Links were naturally earned & humanly curated

Then this came along…

Also known as…

Quickly followed by this....

And eventually this!

Which caused a few headaches…

Started a few long-overdue clean-ups!

And launched lots of different theories...

The Google Gap is closing

Image source: http://www.searchcowboys.com/

Essentially Penguin is the ‘cousin’ of Panda…

Panda identifies thin/weak content and penalises you for publishing it

Penguin penalises you for thin/weak content which links to you

Phase 1: Demote sites with more content ranking than their reputation has earned

http://uk.blueglass.com/blog/content-auditing/

Pages that have no activity/links/comments/shares are there to manipulate Google’s algorithm

Phase 2: Anchor Text Over-Optimisation Penalities

www.micrositemasters.com/blog/penguin-analysis-seo-isnt-dead-but-you-need-to-act-smarter-and-5-easy-ways-to-do-so/

Google in 2013 has more data/signals than ever(and they’re using them...)

Google Chrome is #1 Browser in the World

http://mashable.com/2012/05/21/chrome-is-tops/

Google Analytics Has Dominant Market Share

http://w3techs.com/technologies/overview/traffic_analysis/all

Google Reader + FeedBurner = blog data

Google+ is verification network for authors

This means Google essentially knows where, why, who & when content is searched for

WHO links to you could be more important than WHERE it’s from

http://www.recommendedusers.com/authors-writers/

But don’t give up on links just yet!

1) Re-think your metrics of site quality1. Traffic2. RSS Subscribers3. Bounce Rate4. Average no of links per post5. Average no of social shares/comments6. What Would Matt Cutts Do?

2) Analyse if/when you’ve been hit

http://www.panguintool.com/

3) Download all of your links

4) Analyse your anchor text distribution %

5) Analyse link volume vs. referring traffic

6) Analyse topical relevancy of links

7) Compare it against your competitors!

8) Find out what a #1 site profile looks like in your industry & replicate it

Source: www.linkdetective.com

9) Consider removing/disavowing links which don’t match your target profile

10) Create a scalable content strategy to focus on quality production & outreach

Content types include:– Infographics– Infograms– In-Depth Articles/Blog Posts– Videos– Kinetic Typography– Interactive Infographics– HTML5 content – Quizzes– Microsites/Communities– Events

11) Focus on audience & topical relevancy to build a natural & defensible profile