Penguin: Carry On & Hope Or Start A New Site

[henryboyson123]

I'm at a loss and no so-called SEO agency/expert I've hired appears to know the main causes of our post-Penguin downfall of our traffic.

To set the scene, I set up a voucher code site (www.ozvouchercodes.com.au) in Australia 3 years ago and since, it's been growing very well up until Google launched the Penguin update in April.

Having read as much as I could on the update my understanding is toxic links cause the slap.  For on-site I've checked the site and tried to reduce keywords [spamming], increased [unique] content across the site and made sure there are as few instances of duplicate content as possible.

To attempt to understand my back link profile I've used SEOmoz & Link Detective as the current SEO agency give me little visibility on this.

It appears we're a little top heavy with 32% & 11% of are keywords containing 'coupons' and 'promotion codes' respectively.  Consequently we no longer appear on those two terms but also hundreds of other terms we once appeared in the top 3 postitions.

The Link Detective report downloaded also appears to have a number of back links with the words 'Penalized' and 'Banned' next to them.  Unfortunately there is no explanation on Link Detective whether this needs action or not.

My current SEO agency suggest that we have been too focused on a limited number of keywords and that a few more months of diversifying the range will solve it.

So do I spend another £X amount for 3-6 months of SEO or drop the site on a new URL and start again.

Any ideas?

Any help is very welcome & appreciated.

Henry

[RyanKent]

Thank you for sharing that story. It all makes sense. Using an automated link building script to create spam links with "natural" anchor text.

I wonder how the site owners will react when Google improves their algorithm next and all the old links PLUS all the new ones need to be removed. What a mess.

[JustDucky]

Ryan - Thanks for taking the time to discuss Penguin recovery.  Your initial thread and follow-up Moz article were very informative.   On a lighter note, I moderate all of the comments to my blog.   I almost fell out of my chair laughing when an automated spamer targeted the keywords "click here".  LOLZ.  I suppose they were going to use a bot to attempt to spam a more "natural" link profile.  Only one comment like it I've seen and I was tempted to award a small amount of creativity points although their clients are probably being sold a terrible bill of goods about how to acquire a "natural" link profile.

[Marcus_Miller]

Hey Henry, if you put this work out to 'seo experts' you are pretty much a victim of the system and bad advice (and people making a quick buck like you say). Sorry buddy, hope it works out for you. Marcus

[henryboyson123]

Thank you for your help Marcus.

Whilst I have some knowledge of SEO it was good of you to put my sites situation into perspective with an honest answer to help me make a better decision.

All the best.

[henryboyson123]

Thanks Ryan for your help. I wish I had the knowledge and help a few years back when I first started. I put my trust in to 'SEO experts' who quite possibly acted as agents on behalf of cheap out-sourced labour from developing countries with the aim of earning a quick buck. I'll do some sums and work out whether I want to start again or not.

[EGOL]

**It appears we're a little top heavy with 32% & 11% of are keywords containing 'coupons' and 'promotion codes' respectively. **

You understand the basic problem...  but you are sugar-coating it with the words "a little".  Get rid of all of these links or move any worthwhile content to a new domain.  After you have done than then stop "building links" and start earning them.

[Marcus_Miller]

Hey Henry

I have just taken a quick look at your link profile in open site explorer and I  think your agency is being wildly optimistic. Simply, adding more links with a wider variety of keywords is simply not going to work. Likewise, if they are using the same historical approaches to add the links then they are likely to dig you an even bigger hole.

There is only one well documented case of recovery I am aware of being the WPMU site and they were fortunate in that they could remove a huge swathe of links in one fell swoop. Looking at your link profile, you don't have any such options.

Some very quick statistics here.

1400 linking domains

• 300 approx are branded (various)
• 100 branded + keyword (various)
• 1000 keywords only (various)

Then, anchor text is only part of the picture, looking at the sites that are linking to you, they are pretty weak in general. Link farms, content farms, article sites - it's a real mess! In fact, I have not found one good to honest link that is not from a spun, barely literate article.

So, what do you do? Well, in my mind, the first thing you should do is clean up the mess and see if you can bounce back. But you have some real work to do here, no doubt about that.

I wish I could give you happier news but when it comes to applying the phrase 'toxic link profile' then your link profile is just that. Lots and lots of, and I hesitate to even use the word, 'articles' with  links to your site but they are clearly outsourced webspam articles written by someone who's first language was not english.

It's very hard to advise the exact course of action, but certainly, just 'throwing some more links at it' is not the way to go here. Any work you do should be to clean up but looking at your link profile, I have looked at about 100 links and not found one that was not a 100% total webspam.

The fact of the matter is, your site, and your marketing is exactly the deliberate manipulation of search results which Google has been targeting so it may be that starting again is your best approach. Certainly, if out of that 1400 links, if there are such a small percentage of real, honest links, then that may be your only real choice.

Google has targeted three things of late:

• link farms
• web spam
• artificial links

Unfortunately, your site is (was) propped up by artificial links from web spam on link farms - so to dig your way out of this hole could be tough and may leave you with little actual link equity to make it worthwhile.!

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news so don't shoot the messenger!

Marcus

[RyanKent]

Henry,

I encourage you to read this article: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/identifying-link-penalties-in-2012

My current SEO agency suggest that we have been too focused on a limited number of keywords and that a few more months of diversifying the range will solve it.

I hear this advice a lot and to be quite candid, it pisses me off.

Google's message is quite clear and it has been for some time. STOP BUILDING LINKS AND START EARNING THEM. The point of Penguin is to penalize sites which built links in an effort to manipulate search ranking. The manner is which Penguin identifies links currently is to examine anchor text.

Many SEOs have the idea that all they need to do to fix manipulative links is fix the anchor text. It is shocking to see how many people are confusing the mechanism with the message.

White hat SEO....the kind of SEO which does not get penalized....is about building value for clients. It's about never having to worry that a client's site will be penalized. It sounds like you paid an agency in the past to build manipulative links on your behalf, and the result is your site is now penalized. So the solution they are proposing is to build more manipulative links to your site, but this time the links will be disguised better.

Could this solution work? It might! The question is...for how long. I predict Penguin will continue to evolve in a similar manner to Panda. If that is true, Google will continue to focus on manipulative links and get better at detection just how Panda continues to improve its ability to detect low quality content. IF that happens, then paying for more links to be built is likely a very bad idea for the long term health of your site.

As far as ideas, you can clean up your link profile by removing the bad links to your site, or find another domain. Those are the only two choices I would recommend.

Please note this advise is controversial and many SEOs will disagree. The advice offered is mine which you are welcome to take or leave.