Google Penalty Recovery
When Google rolled out the latest Panda and Penguin update, my personal blog Alseoblog.com was affected. Keywords wiped out from big G search results and traffic decreased. I don’t want to downplay the latest Google Algorithm, it can bring real disaster to the website.
At first, It was not easy and I have to be positive in all ways of possibilities that everything will run smoothly again. It came to the point that I have to consider factors that led my site to get penalized. The infographics showed below are steps that I used to get out from the cage of Google Penalty.
Update As of May 22, 2013: Penguin 4 Version 2.0
After Matt Cutts Webmaster Help Video last May 13, 2013 wherein one of the answers that he enumerated is the coming of much deeper Penguin Update in the next few weeks, now it is official Penguin 4 updated the Google Algorithm wherein about 2.3 % of English Queries were impacted.
Why Penguin 4 is Different and Much Bigger Update?
• It comes with Penguin 2.0 Technology wherein it is the next Generation of Penguin Update as what he has reply to Jamie Dodd tweet wherein you can find it here . And on Matt Cutts also officially announced the update through his blog. Simply much bigger than the previous update.
How will you recover from Penguin 4 Penalty?
• It is time to recheck your backlinks and must ensure that you have not violated the Google Guidelines. It is time to understand the link profile that you have. Mostly of the sites that is going to be affected by Penguin 2.0 are the following:
- Paid Links
- Links from Spammy sites or Sites having questionable value
- Over-optimization of Anchor Text or too much focus on building links on money keywords
- Links from irrelevant Sites or not related to your sites
- Using Spammy tactics like keyword Stuffing
• Sort out Low Quality links. Tools like Open site Explorer, Ahrefs can help you in identification of low quality links.
• Need to Remove low quality links. If you know the log-in info of the site you can remove the links but if you cannot remove it manually you need to e-mail webmaster for link removal request. (Remember Google previously suggested that it is a good practice to Disavow removed links .
• Use of Disavow Tool for links that was not removed even after the link removal request. After you have uploaded the file that is going to be disavow you will receive a message from GWT team that you have successfully updated your disavow file but remember the effectiveness of disavowing links will be realize only after the next Penguin Update. For example if you are going to disavow this Penguin 4 you have to wait for Penguin 5 in order to see its effectiveness. And remember that with Penguin update there is NO NEED FOR RECONSIDERATION REQUEST, so it is truly better before using the disavow tool you have done your best shot to remove unnatural or spammy links.
• While the site is penalized by Penguin Update, it is time for brand building. You have to focus more on diversification of your links that means you have to use your non-keywords in link building like using your domain name as keywords.
• Create Quality Content. Since some of your keywords are not ranking well at Google you have to make sure that your website content can attract leads in a way that there is no need for link building. It is also a way of building authority in your niche. As a reward you will see that your content will rank organically.
• Need to do some outreaching strategy in order to build relationship. It is the reverse of buying links, wherein it is one of the hardest earn but can give the most valuable link.
One of the reasons why Google needs to come up Panda and Penguin updates, provide better users experience in Google search results. Indeed, it is happening now! One thing draw my attention and lesson learned is to be with Google quality guidelines, worry free all the time. It is a mind-blowing to meet the standard of Google because white hat strategy is always the fashion in SEO.
Nothing ran off of time if you use the experience wisely, because failures can teach you a lesson. The best SEO Folks that could help and give you advice in Google Penalty removal is the person who experienced failures to his own website, mine is alseoblog.com. You can call me anytime 24/7 at +63 9176346889 or drop me an email at al@dlinkers.com or maricel@dlinkers.com. WE WILL HELP YOU, ALL THROUGH OUT!
September 11, 2013 Update
Source: GoogleWebmasterHelp Video
How to cope with Google Panda?
In February 24, 2011, it was announced that Panda algorithm shall be integrated in the normal indexing process of Google. The Google spiders shall crawl not just your links but also the contents. It happens randomly from time to time. Because of this Panda hits will not dramatically impact the websites ranking but will give a hit that can be felt but not much. In essence, you can still rank in SERP but probably lower than what it used to be and what you have expected. This scenario is just in time with the question from Nandita B. India.
As Google integrated Panda in their normal indexing process, it requires quality content from every page across the world wide web. Here is the full answer from Matt Cutts.
In the video with Matt Cutts, it has to be something users will love to read. It should be written like a publication/ magazine or a book. It should be something worth sharing. You should hold on to the spirit of basic principles such as creating blog content, landing pages, and other pages for your users not for search rankings. You shouldn’t try to trick anyone by using hidden keywords, cloaking, deceptive page titles, etc. It will simply tick the alarm of Panda. You should also invest time and resources to research on your niche, and create contents that provide value to users.
So, what does quality content contain?
• Credibility– are the information you include trustworthy?
• Relevance– off topic articles simply annoy users.
• No ads– users tend to skip pages with lots of advertisement.
More of the quality guidelines are found here.
For us, the secret to having quality contents is your users. You must first conduct researches about their likes and preferences. As you know Google is simply using an algorithm but your users are the one to finally judge the quality of your content. You may trick Google in one instance but never the end-users. Soon enough your website will be taken out of Google SERP.
