small Business), etc. Then Tier 1 is linked to with another round of high quality Tier 2 sites. Those sites are hit with a *reasonable* amount of blog farm and automated links, but with very careful attention that no junk spammy sites are in the mix, very careful attention paid to link velocity, etc. Then that third tier is hit with Tier 4 links that are auto-generated: Directory, Wiki, etc., from tools like GSA SER.

    Sites that are multi-tiered in this way have not been affected by Penguin 2.1, while sites that send link spam to their Tier 1 links HAVE been hit, and hit hard.

    To the OP: Abandon your site that got hit, and create several new ones so you always have a "Plan B." Use the strategy explained above to rank one, whilst very slowly building high-quality links to the other, "backup" sites so they're on the ready in case your main site gets hit again. Host them in different places, do not use google analytics on them, nothing to show that they're all owned by the same person.

    EDIT: Forgot to mention - don't fully abandon your sites - everything that got slapped in Penguin 2.1 still maintains #1 ranking in Yahoo and Bing.
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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Originally Posted by FrankRumbauskas View Post

      ... my top earning money site is over 10 years old, is PR4, and *only* ranks for its brand name.
      I find that hard to believe unless your noindexing every single page on your site except the Index page.

      C'mon man, 10 years & you only rank for one keyword (doubtful). Everyone ranks for longtails, even If they don't try to rank anything (especially after 10 years).
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      • Profile picture of the author FrankRumbauskas
        Originally Posted by yukon View Post

        I find that hard to believe unless your noindexing every single page on your site except the Index page.

        C'mon man, 10 years & you only rank for one keyword (doubtful). Everyone ranks for longtails, even If they don't try to rank anything (especially after 10 years).
        I can't explain it either. Sure, lots of blog post rank for obscure long-tails, but the traffic volume isn't there to be sustainable.

        I strongly, STRONGLY suspect there is a hidden "AdWords penalty" for sites like mine that pay over $30k/month on PPC in order to keep them paying for PPC. I've seen other situations like this and each & every time, the site was a big spender on AdWords.
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      • Profile picture of the author patadeperro
        Originally Posted by yukon View Post

        I find that hard to believe unless your noindexing every single page on your site except the Index page.

        C'mon man, 10 years & you only rank for one keyword (doubtful). Everyone ranks for longtails, even If they don't try to rank anything (especially after 10 years).
        I know his site and his work, and he has worked a lot on branding and he has spend a lot of money on PPC, so he is getting search engine traffic based on a brand and a lot of branding work, that is why he is getting this kind of traffic
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    • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
      Originally Posted by FrankRumbauskas View Post

      ALL SEO is prohibited and therefore black hat.
      Pure nonsense

      This nonsense about "content" etc is bull - my top earning money site is over 10 years old, is PR4, and *only* ranks for its brand name
      Do you need a SEO? I could suggest a few

      Sites that are multi-tiered in this way have not been affected by Penguin 2.1, while sites that send link spam to their Tier 1 links HAVE been hit, and hit hard.
      haven't heard too much about that but why should anyone be surprised? Cutt said point blank they were going to slap tiered link building silly fivemonths ago when he said "deny the benefit to link spammers upstream"
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      • Profile picture of the author ZapLabeler
        Originally Posted by Mike Anthony View Post


        Do you need a SEO? I could suggest a few

        Yes please... :-)

        I flat out just don't know enough to keep myself out of trouble as to which services I should.... or should not use. Got dinged by this pretty bad and would now much rather go with the slow/steady/safe route now.

        Dave
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        • Profile picture of the author Sumon2k7
          With due respect to all SEOs here, I would like to hear your opinion on some of the following issues:

          1) We are all arguing here about what works and what not .. But I found many clients don't have any good idea about the approximate expenditure for seo and they usually do not want to spend more than 200-400 bucks per month for their SEO. Yes, there are high paying clients too. My question is what can you do with only 200 bucks per month when you have to spend lot more than that if you do white hat links?

          For example, A good infographic can cost you around 50-100 bucks (or more) and there are more steps involved after that with submissions etc.

          Similarly, In a niche like Auto repair, Pool and spa etc How would you find great link building opportunities? I believe these markets are very narrow and have very little scope of building relevant links.

          Strategies like broken link building, guest posting takes way more time but the money you get from clients is simply nothing.

          So what would be the best thing to do? Avoid all low paying clients and only work with big fishes?
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          • Profile picture of the author nik0
            Banned
            Originally Posted by Sumon2k7 View Post

            With due respect to all SEOs here, I would like to hear your opinion on some of the following issues:

            1) We are all arguing here about what works and what not .. But I found many clients don't have any good idea about the approximate expenditure for seo and they usually do not want to spend more than 200-400 bucks per month for their SEO. Yes, there are high paying clients too. My question is what can you do with only 200 bucks per month when you have to spend lot more than that if you do white hat links?

            For example, A good infographic can cost you around 50-100 bucks (or more) and there are more steps involved after that with submissions etc.

            Similarly, In a niche like Auto repair, Pool and spa etc How would you find great link building opportunities? I believe these markets are very narrow and have very little scope of building relevant links.

            Strategies like broken link building, guest posting takes way more time but the money you get from clients is simply nothing.

            So what would be the best thing to do? Avoid all low paying clients and only work with big fishes?
            Most companies have their own networks to rank clients.

            No one is doing 100% whitehat for 200 bucks a month so it's one thing or the other.
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            • Profile picture of the author Sumon2k7
              I agree. So we cry for white hat? Those who have ever built a single backlink by hand they should know the value of their time and effort.

              Price is a big factor here for white hat seo specially if you are offering a service.
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              • Profile picture of the author nik0
                Banned
                Originally Posted by Sumon2k7 View Post

                I agree. So we cry for white hat? Those who have ever built a single backlink by hand they should know the value of their time and effort.

                Price is a big factor here for white hat seo specially if you are offering a service.
                I don't cry for whitehat as my time is too expensive but for me it's easy talking as I already have a huge network divided into niche relevant sections.

                If I would start out as an SEO right now then I would've probably chosen for whitehat with better paying clients, simple cause building a huge network for tons of niches requires large investments.
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    • Profile picture of the author Dave Keys
      Originally Posted by FrankRumbauskas View Post


      EDIT: Forgot to mention - don't fully abandon your sites - everything that got slapped in Penguin 2.1 still maintains #1 ranking in Yahoo and Bing.
      Frank, just found and read your post on Google adwords. Well said. Google overall is getting to be like a petulant mother-in-law. Time to move away!

      Someone actually called "nonsense" to the notion that all SEO is black hat? If you're drinking the G-Kool-Aid, it's exactly that. If your content in fairly land isn't getting good promotion and natural links, Google wants you out of the pool and off the planet they believe they rule.

      Not that SEO doesn't have its place. You just can't let Google define what's your best practice and you can't expect to run afoul of their best practices and enjoy synergy with the algos either.

      Anything depending on search engine online traffic is always a temporary cauldron that has to be constantly stirred to keep the Google-juice flowing. The money, as good as it may be for a few, is temporary. A decent product and a growing list- now that's gold- no, it's better than gold. Even gold can (and has been) be confiscated by the government but the list is extreme long term value and a loyal list will buy from you again and again.

      Frank won't be "needing any SEO" with a list of 250,000.
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  • Profile picture of the author Dokemion
    My personal blog maintained it's ranking's but my Client's ranking are all gone this Penguin 2.1.

    My Personal blog manage to stand strong after all the changes in Google's Algo sadly it didn't happen to my client. What a bummer...

    I'll feel better if my Personal blog lose it's ranking as well...
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  • Profile picture of the author imranfaq
    Dear Experienced Friends

    Now the point is, what should we do, whats the plan now, what is pure white hat, how to build links which seems natural and good in the eyes of Google.

    Leave it What happened, question is how to recover ?

    Imran
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    • Profile picture of the author nik0
      Banned
      Originally Posted by imranfaq View Post

      Leave it What happened, question is how to recover ?

      Imran
      Dump the site and get a new domain!
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      • Profile picture of the author yukon
        Banned
        Originally Posted by nik0 View Post

        Dump the site and get a new domain!
        Not everyone deals with temporary domains.
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        • Profile picture of the author nik0
          Banned
          Originally Posted by yukon View Post

          Not everyone deals with temporary domains.
          So what, they can learn to deal with it. Just setup a single page saying something like "Click here to continue" or "Enter site" that moves them to the new domain and you're done with it.

          Really not that hard.
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          • Profile picture of the author yukon
            Banned
            Originally Posted by nik0 View Post

            So what, they can learn to deal with it. Just setup a single page saying something like "Click here to continue" or "Enter site" that moves them to the new domain and you're done with it.

            Really not that hard.
            That's a horrible idea for a legit established site.
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            • Profile picture of the author Make Money Ninja
              Originally Posted by yukon View Post

              That's a horrible idea for a legit established site.
              Really stupid if you are getting like $100 a day bing/yahoo traffic as well. One problem with one of my sites that got "got" was that it still ranks #1 everywhere in bing and yahoo. In fact i was ranking higher for virtually everything in bing and yahoo than Google, to the point that it got me around 30% of my search traffic.

              If i redirect im literally throwing away like $4k+ bing/yahoo/aol traffic.

              I cant simply take down the content and put a move site on their because the site authority is giving me those rankings in Yahoo/Bing.

              So not everyone has the option of just starting again. If you have really messed up the domain, theres no choice but to start trying to disavow/remove links and pray they let you back in again.
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    • Profile picture of the author kid3378
      Originally Posted by imranfaq View Post

      Dear Experienced Friends

      Now the point is, what should we do, whats the plan now, what is pure white hat, how to build links which seems natural and good in the eyes of Google.

      Leave it What happened, question is how to recover ?

      Imran
      As you might read the in first few comments my friend, it has been discussed over and over again in this thread.

      "building links" are always not natural in the eyes of google since its a way to manipulate ranking of your keywords. "earning them" might be natural and this can be done if you have a very compelling and engaging content in your page. now understand that not all people can do that for their sites, so they perform "different strategies" that could work and move the ranking of their keywords.

      in my opinion, neglect the tagging and terms of "hats method" and know "what strategy works well" for you.
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  • Profile picture of the author johnbrown12
    Keep in mind guys ,strategies has been changed in 2013,so keep in eye to get top ranking
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  • Profile picture of the author hbsjcd3
    Originally Posted by WebMastersEye View Post

    Hi Warrior Friends, Kindly help me to do the steps in order to recover from this penalty Please guide me that the web 2.0 strategies, article directories, and the standard SEO methods are useless now or can be used with some quality guidelines?
    I don't think the standard SEO methods are useless. They still work.. the problem is that you need to have a balance of backlinks from a variety of sources. For example, I had a site that was penalized after being in the top 1-4 position for 2 years. But I had nothing but thousands of bookmarks and article in the article directories. After my site was penalized to the #200 position, I added over 5000 blog comments ( drip fed over 60 days), 15 press releases from SBwire over 10 weeks and added 100 articles on guest blogs.. over 2-3 months. My site began its gradual improvement and is now sitting at #8 again
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    • Profile picture of the author attorneydavid
      Originally Posted by hbsjcd3 View Post

      I don't think the standard SEO methods are useless. They still work.. the problem is that you need to have a balance of backlinks from a variety of sources. For example, I had a site that was penalized after being in the top 1-4 position for 2 years. But I had nothing but thousands of bookmarks and article in the article directories. After my site was penalized to the #200 position, I added over 5000 blog comments ( drip fed over 60 days), 15 press releases from SBwire over 10 weeks and added -----100 articles on guest blogs----.. over 2-3 months. My site began its gradual improvement and is now sitting at #8 again
      That's alot of guest blogs. I suspect that was 90% of the heavy lifting unless the blog comments were manual.
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  • Profile picture of the author Simon Walker
    Avoid article submission, directories and low quality bookmarking. Diversify your anchor text profile.
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  • Profile picture of the author NJPianist
    This is all good stuff and a great conversation once you filter out the crap. My 6 yr. old PR3 site was hit by P2 around the beginning of September as well. I got the message about unnatural linking, so I discounted it as just a warning, and did nothing, and lo and behold, while I was on the first page for years...now my site is nowhere to be found unless I search for the exact website name. Zero traffic.

    I paid a service to remove the bad links (there were many, many hundreds), which happened about 2 weeks ago. It's speculation, but my hunch is that those Russian, Japanese and non-USA links did the nasty to me, along with overused anchor text. I stopped all link building strategies (most of them found right here), and am currently searching for a service to ensure that my links are more quality-oriented and relevant to my business. Anyway, after 2 tries, my manual spam action was revoked (hooray) and my site was supposedly forgiven.

    From ahrefs, WT, Cog SEO, and a few others that don't come to mind right now, I see that the other pages on my site are becoming indexed again, and I see that the traffic is increasing nicely, but my site is still nowhere to be found for my keywords yet. Interestingly, my secondary pages are showing up on the 3-5 page of SERPS, but the money page is nowhere to be found, at least not yet, which causes me lost sleep. I'm told that PR also may have a bearing on how quickly your site returns to the living....we'll see.

    I am now watching my backlinks like a hawk, and removing any that look suspicious. I'm going to beef-up my social networking/marketing, start a blog (looking for someone to manage it), and most importantly, I need to find a reputable backlink building service that I can trust. If anyone has any suggestions, especially regarding a backlink service that will only use USA backlinks and trickle them over the period of 30-days, I'm open to any suggestions.

    Thanks!
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  • Profile picture of the author Make Money Ninja
    Back from vacation:

    The whole thing is just getting a little bit silly.

    Personally i know what i am going to be doing, and its not about white vs grey vs black. Its about what risk i am comfortable with and the rewards i expect to get back from taking such risk.

    What i think the optimal thing to do now is, look at different link sources and honestly rate how you think they will do over certain periods of time.

    Like for example, i have certain sites i am okay pushing to the top and accepting they get penalized, i have other sites i want to last longer and then i have other sites i have put in the work and have 500+ pages on, where getting those penalized is a huge cost to me.

    So you may or may not want to use various practices, but be sure to analyse the long term benefits and know the risks. How long do you think..

    - Nikos blog network will last.
    - Sape links will last.
    - High pr networks will last.
    - Private purchased domain networks will last.
    - Spun content links.
    - Web 2.0's.
    - etc etc

    We have already seen article links, comment links, bookmarks, mass wikis, forum links pretty much 100% devalued. Then a lot of all the above have been devalued also, or at the very least the risk factor is increasing with every update. The only true link which is very unlikely to get devalued or is..

    - High authority.
    - Relevant domain.
    - Within GOOD content.

    One of those links is worth 1000 shitty ones, with no risk attached.

    Anything else is just not going to last for the long term. I witness this in my main niche, i have never seen so many sites rank with such little links. Times are changing. Slowly. Some people are just in denial.
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  • Profile picture of the author Kelvin12
    I have a 3-year old site that got hit by Panda in 2011 or whatever. It was my main earner, and I need to get it back to the top. I'm thinking of doing a 301 redirect, but only to the rest of the site and not the homepage. I had used BMR on it.
    Will test that out and see how it pans out.
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