Avoid Google Penguin : Best Linking Strategies 2013 Exclusively for PosiRank Clients

Size: px

Start display at page:

Download "Avoid Google Penguin : Best Linking Strategies 2013 Exclusively for PosiRank Clients"

Gabriella Black
5 years ago
Views:

1 Avoid Google Penguin : Best Linking Strategies 2013 Exclusively for PosiRank Clients Legal: You are not allowed to publish or share this information on your own websites this is private information, exclusively for PosiRank customers only. Please respect this - thank you. There has been of course been a LOT of noise over linking and Google Penguin in the last 2 years. Yes, it is absolutely essential to have the correct approach and mind-set when it comes to SEO promotions and building links, but it s very important to say the following. Ignoring your on-page optimization is suicide right now. If you re not indexing high quality pages, avoiding internal and external content and much more your site, right now, will be under some sort of Google Panda whether it s minor or severe. We can basically 99% guarantee you this. After consulting and working with hundreds of sites, whenever we do a Panda audit, we see improvements in the rankings of a site sometimes small, but many times it s significant. To get the MOST of your links, you need a quality foundation meaning, your on-site has to be squeaky clean. Otherwise, your site will continue to function under Google Panda to some degree and even though you may be getting traffic, it will be greatly limited. Remember too Panda is a domain-site penalty which means ALL of your pages are affected and downgraded by those that are causing the penalty in the first place. You don t want this happening to you. Before we start linking, we fix as many on-page issues as possible then we start linking. This should be your approach and we highly recommend that you download and use our Avoid Google Panda Best On Site Practices PDF which you ll find in the Help > Tutorials section underneath PDF Downloads. Let s get started How To Build Links Correctly, Safely & Effectively This is the mind-set: Variation, variation and more variation. To put linking into one sentence - you need to build a huge variety of consistent, quality links using an extensive number of different anchor texts. Quality links doesn t mean that every link should be from CNN.com it simply means avoiding as best you can getting links from low quality, spammy sites that have no authority in Google or are populated with complete crap. Should you acquire some of these links, do not panic. People completely freak out when most of the time they don t need to. Every large site out there that is crushing the SERP s have some spammy backlinks it s actually natural for a site that s doing well because people link to sites from all ranges of quality.

2 The key is keeping that percentage down to a minimum. Sites that have 90% spammy links are of course heading directly into trouble. Best Anchor Text Usage & Ratio s Anchor text selection is absolutely crucial when it comes to linking. We are constantly seeing sites which vary their anchor texts the most are crushing it in the SERP s. Using the brand / URL as the dominant anchor text (especially for the home page) is critical. You might be thinking how do I rank for my keyword targets if I m not using keyword-rich anchor texts? Well, as you build more and more natural links you re building authority to your site and when that authority is combined with a sprinkling of quality links from say guest posts that use keyword-rich anchor text, your site starts to crush it for those terms. Plus, Google starts ranking your site based on the content on your site. More authority, more rankings. Build authority through using a ton of different anchor texts and leading with the Brand / URL. Gone are the days of needing to build hundreds of keyword-rich links only a few powerful links are required to rank for these terms. By building links with a huge variation of anchor texts, you ll see your site increases for both its main terms and so many other related terms as well. Is This a Smart Strategy? Choosing a specific keyword-rich term as anchor text for a press release that gets sent out to 3000 sites, is NOT smart. E.g. fast weight loss. Using the brand / URL as anchor text instead IS smart as it s more conservative and more likely in a real-life situation. (You ll build authority this way and will end up ranking for more and more terms. Google will also take your backlink profile a lot more seriously). Fundamentally, for anything that is mass submission (article submissions, press release submissions, anything promoted by a publishing company etc) use conservative anchor text (brand / URL). For single links, from quality sites (i.e. guest posts, blog posts, web2.0 properties etc) using more specific anchor text is a safe tactic, but know that using the brand / URL will always be the safest method of linking to your site. Do not use the same anchor text over and over again no matter how tempting it might be. The key is in using as many different anchor texts as you can, as this simulates a natural backlink profile and will also get your site ranked for more keyphrases than you can imagine. Using phrase match terms will also help you boost your rankings for your main term. For example, if your main term was oak tables I d use the following anchor texts: Oak tables quality oak tables oak end tables oak dining tables discount oak tables buy oak tables oak table reviews etc

3 This is the strategy that we heavily advise you adopt. It gives incredible results. Anchor Text Ratios (Note These are purely Guidelines each market is different but we ve found these useful to stick by) These are approximate ratios and should be treated as such: 30-40% Brand / URL (very important to lead your anchor texts with the brand / URL - and use all variations) For example: Domain.com, domain.com, Domain, etc 30-40% Phrase Match These are related phrases to your core keyphrases such as the oak table example above. They should not always include your main keyphrase, include as many as you can and make them related % - Targeted Keyword-Rich Anchor Texts i.e. the main keywords you want to rank for oak tables, buy oak tables 10% - Generic Anchor Text e.g. click here, visit this site, John, for more information, learn more, read more here, this helpful site etc To Summarize: 1. Vary the types of links that you build as much as you can 2. Vary the anchor texts that you use as much as you can (follow our ratio guidelines above) 3. Avoid using the same anchor texts over and over again it ll hurt your site. 4. Use the Brand / URL as the dominant anchor text. If you re EVER in doubt what anchor text to use use the Brand / URL as this is the safest method.

4 What to Do If You ve Been Hit by Google Penguin and Your Rankings Have Fallen) First of all, you want to actually try to isolate whether this is a Penguin issue or a different penalty like Google Panda. Check your Analytics and look for the day that the drop off occurred can it be tied to a specific algorithm update? You can check here. Admittedly, these updates are now much less clear as to what they are specifically. Do your best here. Yes! I ve Received a Message in Google Webmaster Tools (GWT) Note: In some cases (it s not that rare either), nothing will actually happen to your rankings when you receive a message only act on the below if you ve seen a drop in rankings) Here are the steps: In order to actually get your site back into Google s index and free of a Penguin penalty, you ll need to do a LOT more than just disavow links and resubmit. If you do this, 99/100 you won t get the penalty removed. The key is to show good faith and make a big effort to actually physically remove some of your bad links. We ve seen in many cases that even if you only physically remove 20% or so of your bad links (and disavow the rest), that the Google team will remove your penalty. It s when you take the fast and easy route and disavow your links that they don t typically respond well. Here we go: 1. Physically remove as many of the bad links as possible. a. Document which links you have removed so that you can include this in your message to Google when you resubmit your site 2. Disavow the links you could not remove manually a. In conjunction with the above, in your reconsideration request, you ll want to make a note to Google that you have manually removed those links that you could and disavowed the remaining bad links. This process goes a LONG way to getting your penalty removed and is SO much more effective than just disavowing and resubmitting. However, this can takes weeks/months for Google to get back to you and also apply the disavow and for the algorithm to kick-in. In the meantime, start building new links and make sure you ve completed a full Panda Audit on your site. (Download and use our Avoid Google Panda Best On Site Practices PDF which you ll find in the Help > Tutorials section underneath PDF Downloads.)

5 3. Start Balancing out Your Link Profile & Building More Links a. Build new links from a wide range of sources and using as many anchor texts as possible. The more variation the better. For example, purchase our killer Guest Posting Product (127 credits per quality link) you ll get onto real sites run by real webmaster through manual blog outreach. Important! When you disavow and/or remove links, you are literally taking away link juice. So, even if your site is removed from a penalty it does not mean that your rankings will pop back to where they were. In 99% of cases, your rankings will be lower than they were before simply because link juice has been removed. Therefore, it should be a priority of yours to start building links again - vary the anchor text as much as possible and the type of backlink itself. Variation wins the game. No! I ve NOT Received a Message in GWT If you have not received a message but your site has taken a hit, you re 99% under an algorithmic penalty. It s time to get rid of those links that are causing the issues. Once those links are removed or disavowed, you ll need to start building new links to replace the lost link juice. Otherwise, even if the penalty is removed you ll be left with less link juice (and therefore worse rankings) than before the penalty. Time to start link building again. Here are the steps for those who have not received a message in GWT: 1. Physically remove any obvious bad links that you can a. For those links you cannot remove, disavow those links using the disavow tool in your Webmaster Tools account. This can takes weeks/months for Google to apply the disavow and for the algorithm to kick-in. In the meantime, start building new links and make sure you ve completed a full Panda Audit on your site (Download and use our Avoid Google Panda Best On Site Practices PDF which you ll find in the Help > Tutorials section underneath PDF Downloads.) 2. Start Balancing your link Profile a. Build new links from a wide range of sources and using as many anchor texts as possible. The more variation the better. For example, purchase our killer Guest Posting Product (127 credits per quality link) you ll get onto real sites run by real webmaster through manual blog outreach. This is guide to designed to be a short and sharp help guide to tackling Penguin issues and pointing you in the right direction, but it clearly cannot help with all situations every site is different. If you need more help getting out of a penalty, then you can hire Alex Miller, one of the co-founders and the SEO Operations Director for 500 credits per hour inside PosiRank. Just go to Order Services > Expert SEO Consultation

The NEW Rules of SEO

The NEW Rules of SEO About DealerOn DrivingSales Top Rated Website Provider, 2011-2017 Only provider to have won the last 7 Years In A Row! 2X Digital Dealer Website Excellence Award Winner DrivingSales