GPWA Times Magazine - Issue 26 - October 2013

All the low-quality, spammy links that are weighing your domain down and causing the penalty now need to be removed, with more time, effort and energy involved in this process than was likely used to build them in the first place. Generally speaking an individual can properly review 150 links per day in the checking stage and then it takes on aver- age an hour to remove a link. This should give you an idea on the amount of time you will need to spend. Now that you know this you can make a decision as to whether you should just move on and start again. In terms of a manual action you should be expecting to remove 60 to 80 percent of bad backlinks (the removable kind, as in the ones you paid for individually; auto- mated spam is a bit different). It’s a five-step process that has no real shortcuts: • Data collection: Gather data on all your backlinks using a third-party anal- ysis tool (Google Webmaster Tools only presents a selection of links). • Data sorting: Check over the data for discrepancies and merge if it has come from multiple sources. • Data analysis: Manually analyze ev- ery linking domain to decide whether the link should be kept, removed or repurposed. • Webmaster outreach: Compile con- tact details for all domains with links you would like to be removed rather than repurposed and get in touch. Start with Rmoov (a link removal manage- ment tool – a single site is free – that does all the hard work for you by send- ing the e-mail and checking to make sure that the links are gone). This will do about 50 percent of the job for you, then it’s time to get on with it manually. • Link disavow: This is a last-ditch ef- fort to disentangle your site from poor- quality but immovable links, and not recommended as a first option. If a manual spam action has been taken against you then the final step in the pro- cess is the submission of a reconsideration request, as previouslymentioned. Youmay well have to do this several times to secure the response you want, and in all likeli- hood you will have to remove over 90 per- cent of your site’s poor-quality backlinks to secure a successful reconsideration. Don’t get too smug First, even if you manage to recover don’t expect your rankings to come back just because Google says it isn’t a problem. Cleanup should only be done if there’s something worth cleaning up for. Cleanup is only worth doing on: • High-value domains • Sites with good links that you can’t repoint • Sites that have a strong brand If your site has not been impacted by a penalty to date, then don’t think you’ve es- caped. Google will continue to tighten its grip on Webspam, and the developments seen over the last two years are likely to be the thin end of the wedge. The key is not to hide away any problem. If your site has had SEO work carried out on it in the past then chances are it will be hiding a few nasty problems. The only way to be sure is by taking a closer look at your site’s backlink profile. Again I’d recommend aggregating data from a number of different tools, and paying par- ticular attention to the anchor text mix. If it is misaligned this is a key spam signal. No more penalty = no more problems? Sadly this is really not the case. After clean- ing up your backlink profile and overturn- ing your penalty it is time to start again. Even a castle built on sand has something to support it; you have now removed all the sand and will have to rebuild the founda- tions (i.e., backlinks) of your site if you’re to regain strong ranking positions. So what kind of link-building strategy should you embark on? Google makes it pretty clear what isn’t acceptable in its quality guidelines: • Automatically generated content • Link schemes • Cloaking • Sneaky redirects • Hidden text or links • Doorway pages • Scraped content • Participating in affiliate programs with- out adding sufficient value • Loading pages with irrelevant keywords • Creating pages with malicious behavior, such as phishing or installing viruses, trojans or other malware • Abusing rich snippets markup • Sending automated queries to Google The reality is that all SEO activity should be as natural as possible. Obviously ma- nipulative strategies will be found out, so you have to be far more careful than ever before. That’s not saying you should never pay for links (after all, we have to be real- istic) – just buy smart. Going forward: Google hates affiliates! This is unfortunately the case now. Google is going to continue to slam affiliates, par- ticularly in the English markets. In lower- competition markets you may have some more time. Many affiliates don’t offer any real added value to the user. And value here doesn’t mean having longer and more detailed reviews; it means caring for a communi- ty, adding demos, etc. Failing to cater to these basic user requirements will drag you down in the long term. So if you’re left wondering why certain sites with nastier link profiles have been unpunished it is because in many cases they have an active community or strong user metrics propping them up. That doesn’t mean everyone should slap a forum and slots demos onto their sites and expect them to rank. It means looking for ways to get users to engage with your sites, which is much different and can be a lot more difficult. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mike Litson has been in SEO for several years and special- izes in competitive markets, predominantly gambling and fi- nancial trading. Having worked with many major players in the online sector he has a solid understanding of what goes into making a successful campaign both on and off site a success. Mike currently heads up the Blueclaw iGaming and affiliate department. 32 Saving a sinking ship: How to identify and survive a Google penalty