Talk About Recovery From The Penguin

[edgarf76]

I was reading a blog post from an SEO and they were talking about recovering from the Penguin. It has been about a year since G introduced the Penguin and most sites haven't recovered, especially E Commerce.

The article is title can you really recover from the Penguin? And for the most part the talk was that the people who have recovered have been focused on the users experience not SEO. The original article is here http://www.seroundtable.com/you-may-...ate-16726.html

[dfiocch]

You can't recover from Penguin just because it was an EPIC FAIL and G won't admit it... clear, simple.

[edgarf76]

You can't recover from Penguin just because it was an EPIC FAIL and G won't admit it... clear, simple.

Thank you for the reply. That is a bold statement which may be true. Do you have a source to backup your statement?

[casinorecommender]

Recovering from Penguin can only be possible by changing your attitudes towrds your site(s). If you stop stuffing your site with banners and add unique/fresh/useful content that can be shareable then yu will not nly recover from Penguin but also reach to your desired targets.

[edgarf76]

@casino recomender, i focus on making my content unique and helpful. I put calls to actions in there to best monetize the people who come to my site. I ask myself, is it best to make my posts sometimes without calls to action so the reader feels comfortable. Or should I put the calls to actions in to make sure that I monetize the people who read. That is my quandary.

[Frank Benjamin]

I escaped Penguin but it had nothing to do with unique content or banner ads. I always wrote my own articles or have paid writers to do it and I refuse to litter my site with banners because they really don't get clicked too often.

Penguin has more to do with artificial link building: heavy use of anchor text, blog networks, etc.

When I knew just enough about SEO to make me dangerous, I was using services that did help increase my rankings and traffic, but, after Penguin, I learned that that wasn't the best way to do it.

What I did, which I also detailed in a thread somewhere in this forum, was first move my site to a subdomain. I then re-organized my on-page SEO but working harder on interlinking related articles. I also made custom category and tag pages.

As for link building, I am very selective in my off-page SEO and only have articles linking to my site from quality related sites. I also have my own small network of sites/blogs as well as Web 2.0 sites that I regularly update as well. This network doesn't only link to my own site, that wouldn't be natural. I periodically allow others to post articles with an outbound link.

My site is stronger than it was before Penguin now. The key is quality over quantity.

[IBT_Sports]

I'll share a bit of my experience and knowledge on this topic, as some may benefit from this (agree or not), but can only speak from my experience. I've spent 15 years in digital strategy on agency and client side in various industries for some leading brans, and for some of the most competitive markets online (gambling, FX, dating) in both B2C and B2B, and worked directly with contacts at Google, AOL, and others.

The Penguin update has caused a re-active wake up call for many good and bad marketers to relook at not just their strategy, but more importantly their execution. In the affiliate arena however, I've found many have falling into the trap of a lot of bad advice from whether self-proclaimed experts or the amateur consensus. They can't blamed for it all - as there is a lot snake oil advice to weed through.

Understanding strategy in Search evolves over time, and seeking means to manipulate or short cut the changes, is where those get hurt.

A better view not just on Penguin, but the holistic 30,000 foot view on how your employing strategy for your online business, is to understand today (2013) a guide to follow in Search is to adopt a general formula of timely, relevant, interesting (shareability helps) and unique content (50%) + traditional authority SEO (authority seo tactics and attributes) (30%) + social indicators (which contribute to reputation and timeliness (20%). And unfortunately, while not admitted, evidence has shown some industries or vertical are more heavily weighted in Google eyes than others.

Yes, timely content is important, but so too is the frequency of this content. Starting off with this approach for a few months, then taking a few months off, then getting back into the effort, does impact results. Little do many know is when you get back on the wagon to rejuvenate this strategy your view by Google can de-value or lower the weight how Google will index and rank your pages. So don't over commit to your efforts - take time, good pace and over time quality will prevail.

But back to link authority and its impact on your ranking, yes too many links (and type of links), whether contextual or banners or others, will impact your results. These and the types of links are indicators to the engines to classify the type of site you're operating (ex. backdoors, affiliate sites, seo-properties, link-wheels, etc.). And aside from how Google views your site to, the traffic you do end up driving to your site Frank hit it on the nail w/ banner blindness (think contextual). Driving traffic is one hill top to over come, but then give twice as much thought to conversion optimization. If you must use banners ads, know that some sizes drive up to 3X more clicks than others (and obviously positioning too). I've seen contextual links (w/ a good density), can dramatically enhance conversion optimization...among a number of other factors.

The Penguin update was employed to identify a few things, and yes one of the more popularized points in Google algorithm evolution was to perform a bit of housekeeping on indexed content that provides little value, aim to manipulate Googles strategy, or (as some believe) don't align w/ Google revenue model (ex. strategy including all mixes of an inbound strategy + PPC + endorse revenue channels (ex. Adwords) all contribute to Googles bottom line (revenue from eyeballs and advertisers).

Most IM (internet marketers) however fall into the trap of 'get rich' strategies, or popularized tactics in forums, or grab on to the high-level strategy concept, but fail on execution. They may see initial results and may wow themselves, but lack of abiding to best practice (as a general guideline) on the execution, and give it time, google will catch up to it. So yes, Frank is correct, artificial links (link wheels, paid links, auto-links, networks, etc.) either stay away from them if you don't know what your doing, or take the time to learn the pro/cons and test, optimize and learn.

Those re-evaluating their Search strategy, albeit I should say 'online strategy' as this impacts the Search performance from other online channels, a good place to start is with your I.A. (information architecture). You can dig around seomoz and other authority sites that give decent overviews of a good IA. How you approach your I.A., content structure, link structure and how you pass authority (both inbound and outbound) will contribute to your overall quality score.
And don't just evaluate the tactics you employ to your strategy, but also consider what your affiliates, partners and advertisers do when they get in bed with your strategy. For example, if you were to run an online or email ad buy and deal with a 3rd party opportunity that offers extra inventory at little cost to hit a wider audience, then even if they get hit with spamming (spam via email or engines) you too can get impacted. The 3rd party may get penalized, but so too can you 'indirectly' as your domain is associated to their spamming efforts. I've see this with ISPs in the email world, and Engines w/ affiliates running programs to drive traffic to their partner programs and the partners get slapped.

If you got impacted from the Penguin update, my advice is start with a step back to reflect on your holistic strategy and 'how' your executing.

I'll admit Penguin had its issues, but it also did some good. Unfortunately a few casualties of war were impacted...but would be expected with anything that evolves.

[edgarf76]

When you say starting off with this approach for a few months, then taking a few months off, then getting back into the effort, does impact results. Do you mean just sites that got hit by penguin or all sites? For instance if I am working on a site and producing content daily for 3-6 months, do you think that taking a month or so off. Then start to produce new content and social network sharing?

[indika]

You can recover from Penguin only if you concentrate on getting quality content on your website and blogs. Everything must be white hat. Focus on getting more traffic on E-commerce sites.

[justbookies]

As Matt Cutts has said "Penguin 2" is coming in a matter of "weeks" or less. There was a suggestion some sites would recover as a result of the new algo as he indicated they had been a bit harsh on some 'borderline' sites. Knowing so much change is on the horizon kind of means we know the rules are changing but just have to wait to see how that plays out. I have certainly noticed above normal recent activity within the serps affecting keywords that are on my radar. Suggests to me it is the first rumblings before the major roll out.