Behold the SEO soap opera unfolding: Google's Penguin update, which has killed the SERPs in certain situations, has given birth to petitions, Matt Cutts resignation request, bad feelings and, maybe, a SEO world ready to divide itself.
As Danny Sullivan once said, these kind of things have happened a number of times already and you won't see Google reversing its actions. Good or bad, not even a class action lawsuit won't make Google change its mind. Google is more than search. Deal with this.
Bad Penguin, bad. Imma poke you with the SEO stick
This latest Google update was meant to hit sites involved in outright spam, duplicate content, cloaking, keyword stuffing, or link schemes. Many sites that weren't involved in blackhat SEO were caught in the middle. Some of them lost rankings because they had most of the backlinks containing their main keyword in the anchor text or were linking out a lot (like show notes from podcasts) without adding too much text around those link listings.
Most of the reactions denote anger at Google. Some of these webmasters didn't pay attention to SEO history and got caught with their pants down. Read my previous post about lessons to learn from Google's Penguin update.
Naturally, people are asking now how can they recover from all of this. The best way is to have a preemptive approach and do only the things that are certain to keep you on your feet no matter what. But, if Penguin has hit you in all rage, then you need to:
- check Google Webmasters tools if you have any messages from Google - that is the first hint;
- see the exact date and time when you were hit - this will help differentiate the cause: latest Panda Update (low quality content) was on 27 April 2012 and Penguin Update (spam and unhealthy backlink profile) was on 24th;
- go to Google's Forum for help - submitting a reconsideration request seems to have slim chances of help since Penguin drops you in rankings based on algorithm changes and not on manual actions;
- don't just start killing all your backlinks - make sure that you block only those that might get you in trouble
- make an assessment of your backlink profile - run an excessive link acquisition check, see what sitewide links (header, footer, blogroll links) you can discover, check the anchor text used in your backlinks and check the unnatural link authority spread.
- make sure you understand one thing: killing your bad links won't get you back where you were before Penguin. Google has rolled out Penguin as an algo update and it is not a penalty, which means that this update has devalued spammy backlinks (or dropped you in rankings for your spammy site). You'll need to build new good backlinks and focus only on removing the bad backlinks you can get to.
- lastly, there is a LOT of uncertainty around: most probably your site was hit by several updates or you didn't simply cared enough about having the basics covered. With so many things happening the situation could be very different form case to case. The only way to see more clearly is to do a thorough check.
Okay, I admit. Things are getting paranoid out there. If you didn't freak out yet, start now, After you calm down you'll understand why SEO is an art, science and, as Penguin proved us, sometimes voodoo. Some elements might remain unknown, but one thing is certain: big brands get away with far more bad things than we ever could. What does that mean? Focus from your first steps to become a brand. Think big, go big, work hard.
And to ease a bit the bad feelings we should start poking the Penguin with a SEO stick (ie work more on our SEO to be able to stand against it) and start with a positive attitude. I like to call on the help of the Fluffy Guy when it comes to the zoo world our Penguin comes from: Poke it:
Is Rand Fishkin dividing the SEO world?
I love the free tools Rand Fishkin offers via the Open Site Explorer backlink checker or the other (paid) ones. Now he is working on a spam research project to out the bad and spammy sites you don't want a backlink from.
On 8th May 2012 Rand wrote on his Google+ stream that :
[...]Some of our team members, though, do have concerns about whether SEOs will be angry that we're "exposing" spam. My feeling is that it's better to have the knowledge out there (and that anything we can catch, Google/Bing can surely better catch and discount) then to keep it hidden. I'm also hopeful this can help a lot of marketers who are trying to decide whether to acquire certain links or who have to dig themselves out of a penalty (or reverse what might have caused it).[...]
And, yes, SEOs started already to oppose this move. Among them John Andrews and Seo Book's Aaron Wall. Although it may be a good move people fear that due to the automatic algorithms it will use some sites will be marked as spam and would need to (even pay to) request to be whitelisted.
I have a mixed feelings about this:
- yes - I would like to know which spammy sites to avoid
- yes - blackhat SEOs would be forced to adopt cleaner tactics
- no - spammers would find clever ways better hide their actions
- no - I already know that dozens of backlinks for $5 aren't a good thing at all
- no - if my site lands in the blacklist what can I do? It's enough to deal with Google, now with Mozbot also?
For now it is an interesting thing to look at. The important thing is that someone wants to publicly out the spammy sites and this is bound to gather more reactions than expected. A can of worms is ready to be served.