Penguin concerns
-
I recently joined a retail company who have been using an SEO agency for a few years. Having done a bit of link profile analysis i'm more than a little concerned that we're a sitting duck for the dreaded penguin.
My main question is should i focus more on the number of actual links pointing at a page or the number of linking root domains? For example one of our pages has over 18000 links pointing at it but from only 39 root domains (immediate alarm bells!!). Most of the links are exact anchor text fro one particular term.
So far we haven't been hit but i'm not naive to think we're out of the woods yet.
-
The sites have decent DA and PA but most of the links in question are in blogrolls and sidebars rather than relevant bodies of content. You or I would pick them straight away as paid links so I don't think it would take Google long to come to the same conclusion.
-
Thanks for your response.
I've pretty much done exactly what you suggested already. I've managed expectations from the day I joined the company.
I don't particularly blame the SEO agency because i've done the same sort of link building myself during my time in agencies.
-
I recently joined a retail company... So far we haven't been hit but i'm not naive to think we're out of the woods yet.
hmmm..... If I was a new guy and had this situation... I would think about writing a very clear one-page memo to my bosses explaining... "what is penguin".... Show examples of your spammy links... explain what might happen to your rankings... and say what % of your traffic comes from google... and how that might hit revenue.
I would include a couple links to easy-to-understand articles about penguin by well known SEOs.
You don't want to be blamed for a disaster that occurs this summer that was caused by somebody else.
I would not bad-mouth the last SEO or the methods... lots of people did this stuff and continue to do it... just explain the risk and how to reduce it.
-
It depends. If the sites linking to you are strong in their own ranks you might not be hit. If they're weak, it seems a lot more likely that Penguin might devalue them or issue penalties.
It also depends on the links themselves. Are these sitewide links in, say, a sidebar or footer? I am beginning to think that Penguin might be seeing them as paid links but I can't say that for sure yet.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
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
-
Recommended action for site hit by penguin ?
What is more advisable, though there surely could be debate on this? Back in '07 till sometime around a year ago it seems our site got hit by google's updates, no manual action though, and have seen in past few months disavowed what we could find as well as deleted a lot of links. We are also working on getting word out on the brand as well and trying to get on some business websites to have articles and offer some discounts. Our keyword rankings seem stuck in limbo the past year or so though. Some main keywords for example seem stuck around page 8 when they used to be on page 1. Question is, can what seems to be a penguin update be recovered from? Is Google likely to refresh the algorithm? Also could starting a new site be more worth the investment - starting fresh with natural links, etc And if googles system could pick up that the site is run from same ip, etc. would they care? Also the keyword competition one of Moz's tools said around 46% if that makes a difference for one of the main keywords. Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | xelaetaks0 -
Do panda/penguin algorithm updates hit websites or just webpages ?
If I have a website that been affected by the panda/penguin update, do bad links affect the entire site or just the page the bad link(s) are linked to? If it is the latter and penguin/panda actually affect webpages, not websites (as is the common reference/conception), then wouldn't simply creating a new URL, targeting this new URL, shifting meta-tags and restarting link-building efforts again (this time using the right quality strategies) be a really common-sense approach instead of the tediousness of the disavow approach that so many go down?
Algorithm Updates | | Gavo0 -
After penguin 2.0, 20-25% drop sitewide, no google unatural links message, What could be causing it?
Hi,Since Penguin 2.0 we've taken a 20-25% knock but not recieved an unatural link message from Google. After sending a bunch of removal requests, I decided to submit a disavow file anyway two weeks ago and tried to make sure I rooted out some links that were built way back when our site started and link building best practice was a bit shadier. Analysis of our backlink profile points to about 40-50% links coming from general directories, wondering if perhaps their weight has been adjusted and this is why the drop occured? Having said that we have some high quality links from government sources and highly trusted sites so not too spammy. Can anyone shed some light or offer suggestions? Thanx
Algorithm Updates | | Mulith0 -
Penguine 2.0 Confusion
I am getting seriously confused over our rankings and am hoping someone can give me a bit of clarity. When Penguin 2.0 hit last week we saw a drop of between 2 – 6 places on seven out of a set of around a dozen key phrases I monitor. We had been in the number 1 / 2 position for the majority of them over the last year – 18 months, and this drop has reduced our traffic by around 30 – 35%. I have looked at our back link profile - http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/links?site=www.wombatwebdesign.com%2F, and I don’t think it is that bad. Being a web design company the vast majority, 80% of the links are from the footer of client sites. We have a small, 5% number of links from comments; a similar amount of dead links and the rest are made up of the usual, profile, directory and article links. I was wondering if the way we link from client sites could be an issue, we link twice, once with the anchor text (Web Design Cumbria) and the second link is our company branding (Wombat Web Design, with the title tag – Web Design Cumbria). Could this be causing a problem? If anyone could point me in the right direction I would be most grateful. Thanks Fraser
Algorithm Updates | | fraserhannah1 -
Ranking effected by Penguin 2.0
Hello Everyone, I am amazed to see that all the ranking of keywords got down after Penguin webspam algorithm updated on May 22, 2013. Is there any suggestion how we will recover and get the ranking back. Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | lucidsoftech0 -
Was I hit by panda or penguin?
My site, graciousbridal.com was hit pretty hard by google at the end of April. I actually noticed our traffic decreasing around February, then towards the end of April, it got really bad. Our sales this may were half of what they were in may 2011. We have never done any black or gray hat seo, wouldn't even know how to. I know in the past we did blog commenting, but changed up our keywords so it wasn't all the same, maybe we didn't change it enough?? We have another very similar site that I'm now wondering if we were penalized because they are too similar. We always have changed up the copy, but they have most of the same products. This second site barely gets traffic or sales and has about half of the items graciousbridal does. But, I'm wondering now if it's to similar and that is why we were penalized. I can't figure out what we did wrong to have this big of a drop. I really need help with this as this is supposed to be our busiest season of the year. Any advice or direction is greatly appreciated..
Algorithm Updates | | Craig2100 -
Are creative widgets still a good strategy in the Penguin world?
Im planning on building a small utility widget that my site will distribute to related sites. I plan on implementing this with JS and including a small anchor link back to my site. In the new penguin world, will the possibly be destructive to my SEO efforts? Any do's or don'ts when developing a widget/badge for distribution to lets say a dozen sites?
Algorithm Updates | | DotCar1 -
Trying to figure out why Penguin has completely buggered us up, and what to do about it
Hola All, This is a update of http://www.seomoz.org/q/gah-unfaorly-hit-by-massive-google-penalty Updated because: Google webmaster has gotten back to us that there have been no manual actions taken against us Results haven't improved one jot We're completely flummoxed as to why this is happenin Quick summary: We run the larest WordPress news site on the web, WPMU.org We're completely legit, a team of 4-5 great writers, amazing original content, massive fanbase on twitter and facebook, a 60k email list etc, established for years and years. We're absolutely not and haven't done anything gray or black, the worst we've done is including links in the footers of some themes we've distributed Since the 24th April our google referrals are down from an 8.5k daily peak to 1.5 - see the attached. Articles which have consistently attracted several hundred referrals per day have disappeared from the rankings to be replaced by republications or just links to the, for example, here's one on the dangers of searching for free WP themes, decimated: http://wpmu.org/why-you-should-never-search-for-free-wordpress-themes-in-google-or-anywhere-else/ Check out how legit we are! http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/links?site=wpmu.org And the problem: How to get our google traffic back? We're completely stuck 😕 We can't find issues within the site content, or even particularly within the backlinks (we've removed all links from Edublogs) We haven't been manually whacked, so we can't get that changed. Absolutely nothing within the penguin update should have hit us... in fact by their reckoning we should have had a massive improvement over all the trash that competes with us in the WordPress space. Help / Ideas / Feedback / Criticism / Anything desperately sought. Thanks for your time, James Screen-Shot-2012-05-03-at-10.49.40-AM.png
Algorithm Updates | | WPMUDEV0