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"Pitfalls to Avoid in a Post Penguin & Panda World"
Presenter:Mike Huber, Vice President of
Client Services at Vertical Measures@mjhuber
http://www.linkedin.com/in/mikehuber
Twitter: @mjhuber #VMWebinar
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Webmasters Tools –Unnatural Links
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Drop in Traffic
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Don’t Panic
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vCreate Strategy Document
Analyze The Situation Prioritize Tactical Steps
Make The Changes In Priority Order
Document
Go to Tactical Step 2
Rinse and Repeat
Journey To Traffic Recovery
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v
Analyze The Situation
Journey To Recovery
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Is it Cause or Correlation?
• Cause - ‘A’ causes ‘B’• Correlation – a concept that measures the
relationship between two things. A positive correlation means that when one thing goes up, the other goes too. Or, when one thing goes down the other goes up.
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The Updates
Panda PenguinLow Quality Sites – The ‘blogpocylpse’ Over Optimization Update
Site-wide penalties - poor or thin content Abnormal linking
Content Farms Over optimized anchor text
High Bounce Rates Keyword Stuffing
Recent and important: EMD – Low quality ‘exact match domains’.
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What Should I Be Looking For• On-Site
– Isolate the drop in traffic• Single Page, Directories, Site-wide
– Thin Content– Over Optimized Content– Over Optimized Internal Linking
• Off-Site– Back Link Quantity– Back Link Quality– Over Optimization of Anchor Text
• Competition– Compare and Contrast
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Evidence of Penguin
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Penguin – Over Optimization
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Analysis Tools
• Google Analytics• Google Webmaster Tools• Open Site Explorer• SEMRush• Link Detective
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Review the Competition
• Are your main competitors up or down?• Compare and contrast
– On-Page– Off-Page
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Cause For Traffic DropsOn-Site Off-Site
Limited original content Low quality back links
Low visit times on page/site Limited number of back links
High % of duplicate content (affiliate site) Site-wide back links
High bounce rates on a page/site Back links from spammy sites
Boilerplate or concatenated content Over optimized anchor text
Unnatural use of words/phrases (stuffing) Evidence of paid links
Over optimized internal linking Back links with sites ESL
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vCreate Strategy Document
Journey To Recovery
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Strategy Document
• Definition and Clarification of the Problem• The page/pages with biggest traffic drop• Compare/contrast to pages that remain strong• Test updating pages, emulating strong pages• Create working grid to manage changes
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v
Prioritize Tactical Steps
Journey To Recovery
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Example of Process GridPage URL Type Words Quality Duplication Traffic +/-
Blue Widgets mysite.com/bluewidgets.html Web Page 150 Low High -50%
Red Widgets mysite.com/redwidgets.html Blog Post 600 High None -10%
Green Widgets mysite.com/greenwidgets.html Web Page 150 Low High -80%
Yellow Widgets mysite.com/yellowidgets.html Web Page 450 High None +5%
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Add Your Action Items To The Grid
• Include current column headings• Date updated• New Word Count (did you add photos, video?)• Notes• Traffic update
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v Make The Changes In Priority Order
Journey To Recovery
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Measured - Logical - Sequential
• Determine the ‘high gain’ activities– Where can you leverage the fewest resources to
get the most gain
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Penguin – Over Optimization
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A Closer Look Reveals…
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Link Pruning DocumentationStatus URL Anchor Text Contact Name Contact Email Contacted FU Date FU Date Results Removal DateActive http://www.linkpruning1.com blue widget Adam West [email protected] 10/10/2012 Removed 10/9/2012Removed http://www.linkpruning2.com red widget John Smith [email protected] 10/10/2012 No replyContactedhttp://www.linkpruning3.com blue widget Bill Waters [email protected] 10/11/2012 In ProgressContactedhttp://www.linkpruning4.com blue widget JJ Johnston [email protected] 10/12/2012Contactedhttp://www.linkpruning5.com red widget Simon Sayers [email protected] 10/11/2012Report http://www.linkpruning6.com blue widget Oscar Nots [email protected] 10/11/2012
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Link Building Dos and Don’tsDos Don’ts
Focus on quality not quantity Use the same anchor text
Create great content – it will get links Link to low quality sites
Vary content with text, images and video Focus on low quality directory sites
Write guest blog posts on relevant sites Use side bar and footer links
Reclaim links to pages that have moved Write low quality content for linking
Become an authority Buy a cheap ‘package’
Follow the leader (competition) Expect getting quality links to be easy
Target do-follow links Build links to resource pages or exchange
Strive for relevancy Pay for site-wide links
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vCreate Strategy And Prioritize Document
Create Strategy And Prioritize Document
Create Strategy And Prioritize Document
Create Strategy And Prioritize Document
Document
Create Strategy And Prioritize Document
Create Strategy And Prioritize Document
Journey To Recovery
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Executing the Plan
• You’ve Created A Strategy Document• Tactical plan• Identified the high gain activities• Implemented the changes• Now – Document!
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v
Go to Tactical Step 2
Journey To Recovery
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v
Journey To Recovery
Rinse and Repeat
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Questions?
Contact: 888-476-1881 www.VerticalMeasures.com
More Traffic. More Leads. More Business.
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FREE WEBINAR SERIES:Join us November 8th at 11am PST/2pm EST
Stop Playing the Google Yo-Yo Game & Win with Real SEO
• Presenter: Alan Bleiweiss– Alan has been working in SEO for more
than a decade– He will discuss the core concepts that go
into truly sustainable SEO based on real world data gathered from sites comprising over 250 million pages indexed at Google.
Check out our website at www.verticalmeasures.com/webinars
for registration information.
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Resources
• A History of Panda Updates– http://www.seomoz.org/google-algorithm-change
• Infographic showing Panda Updates– http://searchengineland.com/google-panda-update-112805
• Content Marketing Wiki– http://www.contentmarketingwiki.org/
• How To Get Back on Track After the Penguin Update– http://www.verticalmeasures.com/search-optimization/how-to-get-back-on-track-after-the-penguin-update/
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Stay Up-To-Date With Alerts
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Webmaster Content Guidelines• Would you trust the information presented in this article?• Is this article written by an expert or enthusiast who knows the topic well, or is it more shallow in nature?• Does the site have duplicate, overlapping, or redundant articles on the same or similar topics with slightly different keyword
variations?• Would you be comfortable giving your credit card information to this site?• Does this article have spelling, stylistic, or factual errors?• Are the topics driven by genuine interests of readers of the site, or does the site generate content by attempting to guess
what might rank well in search engines?• Does the article provide original content or information, original reporting, original research, or original analysis?• Does the page provide substantial value when compared to other pages in search results?• How much quality control is done on content?• Does the article describe both sides of a story? Is the site a recognized authority on its topic?• Is the content mass-produced by or outsourced to a large number of creators, or spread across a large network of sites, so
that individual pages or sites don’t get as much attention or care?• Was the article edited well, or does it appear sloppy or hastily produced? For a health related query, would you trust
information from this site?• Would you recognize this site as an authoritative source when mentioned by name? Does this article provide a complete or
comprehensive description of the topic?• Does this article contain insightful analysis or interesting information that is beyond obvious?• Is this the sort of page you’d want to bookmark, share with a friend, or recommend?• Does this article have an excessive amount of ads that distract from or interfere with the main content?• Would you expect to see this article in a printed magazine, encyclopedia or book?• Are the articles short, unsubstantial, or otherwise lacking in helpful specifics?• Are the pages produced with great care and attention to detail vs. less attention to detail?• Would users complain when they see pages from this site?
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On Site Checklist
• Does your site have…– Thin Content - 200 words or less– Duplicate or Concatenated Content– Over use of keywords (keyword density)– Content of little/no value– Link grids on every page– Misspelled words or searched words used for SEO
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Off Site Checklist
• Low quality of back links• Low number of back links• High ratio of anchor text• Low relevance of sites pointing to you• Links from networks or spammy sites• Links in footers, headers, side bars• Link in comparison to competition