It is really tough to get a website back in the top position of SERP after being hit by Penguin penalty. Now, if your website has got hit by this penalty and you are still struggling to get it recovered, the practical guidance that we are going to cover here may help you immensely. Just take a look:
Remove or not to remove Links: This is the big question. Some go mad and start deleting links caring a fig about doing a research to figure out which links are causing harm and which links are helping their website. Seek help from experts such as the ones from link-building-agency.co.uk to know which links are hurting your website. Believe it or not, Google’s algorithm is still very much dependent on Links and that being said, you cannot hope to get back to the SERP unless and until you have some quality and natural links pointing to your website. Below are the few steps that you should follow to figure out which back link is hurting your website:
Open Site Explorer: I love this website not just because it is the poster boy of SEOmoz, but because I find this really handy to have all the details about the backlinks in a jiffy. Just download all the links and then sort them out alphabetically. What do you see? Do you see most of the links pointing to your website are from directories, spammy bookmarking sites or sites that do not care much about the quality and all the other shits that I am talking about here?
Just get them removed. These links look bad and you will be better off without them.
Google Webmaster Tool: Since open site explorers possibly cannot have all the back links data pointing to your website, you should sign in to your webmaster account and then find the – “Link To Your Website” option. Get them downloaded and try to figure out the rough backlinks. Start sending mails to webmasters. Try to clean up your backlinks profiles as much as possible.
Exact anchor Text Links: Sites that have been building links with exact anchor texts were the hardest hit by this algorithm update. So, if you had been doing the same thing for the past few years, I would suggest you changing the exact anchor texts with as many variations as possible. Yeah, it is easier said than done, but it worth the effort since it will go a long way to make your website reappear in SERP. However, do not waste your time making changes in the anchor texts for those links that look spammy or look like an attempt to game the SERP by acquiring links unnaturally. Try this tip for some great link baiting job like – Guest posting, infographic creation and submissions, publishing interviews etc.
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Use No Follow: If all the links pointing to your website is do follow, it looks really strange. This is simply does not look natural. So to make the backlink profile look great, you need to have a healthy balance of do follow and no follow links. Now, it is up to you what ratio you are going to try. I would suggest 60:40 would be great.
Are You Sure You are not being Penalized manually: I have seen people sending reconsideration request frantically to Google in the hope that Google will revert the penalty. If manual action is being taken, you just to get your website of the bad links and send a reconsideration request and hopefully, your website will be back in SERP within few days. But in case, if Google webmaster says that they have not taken any manual action against your website, things are a bit complicated in this stage. Since it is algorithmic, you might have to wait for months or weeks even after removing the bad links until Google refreshes its algo.
Earn Great Links: Back link building is passé. Now, it is time to earn links and believe me if you are willing to spend a few bucks more, you can easily earn links naturally. For say, if you are into the social media field, you build a nifty little tool like – Google + ID card generator. It does not require you to have high level of programming skills. It looks cool and I would not mind giving a link back from my website for this cool job. What you say?
Build Great Website: This is the toughest part. Unless you have a great website, you will never be able to make your website algo proof. Have you ever wondered why the big boys like SEOmoz, SEERInteractive or their likes never get slapped by Google? It is not because Rand looks super awesome or they have fat wallet, but because they have built a great website that Google will always love to have on its SERP, no matter what.
So, when your website gets slapped by Penguin, it means, your website have backlinks that should not be pointed to your website because your website does not deserves to have such high number of back links. The same does not go true with big brands, because it takes them years to create such brand image. So, focus on creating a brand image of your website and believe me you would not have to bother about any more algo shuffle.
Author Bio
Michael Evans is a passionate writer and he is currently associated with site2you.com, where he has written different articles on as to how to make a website.
