Really, is there much difference between an unnatural links warning and Penguin?
-
We know that the unnatural links warnings are manual and that Penguin is algorithmic. (I'm not talking about the latest round of confusing unnatural links warnings, but the ones sent out months ago that eventually resulted in a loss of rankings for those who didn't clean their link profiles up.)
Is there much difference in the recovery process for either? From what I can see, both are about unnatural/spammy linking to your site. The only difference I can see is that once you feel you've cleaned up after getting an unnatural links warning you can file a reconsideration request. But, if you've cleaned up after a Penguin hit you need to wait for the next Penguin refresh in order to see if you've recovered.
Are there other differences that I am not getting?
-
Thank you.
-
Yes, I would say so.
-
Thanks Ruth, so would you agree that the cleanup is the same? Whether you had a manual warning, or you got hit with Penguin, the way you would recover is the same (other than filing for reconsideration request with the former)?
-
The main difference between the two is that a reconsideration request is more likely to work with a link warning than with a regular Penguin hit. Penguin is algorithmic, whereas the link warnings were usually triggered by/resulted in manual penalties. Either way, it's a good idea to try to get as many spammy links removed/updated as possible, as well as build some new, non-spam links to increase the percentage of your links that are not spammy.
I wouldn't suggest building more spammy links to drown out the Penguin-targeted links - why not spend that time and effort building some natural links? They will last longer and if you do have to do a reconsideration request you're not running the risk that Google will also see your brand-new spam links.
-
haha been hit with a penalty because of spamming links? spam more links to your site that will fix everything! crazy
-
Is there much difference in the recovery process for either [Penguin or manual link penalty]?
Theoretically no, practically yes.
A manual penalty will be reviewed by the Google Spam Team. If you are not successful at removing the links, you will need to provide extensive documentation on the steps taken to remove the penalty. When Google manually reviews links, they will not remove the penalty simply because you adjusted anchor text. If the link is spammy, it needs to be removed regardless of the anchor text.
A penguin penalty can be algorithmically removed. Many SEO companies are simply manipulating the anchor text rather then removing the spammy links and they are getting away with it to at least some degree...for now. Another tactic is to "drown out" the links penalized by Penguin with other spammy links which do not use anchor text. These solutions are quite bad as these sites are subject to future penalties as Google improves their algorithms.
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
-
HTTPs to HTTP Links
Hi Mozers, I have a question about the news that Google Chrome will start blocking mixed content starting in December 2019. That starting in December 2019, users that are presented insecure content will be presented a toggle allowing those Chrome users to unblock the insure resources that Chrome is blocking. And in January 2020, Google will remove that toggle option an will just start blocking mixed content or insecure web pages. Not sure what this means. What are the implications of this for a HTTPS page that has an HTTP link? Thanks, Yael
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | yaelslater0 -
Footer no follow links
Just interested to know when putting links at the foot of the site some people use no-follow tags. I'm thinking about internal pages and social networks. Is this still necessary or is it an old-fashioned idea?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoman100 -
Breadcrumbs or contextual links ?
Hi, I have breadcrumbs on my site but wondering if in addition to those I should also add contextual links linking to the same pages ? Or is it necessary to duplicate ? The reason i would be doing this is because contextual links/ editorial is what google likes and I am not sure breadcrumbs counts as much. Thanks,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics0 -
Affiliate Links Dilemma
Hello everyone. Our e-commerce website virtualsheetmusic.com has several hundreds affiliate incoming links, and many of them are "follow" links. I thought to redirect all incoming affiliate links to a "intermediate" page excluded by the robots.txt file in order to avoid any possible "commercial links" penalty from Google, but I now face a dilemma... most of our best referral links are affiliate links, by excluding those links from our back link profile could give us a big hit in terms of rankings. How would you solve this dilemma? What would you suggest doing in this sort of cases?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | fablau0 -
How to tell the date a link was created
Does anybody know of a website that can let you know when an external link was created to a site? Or any other way of finding this info out. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RobSchofield0 -
What To Do With Too Many Links?
We have four pages that have over 100 links (danger, danger from what I gather), but they're not spammy footer links. They are FAQ videos for our four main areas of practice. Does that make a difference? If not, should I just take half the questions on each page and make four additional pages? That strikes me as a worse UX, but I don't want to get penalized either. Thanks, Ruben
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | KempRugeLawGroup0 -
Are Facebook links really helpful?
If they are no follow, how can I benefit? If Google isn't using this data, than why would we bother to LIKE anyone or anybody?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SEObleu.com0 -
We are a web hosting company and some of our best links are from our own customers, on the same IP, but different Class C blocks..
We are a web hosting company and some of our best links are from our own customers, on the same IP same IP, but different Class C blocks. How do search engines treat the uniqie scenario of web hosting companies and linking?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | FirePowered0