panda vs penguin and a little bit of venice, sept 11, 2013

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Panda vs. Penguinand a little bit of Venice

Paula Keller, Director of Account Management, Search Influence

Confidential, Property of Search Influence, LLC © 2013@SearchInfluence Algorithm Updates

About Me: Paula Keller

• Marketing grad of LSU• Director of Account

Management • More than 5+ years

experience in traditional/online marketing

• Google AdWords + Bing Ads certified

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Google Algorithm Updates

• 500 - 600 per year

• Track them here: http://moz.com/google-algorithm-change

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Some are bigger than others…

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Image Source: www.blogager.com

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Google Penguin vs. PandaFirst Appearance: USA, April 24, 2012

Penalty Reasons:1. Low Quality Links2. Over Optimized Anchor Texts3. Keyword stuffing

How to Overcome?4. Natural Anchor Texts5. Contextual Thematic Links6. Pruning The “Rogue” Links

Who Benefited?Websites with variety of back links

Number of Updates: 2

% of Websites Affected? 3.1% Websites

First Appearance: Worldwide, Feb 23, 2011

Penalty Reasons:1. Thin Content2. Content Farms3. High Bounce Rates

How to Overcome?4. Replacing duplicate content 5. Use of unique content for submission based backlinks3. No content spinning

Who Benefited?Well written & informativecontent that appeals visitors

Number of Updates: 13

% of Websites Affected? 12% Websites

Source: http://visual.ly/google-penguin-vs-panda-update

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Let’s Talk Panda

Image Source: http://www.hubspot.com/content-usage-guidelines

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Panda

• Occurs approx. monthly, as recent as July 18

• Most likely causes for effects on advertisers’ sites:– Duplicate Content– Bad / low quality / thin content

• How does Google know quality content?– Bounce rate is a key factor

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So, How Does a Business Fix This?

• Replace ALL duplicate content

• Only add totally unique content

• Re-write non-informative content– “Give away a little bit of the store”

– What questions do customers ask when they call / come in?

• Increase engagement and drive visitors further into the site

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Photo Gallery

Contact Form

Strong Photos

Videos

Question Form

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=Image Source: http://www.clker.com/clipart-penguin-31.html

Image Source: http://www.bedlamrealty.com/links/

On to Penguin…

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Penguin

• Happens Less Frequently

• There have been 2 big releases:– Penguin in April 2012– Penguin 2.0 in May 2013

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Penguin

• aggressive exact match anchor text

• overuse of exact match domains– plumberneworleans.com

• blog spam• keyword stuffing in

internal and outbound links

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=

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But, not all votes are created equal

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What Makes a Link Bad?

• Structure– Overly optimized “anchor text”– If all the links pointing at you are on the exact

same keyword, Google sees that as a sign that a website may be trying to “manipulate” the search results

http://www.bluefountainmedia.com/glossary/anchor-text/

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What Makes a Link Bad?

• Source– Completely unrelated or loosely related website• Not good: Mommy blog in Michigan linking to a steel

maker in New Jersey• Appropriate link: Mommy blog in Michigan writing

about and linking to vacation rentals in Alabama

– Website linking to many different industries without real context or purpose • (established directories are still good)

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Common Sources of Bad Links

• Poor blog commenting:– Comments providing no real input– Comments on unrelated blog posts– Commenter’s name is clearly a keyword

• Syndicated/re-spun article sites• Low, low quality directories• Unrelated “link network” type sites

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What DOES Google want?

• “Do real stuff that companies do online”– Share interesting info on social media• Google+

– Provide valuable information on your website– Create good “content” and share• Videos on YouTube

– “Brand signals”

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Ideal breakdown of anchor text is a mix of…

• Branded• Keyword• “Naked” links– http://www.website.com

• “Other” text like “click here” “learn more”

Image Source: http://www.netmediablog.com/how-anchor-text-can-improve-blog-seo

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Site rankings can be affected 1 of 2 ways…

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Algorithmically…

Image Source: http://www.digirank.co.uk/blog/10-seo-tools-to-help-websites-recover-from-google-algorithm-updates/

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Manually...

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Diagnosing

• Action plan to “fix” varies based on the type of penalty…

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Google Webmaster Tools: Manual Actions Notice

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Manual Action Traffic Drop off

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Algorithmic• If traffic dip in Google Analytics coincides with

a Google update, but no “manual action” in WMT, then the site’s rankings were adjusted by the algorithm, not manually

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Google Webmaster Tools

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Treating• Manual action – Perform aggressive link cleanup, document and submit

Reconsideration Request• Algorithmic Update– Perform aggressive link cleanup, document, and “disavow” bad

links

• Can take multiple tries• Most cases are different• Results can take weeks to months• No easy cure for toxic links

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VENICEFebruary 2012

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Image Source: http://moz.com/blog/understand-and-rock-the-google-venice-update

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rock-the-google-venice-update

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Image Source: http://moz.com/blog/understand-and-rock-the-google-venice-update

Confidential, Property of Search Influence, LLC © 2013@SearchInfluence Algorithm UpdatesImage Source: http://moz.com/blog/understand-and-

rock-the-google-venice-update

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Image Source: http://moz.com/blog/understand-and-rock-the-google-venice-update

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Why This Matters

• We select keywords that include the client’s city

• But… SEO may also help them rank for broad search terms that don’t include their area.

• Keep this in mind as a selling point for new and existing clients

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How to Measure• No great way to automatically track where each

client is ranking for keywords without geo-modifiers

• We aim to achieve an overall lift in organic search engine traffic to their site

• Looking at search terms actually driving visits to the site in Google Analytics is the best way to see how the client is performing for non geo-modified phrases in their area.

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Thank you!

• pkeller@searchinfluence.com• searchinfluence.com/blog• @SearchInfluence• @paulalmkeller