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
-
Penguin Hops
Has anyone else noticed that sites that seem to have gone through a positive penguin recovery after 3.0 had results jumping around? It seems to be happening with the biggest keywords that were damaged by Penguin 2.1 but we are seeing jumps from Page 2 in the morning to Page 12 in the afternoon. It seems very unstable at the moment and I was wondering if anyone else is seeing something similar?
Algorithm Updates | | MarkGadala-Maria0 -
Google Penguin update
When Google Penguin update will run again. The last time was in October 2013 and I'm still really curious now. Or have they stopped this and this is now continuously just like the panda?
Algorithm Updates | | NECAnGeL0 -
Penguin 2.0 - Any signs yet?
I'm waiting, probing and analyzing and haven't seen any signs of a Penguin change. I am seeing some of my head terms bounce around the last couple of days. Mostly bouncing up and then back down again. I'm not sure if these are signs of an algo change starting, and working through Google's servers. Has anyone seen anything yet?
Algorithm Updates | | tdawson090 -
Rankings Gone? Have I been effected by the Panda/Penguin Update(s)?
Our site www.alphameasure.com has been online since 2005 and currently has a page rank of 4. The site has always ranked on page one or two of Google for our primary keywords (Employee Satisfaction Survey, Employee Engagement Survey, Employee Surveys). I'm not sure exactly when it happened, but now our site is nowhere to be found. I'm thinking our ranking dropped somewhere in mid to late January? We did use an SEO company in the spring of 2012 that went on a link building campaign for us. They added about 450 inbound links over a three month period. Other than that - nothing has really change on the site. We're getting ready to release a new version of our software that was being re-written during all of 2012, so the timing of losing our rankings is just awful. Any help or ideas is greatly appreciated? Thanks in advance,
Algorithm Updates | | EngagedMetrics
Josh0 -
Panda / Penguin Behavior ? Recovery?
Our site took a major fall on March 23rd, ie Panda 3.4 and then another smaller one on April 24th, ie Penguin. I have posted a few times in here trying get help on what items to focus on. Been doing this for 13 years, white hat, never chased algos but of course learned as I went. As soon as the fall hit one expert said it was links, which I kinda doubted because we never went after them but we have some but only a handful in comparison to really good authorative links. I concentrated on cleaning up duplicate content due to tags in a blog that only had 7 posts (an add on section to the site) then focuses efforts on just going through and making content better. Had other overlapping content that I would guess would pass inspection but I cleaned it up. After 6 weeks no movement back up, another expert here said yes, he saw some bad links so I should check it out. So back to focusing on links, I actually run a report and discover questionable links, and successfully get about 25 removed. Low numbers but we have only about 50 that were questionable. No contact info on the other directories so I guess we are stuck. Here is where I just go in circles... When our site fell on March 23rd we had 13 of our main pages still ranking at number 1 and 2 on each keyword phrase. Penguin hit and they fell about 10 spots. EXCEPT, one... This one keyword phrase and page stayed on top and ranked at #1 throught he storm. (finally fell to #4 but still remains up there). The whole site is down 90%, we only have 3 fair keyword phrases really ranking out of 250. The mystery is that the keyword phrase that was ranking was the one that supposedly had way over the % of anchor text, 7% of our links go to that page. The other pages that fell on Penguin had no pages linking back. I have been adding blog posts to our site, I post one an in a few days it gets indexed, have one of those ranking at #2 for the keyword, moved up from #4 a week after posting it in the blog. (google searches shows 80K) Just seems like the site should bounce back if new content is able to rank, why not the old? Did other people hit by Panda and Penguin see a sitewide fall or are they still ranking for some terms? I would love to see some discusson on success stories of bouncing back after Panda and Penguin. I see the WP success story but that was pretty sudden after it was brought to Google's attention. Looking for that small business that fixed something and saw improvement. Give me hope here please.
Algorithm Updates | | Force70 -
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 -
How to Link a Network of Sites w/o Penguin Penalties (header links)
I work for a network of sites that offer up country exclusive content. The content for the US will be different than Canada, Australia, Uk, etc.… but with the same subjects. Now to make navigation easy we have included in the header of every page a drop down that has links to the other countries, like what most of you do with facebook/twitter buttons. Now every page on every site has the same link, with the same anchor text. Example: Penguins in Canada Penguins in Australia Penguins in the USA Because every page of every site has the same links (it's in the header) the "links containing this anchor text" ratio is through the roof in Open Site Explorer. Do you think this would be a reason for penguin penalization? If you think this would hurt you, what would you suggest? no follow links? Remove the links entirely and create a single page of links? other suggestions?
Algorithm Updates | | BeTheBoss0 -
Any insight on what factors Penguin is looking at?
Anyone have insight into what specific factors penguin is targeting and how it works? Matt Cutts seemed to infer that the site was targeting things such as spun content, keyword stuffing, etc. but most of the sites that have been hit that I've seen aren't doing any obvious content spamming like that. For example: Is penguin looking primarily at onsite or backlink factors? Does Penguin just discount spammy backlinks, or does it apply an additional penalty to sites that have poor quality backlinks? Anyone noticing specific onsite or offsite factors that correlate with whether a site has been hit or not?
Algorithm Updates | | AdamThompson3