Google’s Penguin Update: What it is, What it isn’t, and What to Do
Saw this and wanted to post it. This is a pretty topic thread, interesting to see from a the hatter's pov.
Google’s Definition of “Link Scheme” Just Got Realer
There is nothing – whatsoever – organic about backlink tiering/pyramiding in the way we’ve all been doing it to manipulate SERPs. We’ve all grown very accustomed to this technique working, and when we get accustomed, we get comfortable; when we get comfortable, we tend to not bother with keeping ahead of the game. And I’m guilty, too, so please don’t take this as some high-and-mighty patronization: My organization has been tiering/pyramiding links since it was proven to work and have done it all the way up to basically yesterday. And now we’re not, not in the way we and everyone else has been, anyway.
That all of us have ridden the SERPs gravy train this long with link tiering/pyramiding is what we should all be shocked about, not that we’ve finally been busted. Backlink tiering/pyramiding in the way it has been done is a Link Scheme by definition, and is now – I believe – the largest blip on Google’s spam-dar.
The Common Denominators/Link Types Used of Sites that were Penalized
And yes, there do appear to be some across-the-board commonalities, in spite of needing to focus on one’s niche as a whole for specific, detailed answers:
Saw this and wanted to post it. This is a pretty topic thread, interesting to see from a the hatter's pov.
Google’s Definition of “Link Scheme” Just Got Realer
There is nothing – whatsoever – organic about backlink tiering/pyramiding in the way we’ve all been doing it to manipulate SERPs. We’ve all grown very accustomed to this technique working, and when we get accustomed, we get comfortable; when we get comfortable, we tend to not bother with keeping ahead of the game. And I’m guilty, too, so please don’t take this as some high-and-mighty patronization: My organization has been tiering/pyramiding links since it was proven to work and have done it all the way up to basically yesterday. And now we’re not, not in the way we and everyone else has been, anyway.
That all of us have ridden the SERPs gravy train this long with link tiering/pyramiding is what we should all be shocked about, not that we’ve finally been busted. Backlink tiering/pyramiding in the way it has been done is a Link Scheme by definition, and is now – I believe – the largest blip on Google’s spam-dar.
The Common Denominators/Link Types Used of Sites that were Penalized
And yes, there do appear to be some across-the-board commonalities, in spite of needing to focus on one’s niche as a whole for specific, detailed answers:
- Exact anchor text: There doesn’t seem to be a common percentage threshold, however, so look to your specific niche.
- Extensive link tiering/pyramiding.
- Spun 2.0s (usually en masse and as a majority of one’s profile).
- Extensive article marketing with essentially the same article (resulting mainly in link devaluation outside of the instances in which Google deems a directory as part of a spam network).
- Blog Networks (these are being caught more and more because they are not niche-specific, topically consistent sites = flag).
- A greater number of irrelevant links in one’s profile than relevant, quality links. (The threshold for this is appears to be frighteningly low, too. I saw one instance just yesterday of a penalized site whose profile contains no more than 20% of its links from irrelevant sites via high PR blog comments).
- Combinations/permutations of the above
- Yes, there’s probably more; no, not all of these will apply to you.
