Move or Remove?The Where, Why and How of

Dealing With Penguinsand Penalties

Twitter: @ShahMenz @rmoov

http://www.rmoov.com

Presenter: Sha Menz

Lead Software Architect,

Rmoov

Have you noticed a “fishy” smell around your website lately?

Twitter: @ShahMenz @rmoov

http://www.rmoov.com

Perhaps there’s a Penguin lurking nearby...

“Where do I Start...?”

Understanding your Link Removal Problem

Where to find out who is Linking to your Site

Which Links do you need to Remove?

Analyzing your Backlink Profile

Tools and Tips for Link Analysis and Link Removal

Twitter: @ShahMenz @rmoov

Understanding your Problem

Twitter: @ShahMenz @rmoov

Are you facing Penguin or a Penalty?

Penguin is an Algorithmic “filter”.

It’s aimed at punishing tactics which are intended to manipulate Search Engine results.

Essentially, it is the “over-optimization” filter Matt Cutts once talked about at SMX

Penguin changes will occur when the filter is updated

What should I do?

Clean up the problems

Monitor future updates

Don’t forget On-Site Manipulation issues!

Should I just get a new Domain?

The choice is yours, but make it a “Business” choice

Understanding your Problem

Twitter: @ShahMenz @rmoov

Could it be a Penalty?

A Manual Penalty, or “manual Spam action” is applied by the Webspam Team,

independent of Penguin. It is entirely normal to feel crushed!

What should I do?

Be Honest, first with yourself, and ultimately with Google!

Don’t be overcome by feelings of powerlessness! You must keep your eye on the ball!

Learn how to identify a Link Penalty

Make a good faith effort to Remove offending links

Document every step of the process

Clean up On-Site Manipulation issues

Lodge a Reconsideration request

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/identifying-link-penalties-in-2012

Don’t Ever Forget:

Twitter: @ShahMenz @rmoov

There is way more to manual penalties that just bad Links!

Any breach of Google’s Webmaster Quality Guidelines can result in a

manual penalty...

Did you know the Quality Guidelines were updated very recently?

You will find them here: http

://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35769

Read them often and make sure

you KNOW what they mean

That ain’t no fluffy little Penguin!

Twitter: @ShahMenz @rmoov

Look for these issues on your site:

Paid links that pass PageRank – Read the FINE PRINT!

Cloaking

Scraping

Doorway pages

Link schemes – Read it AGAIN!

Keyword Stuffing on a Mass Scale

Sneaky redirects

Abusing Rich Snippets Markup!!!

Sending Automated Queries to Google

Creating sites that exhibit malicious behavior

...and there are more. READ THEM!!

How do I Find Links to My Site?Use as many sources as possible

Google Webmaster Tools is the most obvious place to start,

but there are many other places to look for link data

Try these:

• Open Site Explorer opensiteexplorer.org

• Majestic SEO www.majesticseo.com

• Ahrefs ahrefs.com/

• Bing Webmaster Tools!

• Google Analytics + Excellent Analytics !Twitter: @ShahMenz @rmoov

Which Links to Remove?

Twitter: @ShahMenz @rmoov

Understand why a link might be troublesome

When it comes to link based penalties and more specifically Dancing With Penguins,

you need to r understand as much as possible about the issues that Google is on the

focusing on.

Be on the lookout for these:

Sitewide footer & Blogroll Links

Over-use of exact match anchor text

Paid Reviews or Advertorials

Being seen in Bad Neighborhoods

Sytematic use of manipulative tools and techniques

Analyzing Your Backlink Profile

Twitter: @ShahMenz @rmoov

Link analysis should be

done by humans, with

eyes on sites.

There are lots of

helpful resources available.

This one from bruceclay.com

is good for beginners.

http://www.bruceclay.com/blog/2012/06/link-removal-flowchart/

Nothing good comes easy...

U will haz ishoooz!

Protected Domains

Country Specific Domains

Javascript Widgets used to hide content

Blogspot Blogs & other Subdomain driven blogging platforms

“Moving links” on heavily paginated sites

Links inserted via iframes from external sites – Guess Who??! Twitter: @ShahMenz @rmoov

Disavow Reports, Summary Reports &

Reconsideration Requests – what does it all mean?

Twitter: @ShahMenz @rmoov

http://www.rmoov.com

Understanding the link removal landscape is key to managing the process and PROCESS is what matters to Google

“make a good faith effort to remove links...”

Matt Cutts, October 2012

The link removal landscape has

changed

Twitter: @ShahMenz @rmoov

http://www.rmoov.com

Let’s talk about some of our favorite things ....

What happened at Pubcon 2012?

Matt Cutts announced the arrival of Google’s

Disavow Links Tool, but...

Use with CAUTION

Make every effort to physically remove links before using

Remember that your submission is treated as a “suggestion”

Understand that the effectiveness of disavowing links is tied to crawl

activity...it won’t happen by midnight!!!!

https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/disavow-links-main

Twitter: @ShahMenz @rmoov

Get the full story from Matt

Twitter: @ShahMenz @rmoov

Watch the video on Youtube http://youtu.be/393nmCYFRtA

Read the official blog post http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/a-new-tool-to-disavow-links.html

How Do I Create A Disavow List?Most link removal tools now do this for you

rmoov auto-generates a Disavow Report for every closed

campaign

Three critical things to remember:

• Disavow entire domains

• Save .txt file with UTF-8 encoding

• Overwriting your Disavow list effectively

“reavows” the links that were there!Twitter: @ShahMenz @rmoov

What about Bing’s Disavow Tool?

Bing was first to introduce a Disavow Links Tool

The Bing tool works differently

We asked Duane Forrester if Bing would provide an

upload facility similar to the Google format in the future

Duane could not confirm anything that constitutes “forward work”,

but he did say it was an interesting idea!!

If you would like Bing to accept the rmoov Disavow

Report as an upload for its tool, tweet @DuaneForrester

Twitter: @ShahMenz @rmoov

What happened in my Campaign?

Twitter: @ShahMenz @rmoov

Summary Reports must provide complete Campaign overview

About the Report:

Upload it to Google Drive

Include clickable links to mail sent,

domain notes and screenshots

Provide a complete

summary by Domain

Now that you have all the data...

Twitter: @ShahMenz @rmoov

http://www.rmoov.com

You have everything requiredto lodge a

Reconsideration Request

and we even gave you a Checklist!

http://www.rmoov.com/google-reconsideration-request-checklist.php

The Reconsideration RequestWhat you should include...

Describe your situation

Be honest about what has happened in the past

Describe the manipulation issues that you are aware of

Describe the steps you have taken to rectify issues

Include the link to the Summary Report Google doc

Include the link to a Google doc version of the Disavow Report if you have

disavowed links with the Google tool

Include the date that you uploaded the Disavow list

Ask politely for the Webspam Team to reconsider the way your site is indexed

Twitter: @ShahMenz @rmoov

Move or Rmoov?The Where, Why and How of

Dealing With Penguinsand Penalties

Twitter: @ShahMenz @rmoov

http://www.rmoov.com

Presenter: Sha Menz

Lead Software Architect,

Rmoov