Very Weird Type of Penguin Penalization

[UnderRugSwept]

One of my client's sites has a bunch of bad links from blog networks with exact-match anchor text. Since Penguin, they have been completely removed from Google for that keyword.

But here's the weird part: It's only the homepage that has been removed, and only for that keyword. If I put other keywords into Google, our homepage comes up.

So the site hasn't been banned, and that page hasn't even been banned because it still comes up with all of our other keywords. It's only when you put in the keyword that has all the anchor text that the homepage doesn't come up anywhere. (I went all the way to the end).

Has this happened to anyone else, and does it warrant a re-inclusion request since the site and even that page haven't technically been banned?

[UnderRugSwept]

Wow, I didn't know you could still contact domains with private registration. Now if I can just convince him to let me devote time to this, there will be hope! Thanks for all your help!

[RyanKent]

I apologize if I misunderstood Marisa. Normally when others mention building links to resolve the issue, they are talking about running out and performing various "link building" practices quickly, which means low quality links. If you are referring to earning links over time, that is great but it also means the site penalty will exist for a very long time. Most site owners desire to resolve a penalty as an emergency issue. A penalty has put some companies directly out of business, and severely damaged other companies.

With respect to the private WHOIS information, you can absolutely send an e-mail to that address. It will be forwarded to the domain owner's registered e-mail.

If I were in your situation I would explain to the client they made an error in judgment by hiring a bad SEO provider to build links on their behalf. Those links damaged the site and the penalty is the result. Their choices are pretty straight forward:

• pay to have the penalty resolved...very expensive

• try to resolve the penalty themselves....in my experience most people fail or get frustrated and quit the process.

• abandon the domain and start over

• abandon the pages involved which usually means losing the links for their most important keywords (i.e. the ones they paid to obtain manipulative links for)

In each case the affected site owner will pay. They either pay directly in terms of SEO penalty removal costs, directly in terms of labor for them to do it themselves, or indirectly in terms of lost ranking.

[UnderRugSwept]

Thanks so much for your extensive response! I really appreciate it.

One thing: "To resolve the problem, you are proposing to build different manipulative links, ones designed to trick search engines into removing the penalty."

No, not at all! I just meant that over time, the natural links they acquire will not have exact match anchor text, so once they have more links without it than with it, will it be enough to crowd it out.

I have looked up all the links to the site and gone to those sites one by one and attempted to contact them. 90+ percent didn't have contact information. Out of those 90+ percent, 90+ percent of those had a private whois listing. That's why I said the removal of the bad links is never going to happen.

It's a shame because the reason the client hired that shady company to begin with is because he didn't want me to spend time building links. He's never going to consent to my spending my time in an excessive campaign to remove them.

I guess there's nothing more to say.

[RyanKent]

Since it's impossible to remove those links, if I acquire more links with varying anchor text will that eventually be enough to crowd the exact match out and stop triggering the penalty, or is the only option to ask for re-inclusion after the links are removed (which isn't going to happen)?

Please forgive me if I sound abrasive here. Your client is currently penalized for manipulative links. More specifically, links which were designed to manipulative how search engines view your client's site. To resolve the problem, you are proposing to build different manipulative links, ones designed to trick search engines into removing the penalty. That would be an exceptionally bad idea.

I have been directly involved in resolving this exact type of penalty for dozens of clients. What Google specifically desires is for the manipulative links to be removed. THAT is the proper process. Anything else is some form of manipulation which stands a very strong chance of severely damaging your client.

Google does not require you remove all the links. They require you make a sincere effort to do such. There are very specific requirements for the process, and most site owners and SEOs fall far short of these requirements which leads to the frustration you are feeling now. At a high level here is the process:

1. Obtain a comprehensive list of all known links to the site. You should absolutely not simply use Google's links as we know they do not share all the links to a site. A combination of Google's links, OSE, and several other sources should be used to compile a complete list.

2. Every linking domain needs to be visited by a trained SEO who understands Google's Guidelines and can differentiate between a manipulative link and an organic link. Once again, many site owners and SEOs fail here due to trying to keep far too many links. Almost all free link directory and free article directory links are manipulative. If you are unwilling to accept this fact, you will not be successful in removing the penalty.

3. Every site providing a manipulative link needs to be contacted. You can use any method or tactic you desire as long as you are successful in removing the link. If you fail to remove the link, you need to thoroughly document and prove to Google you took every reasonable step to resolve the issue. Some specifics I use:

a. Contact every site via the e-mail address found on the site. The e-mail is polite and respectful, and requests any links to be removed. A list of all links in question are provided. A copy of this e-mail (either text or pdf) is kept and placed on an accessible network drive. A spreadsheet is updated with all relevant info (domain, date of contact, who sent the e-mail, address sent to, response if any, etc).

b. After 3 days if no response has been received, the site's Contact Us form (if any) is used. The same e-mail sent in item 1 above is copied and pasted into the form. The same standards apply.

c. After 3 days if no response has been received, the site's WHOIS e-mail address is used IF it is different from the e-mail address used in item 1 above. The rest of the same standards apply.

If a site owner removes the link, great. You are done. If a site owner refuses to remove the link, you would then copy the response (pdf works great, otherwise text doc) and place it on a web server. A link to the document would be placed in the master spreadsheet.

If a site owner responds but requests payment, you are not required to pay but you should respond asking the link to be removed. You can inform the site owner it is in their best interest to remove the link, as linking to a penalized site can cause your site to be penalized.

Only after the above steps have been taken and completed will Google truly Reconsider the site and lift the penalty. If you try to shortcut the process, Google will repeatedly decline your request with canned responses. One person who called my office stated they had turned in 10 reconsideration requests and all 10 were declined. I encouraged him to put the effort into removing the links, not spamming Google with reconsideration requests.

There are a lot more details to the process but by following the steps above, I have removed 100% of the penalties for clients. I have seen other site owners and SEOs struggle because they are not willing to put in the massive amount of effort this task requires. I am working on an article which will be completed this weekend which covers this task in more detail.

[UnderRugSwept]

Thanks for all the good answers. Since it's impossible to remove those links, if I acquire more links with varying anchor text will that eventually be enough to crowd the exact match out and stop triggering the penalty, or is the only option to ask for re-inclusion after the links are removed (which isn't going to happen)?

[UnderRugSwept]

"Were most of the blog network links built from anchor text to the keyword that has dropped?"

Yes, and I'm not able to remove them. The service I used to get the links (Netfirms SEO) denies everything and says they're unable to remove them. They said I have to contact the owners of the blogs one at a time and ask them to remove them. I tried this, but they are all more or less "fake" sites, existing solely for the purpose of placing links onto to manipulate rankings. They don't have contact information.

[AlanBleiweiss]

I first saw this particular type of penalty as long ago as late 2010.  As soon as the bad links were cleaned up, got them ranking again, but only because they had enough other positive and high quality signals.

Nowadays, it's not so easy to know if removing those links would be enough, and honestly, there could be other variables at play related to it that were the triggers and in fact may have been penguin or just as likely the other anchor text change google made in April (in the list of 52 ? 53? other changes for the month...

[RyanKent]

Hi Marisa,

My experience is a bit different then John's. This type of penalty is very typical of Penguin and is not unusual at all. Some refer to this issue as an "over-optimization" penalty. If you examine some sites in OpenSiteExplorer or a similar tool, you will notice the same anchor text used to link to a page. This anchor text is not natural but rather an attempt to manipulate search results.

Google can choose to penalize your site by removing your ability to rank for any keywords which you "over-optimized". The best course of action is to remove these links. If you find yourself unable to remove a signficant portion of the links, you then need to thoroughly document your efforts and submit a Reconsideration Request with Google.

There is a LOT of work involved but if you put forth sincere effort to correct the problem, the penalty will be removed and your site can rank normally again.

[DesignbysoapLtd]

Hi Marisa,

That doesn't sound too weird to be honest with you. By the sounds of it those exact-match anchor text links were probably on a service like Build My Rank, which got more-or-less entirely de-indexed. So your homepage, which was probably ranking for that term because of those anchor text links, most likely dropped due to either an over-optimisation penalty (overuse of exact match anchor text), the links that were holding it in place being de-indexed (dropping it back to where it would rank for that specific phrase without those), or a combination of the two.

Were most of the blog network links built from anchor text to the keyword that has dropped?

You don't need to submit a reconsideration request, as your site hasn't been excluded from the index. There is a form you can submit if you think you've been unfairly penalised, but by your own admission (blog networks), this isn't the case so I would avoid it.

Instead, your best bet is to try to offset those links with high quality, content-driven linkbuilding and high quality on-site linbait (which will attract natural links). You could also try re-optimising the homepage for the term you're trying to rank, ensuring it's not over-used in things like page titles or anything else that could have aided to an over optimisation penalty.

You could also consider removing the blog network links, as this will improve your overall backlink profile and help you start moving back up the rankings.