Release Date: April 24th
Change name: Penguin
Type: Algorithm update
So, Google made a change to their algorithm with the rationale of punishing the websites which are either spamming or over-optimizing. This update does elevate a couple of questions. Does your website have unnatural back links? Will negative SEO come into effect? What can we do to counter the Google Penguin Update? Read on!
Quote from Google Webmasters blog:
“The change will decrease rankings for sites that we believe are violating Google’s existing quality guidelines. We’ve always targeted webspam in our rankings, and this algorithm represents another improvement in our efforts to reduce webspam and promote high quality content. While we can’t divulge specific signals because we don’t want to give people a way to game our search results and worsen the experience for users, our advice for webmasters is to focus on creating high quality sites that create a good user experience and employ white hat SEO methods instead of engaging in aggressive webspam tactics.”
What To Avoid:
Paid Link Building /Exact Match Anchor Keywords
Never acquire paid link building packages or exact match anchor keywords. They are easily spotted by Google. Exact match anchor keywords are those anchor links which specifically have your keyword (or key phrase). For example: “best deals on Audi spare parts” is a searchable key phrase which you are forcing to be anchored so it raises suspicion in search engines.
Links From Dangerous Sites
Links from potential dangerous sites such as malware, sites with a lot of pop ups, spammy link websites, link farms and other harmful issues which will cause your website to be penalized and lose rankings in Google search engine results pages. These websites have been identified and usually if browsing with Google Chrome or any other secure browser, a warning is displayed and the website is blocked from visiting.
Article Marketing Sites
Links from EzineArticles, ArticleBase, SubmitYourArticle and other article marketing sites have been classified as being unnatural links by Google. So, links from articles should not point directly to your website. Instead you can use layered linking approach. For example link the article to a web 2.0 property where you already have a presence. Then link the web 2.0 property to your website with a proper anchor text. Other than that, there is no doubt article marketing has its merits!
Guest Blogging On Suspicious Networks/Sites
Guest posts on private blog networks that allow you to write guest posts and upload them. These networks have been identified by Google and already have been penalized. Most of these networks have a lot of content already published and what happens is that web owners pay them to put links to their websites in those already published content which obviously is a mal practice and certain penalty from rankings.
Comment Link Abuse
Building comment links from automated software such as SENuke, Xrumer and Scrapebox. This is a totally unnatural and unethical approach to link building, very easy for Google to spot. Avoid at all costs!
