New Penguin
-
I just read that a new Penguin might be coming up.
My question is :
Can you rank if you have good content but bad links ?
In other words does the content quality take over the link quality or will google penalize you for the quality of your links even though your content is great and deserves to rank ?
Thank you,
-
Thank you for both of your answers. So from my understanding no need to worry if you have a few bad links, google will ignore those and better work on attracting good links than trying to remove those bad links, correct ?
-
In my experience, links take precedence over content. Mediocre content on a high domain authority site is going to outrank excellent content on a site with no links or poor links.
This is a completely separate issue than Penguin, which is an algorithm that mainly penalizes sites that are actively trying to manipulate rankings with poor links.
-
Hi,
First off it is my understanding that Penguin is operating in real time now - so it is part of the algorithm and as such it will be dealing with spammy links on an ongoing basis. Furthermore, the latest release of Penguin will devalue spammy links and not punish whole sites. So having a bunch of low value spam links is like having no links at all. This is worth reading: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-algorithm-history/penguin-update/
Regarding content over links, good content is always required to rank by search engines and your website users. But in a competitive market good content will also need some quality links to be able to do well.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Starting a new site's link campaign... how to approach it?
Over the last few years I have been building content in my niche that I believe rivals some of the best content out there and deserves some attention. Although I have a plan to produce alot more content which I believe will take the quality and quantity of my content into a position among the top 5 or top 10 sites in my niche in the next 1-2 years, I decided that making that massive investment in content production irrespective of a consistent marketing plan is a recipe for failure because I need the positive feedback loop from site visitors to begin now, not in 2 years. Right now I'm in a position where I'm producing content that I think is better than alot of what's out there, and it's just not ranking the way I believe it should. I think I need to do a legitimate link building campaign to establish the website a little more firmly and put it on more level ground with some of its competitors. In Majestic SEO's "fresh index", most of my site's immediate competition have no more than 500 new domains in their links, though the biggest one has some 2,000. How can any link building effort I might take on possibly compare to links of this scale? Is there some "rule of thumb" for how many quality links I should aim for to get on square ground with some of the competitors on the lowest rungs? And if I try to build that many links at once, do I risk sending signals of untrustworthiness? (Assume I'm not going to be looking for any shoddy links, and in general will aim to follow Google guidelines.)
Link Building | | guitarsites0 -
Best five links to get first for a new website
I wondered if people had a list of the top five or ten links you should build for a new website in order to add some sense of authority. For example should a new website start with key social media websites such as Twitter, Google+ and Linkedin ? Or top level directories such as BOTW and DMOZ? Should they local for niche website directories in their location or vertical? If you had to choose five links - free or paid which would they be?
Link Building | | highwayfive1 -
Tool based websites after Panda and Penguin
I have several sites that I classify as "tool" based sites. These type of sites includes anagram solvers for word games, ip address lookups and other various based tools. I like to specialize in these kind of sites because frankly I am not a blogger and hate to write. Before Panda I was doing fairly well, I had many users coming to my sites everyday. The Panda update "tips" that I read all over including on google sites seems to always refer to articles and how to deal with those. The only problem is that I am not an article based site. Yes I have content that describes my tools, but we are talking 1 to at most 2 paragraphs per page. I know Panda effected my ratings because I lost ranking with some big keywords. Since then I have been able to gain some ground, but I am having a hard time trying to figure out what exactly google wants from a site like me. The main path I am getting from Panda is concentrating on the users, and what will make their experience better. I focus on that whenever I make a change. I figure the easier I make it for them, the happier they are going to be. I am wondering what you guys think about some things I can look into creating or focusing on to enhance my site. I use social media heavily (FB, tweets, posterous, blog, RSS Feed) already, but is there something else I can look at that might help me that I am not seeing. I seem to be running out of ideas. Maybe add more content to my pages? Check link structure (its pretty basic as it is) add more article based blog posts? Just want some ideas, I will send my URL to anyone who wants to take a look and see what I may be missing. C
Link Building | | cbielich0 -
How to save links from an old website when building a new website even if the site map changes?
I have a client that needs a new website with better navigation, etc. The site has been up for a number of years and has backlinks that I would like to keep when building the new site in WordPress.
Link Building | | Doug_Hay0 -
What are some good easy links to get for new sites?
We are in the process of launching a couple of new sites and while we know it will be a long process to get them to rank, achieving some long-tail keywords would be beneficial. What sites would you recommend for getting some easy links to start with that can help the indexation and ranking process along in the preliminary stages? Or another way to put the question - when you launch a new site, what steps do you go through?
Link Building | | ukss19840 -
New to all this, any suggestion will be appreciated
I operate an Airport Parking Agency or Secure Car Parking. Any ideas on keywords would be greeeeeeeat 😉
Link Building | | ginag0 -
How long for SEOMoz to reflect new inbound links?
I have carried out some minor link building for my new site (site A) and have some links back from several directories and 1 from ezine and one from squidoo as well as a few partner sites and such. I also have another site (site B) which was linking to site A several times from a footer link, this has now been amended to just one link. The problem is that SEOmoz still only shows 3 linking domains to site A (there are at least 12 if you perform a manual search) and it is still showing many links from site B even though there is now only one. All these changes where made at least 3 weeks ago, how long before Seomoz picks them up.
Link Building | | IPIM0 -
How do you find out what (and when) new websites are linking to your site?
I may be missing the obvious here, but is there any way (a programme or site) of seeing what new links come into your site? Obviously as anyone who works in SEO, I like to see which links we have got with the work we put in contacting webmasters, etc. But is there a better way than just manually looking through ALL the links? Any help will appreciated.
Link Building | | Weerdboil0