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Penguin Penalty Given Due To Multiple Factors

by nik0 Banned
11 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Scenario 1:

- Website has a lot of duplicate content
- Website dealt with some link loss
- Website has a dozen or so unnatural links and that makes up for about his whole link profile.

The site tanks during Penguin 2.1


Scenario 2:

- decent quality website - no issue's
- website didn't deal with link loss
- website has a FEW dozen or so unnatural links that makes up for his whole link profile

The site doesn't tank during Penguin 2.1


Although it looks like a sole example I work with large amounts of clients and this is a very recurring thing.

Logical you could say, a good website gets away with more then some thin crappy site that has multiple issue's. My test date proves that and I can't disagree.

HOWEVER:

It's not so easy to get rid of a Penguin penalty so what if we:

- improve the website hugely, fix all errors
- build new links to get the link loss back on track.

You think that would lift the penalty? I personally don't have much faith in that, but if the site didn't deal with those issue's in the first place it wouldn't have been penalized, I'm talking about large samples of data here and the proof that everyone can see are authority or legit old sites that can handle a lot of spam so no need to discuss further. Otherwise we could tank every site with neg SEO right?

I know what some of you are thinking, if we build 100% natural links, then it might've gotten away with the site errors and link loss, and obvious I agree with that as well.

BUT from a recovery point of view, how much chance do you think we have? Will improving the site quality drastically reverse the penalty or once it's achieved the only way to get rid of it is fixing the unnatural link issue?

I myself build well structured site that don't deal with any issue's besides perhaps not the best content and then I blast them with 60 high PR blog posts at a network of PR3/PR4 domains that's setup in a very basic way (linking out to tons of sites). You could say each single link is unnatural and I haven't build a single 100% legit link to those sites (as I refuse them from my monthly service).

Those sites are still ranking absolutely fine.

Get my drift?
#due #factors #multiple #penalty #penguin
  • Profile picture of the author derekjansen
    Hi Nik0

    I've been working with Penguin penalty removals over the last six months and have successfully lifted every one. What I've observed is that without getting the penalty lifted, you're always fighting a losing battle. You will need to build a lot more quality links than the next guy, have a much better site, and generally "fight" a lot harder to be able to compete with non-penalised sites. Additionally, its near impossible to break above the top 5 mark with a penalty (just my experience).

    I'd highly recommend either dealing with the penalty (remove links, disavow and recon) before doing anything else. Alternatively (more drastic) you can move to a new domain (but that comes with its own basket of challenges).

    Hope that provides you with some direction...
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    • Profile picture of the author nik0
      Banned
      Originally Posted by derekjansen View Post

      Hi Nik0

      I've been working with Penguin penalty removals over the last six months and have successfully lifted every one. What I've observed is that without getting the penalty lifted, you're always fighting a losing battle. You will need to build a lot more quality links than the next guy, have a much better site, and generally "fight" a lot harder to be able to compete with non-penalised sites. Additionally, its near impossible to break above the top 5 mark with a penalty (just my experience).

      I'd highly recommend either dealing with the penalty (remove links, disavow and recon) before doing anything else. Alternatively (more drastic) you can move to a new domain (but that comes with its own basket of challenges).

      Hope that provides you with some direction...
      How long did it take you on average?
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  • Profile picture of the author online only
    Uhm, not sure what do you mean by "link loss". It's quite common for every website on the planet to lose some links over the time. Does it bring penguin penalty, hell no...

    I think you are mixing link loss from private networks that got deindexed with natural "link loss".
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    • Profile picture of the author nik0
      Banned
      Originally Posted by online only View Post

      Uhm, not sure what do you mean by "link loss". It's quite common for every website on the planet to lose some links over the time. Does it bring penguin penalty, hell no...

      I think you are mixing link loss from private networks that got deindexed with natural "link loss".
      I admit the link loss is a bit of a doubt factor.
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  • Profile picture of the author Texjd
    If diversify your link building to include links that actually bring in traffic (instead of Google rankings) you won't be so dependent on Google traffic. Not to say that you should ignore Google but there are other ways to get traffic.

    Live by the sword, you can also die by the sword. The traffic I get from other sources is more reliable and often very targeted. May not be at the same volume of visitors but if you can convert more who cares.

    It's never a good idea to rely on one source of traffic, especially one that's known for frequent changes that you have no control over.

    I'll certainly take all the traffic Google will give me but I don't depend on it.
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    • Profile picture of the author nik0
      Banned
      Originally Posted by Texjd View Post

      If diversify your link building to include links that actually bring in traffic (instead of Google rankings) you won't be so dependent on Google traffic. Not to say that you should ignore Google but there are other ways to get traffic.

      Live by the sword, you can also die by the sword. The traffic I get from other sources is more reliable and often very targeted. May not be at the same volume of visitors but if you can convert more who cares.

      It's never a good idea to rely on one source of traffic, especially one that's known for frequent changes that you have no control over.

      I'll certainly take all the traffic Google will give me but I don't depend on it.
      I understand but I get hired to drive organic traffic, and that's what I advertise, alternative traffic sources would require a whole different level of attention that isn't possible at a small budget.
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  • Profile picture of the author thedark
    My site was hit by penguin in april 2012. It was not a manual penalty. However, I did not tried to build more links but I checked everything.

    I was not a content website. The website consists in a tool and a lot of pages explaining how to use the tool, faq, contact, etc. I also wrote some posts, but maybe 2-3 articles per year, original content.

    I noticed that on the first page I had the main keyword too many times ( but it was not to trick the search engine. It was for the readers to understand ). However, I tried to fix it but I did not found anything else.

    I might think that there were some links pointing to me that were causing problems, but excepting some automated article submissions that I did back in 2007, and 100-200 directory submissions back in 2006 I did not any other unnatural link building.

    Probably the loss of rankings are because google gives less value to directories and article links that brought my rankings back in 2007. My question is: getting quality natural links will help to get my rankings back ? Or there is still a "penalty" that is automatic given to my website because there is a problem with the content. Can this penalty being given because there are still issues with some links pointing to my site ? How can I find out ? The links generated from articles and directories back in 2007 are not even shown in google webmaster tools and probably they do not exist anymore.
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    • Profile picture of the author nik0
      Banned
      Originally Posted by thedark View Post

      My site was hit by penguin in april 2012. It was not a manual penalty. However, I did not tried to build more links but I checked everything.

      I was not a content website. The website consists in a tool and a lot of pages explaining how to use the tool, faq, contact, etc. I also wrote some posts, but maybe 2-3 articles per year, original content.

      I noticed that on the first page I had the main keyword too many times ( but it was not to trick the search engine. It was for the readers to understand ). However, I tried to fix it but I did not found anything else.

      I might think that there were some links pointing to me that were causing problems, but excepting some automated article submissions that I did back in 2007, and 100-200 directory submissions back in 2006 I did not any other unnatural link building.

      Probably the loss of rankings are because google gives less value to directories and article links that brought my rankings back in 2007. My question is: getting quality natural links will help to get my rankings back ? Or there is still a "penalty" that is automatic given to my website because there is a problem with the content. Can this penalty being given because there are still issues with some links pointing to my site ? How can I find out ? The links generated from articles and directories back in 2007 are not even shown in google webmaster tools and probably they do not exist anymore.
      You sure you only build spammy links in 2006/2007. Your signature link seems to say something different

      The easiest way to figure out if you have a penalty is to check your rankings.

      If there's a problem with your content you could also have a Panda penalty, so you would have to fix that first.
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      • Profile picture of the author thedark
        Originally Posted by nik0 View Post

        You sure you only build spammy links in 2006/2007. Your signature link seems to say something different

        The easiest way to figure out if you have a penalty is to check your rankings.

        If there's a problem with your content you could also have a Panda penalty, so you would have to fix that first.
        The link in my signature is to a plugin that I built. It is not the site I am talking about here. The plugin says "automated" not because it is building automated links, but because it is displaying automated affiliate links ( nofollowed ) so the webmaster who install it to earn more money. Alternative to display ads.

        I am trying to figure out what happened. In 2009 the site was promoted by a friend of mine but I am sure that he didn't do anything stupid. He brought a link from a related authority directory. Since 2010, I never tried to build links to the website, everything came naturally. Before 2010, most links came naturally from people who linked to the tool, but since the middle of 2010 I made the main features of the tools premium and people stopped sharing it. But the rankings never dropped until the exact date of 24th April 2012 ( when the penguin came ). I was receiving at 500-700 visitors from google, and next day, only 20-30 for long term keywords to inner pages.

        I am sure that the penguin affected my site. I contacted google and they said that there is no manual penalty. I am a hard time to figure out what happened. If it was only the backlinks maybe I should have been on the second or third page, but today I am nowhere. ( page 10-11 for the 4 keywords that I received traffic from ). I thought that the fact that google pays less value to the old links can be a factor. I do not interlink my websites to prevent penalties.

        The only suspect thing that I've done, is that I sold about 3 backlinks on the homepage. This was the situation at the date of the penalty. But I already removed those links after the penalty. The links were related to my topic.

        If I use tools like ahrefs or ose the domain link rank is still high, as it was before. The most of the backlinks are from:

        * Forum threads where people are asking about the tool
        * Blog posts where people link to the tool
        * Answer sites ( stackexchange, quora, with legit answers )
        * Other websites naturally linking: agregators, tool lists, etc
        * Script directories: hotscripts, scripts.com
        * More websites that I never heard of that are displaying a simple javascript code on their website that place a flag with the visitor country and a link to my website. The link is generated trough javascript and since the penguin update I also made it nofollow. Most of the websites that link are non-english, but I am pretty sure that google ignores javascript links, or at least do not penalize websites because they are not intended to trick the algorithm.

        Maybe if you have a look on my website you can understand more: ipgp.net
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        • Profile picture of the author nik0
          Banned
          Yeah site doesn't look that terrible, just a bit boring but maybe that's to be expected from a tool site.

          Few things that shoot in mind (nothing to do with back links now):

          - Your site seems to miss structure, lots of blog posts at first glance but no categories or an easy way to find things. When I click posts I see you do have categories but they aren't accessable from menu or sidebar.

          - Strange pages being indexed like this one:

          http://www.ipgp.net/api/xml/66.249.72.150/crPzu4oQHn

          You can prevent that by adding this to your robots.txt:

          Code:
          User-agent: *
Disallow: /api/
          - Site could use more images and perhaps video's to make it more attractive to visitors, social sharing buttons etc etc.

          - I would get rid of tags, but that's just my personal preference, you can do that same way as above with Disallow: /tags/ and remove them in WP

          As about back links, get rid of those exact anchors at the forums you've been posting on like:

          - hostip.info
          - associateprograms.com

          And probably more, should be easy to fix by just adjusting your signature there.

          For the rest you will have to clean up your link profile, visit each link or domain and see how natural it is, email webmasters, ask them to remove links, document it and submit your disavow file.

          Lot of clean up work to do, you should ask yourself is it all worth it.
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  • Profile picture of the author thedark
    Thank you.

    I never considered the API part to affect the rankings despite it was very obvious. I will do the changes and will update you.
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