Can high SERPS and/or social signals minimize Google penalties and a back linking removal question
-
As I am continually sizing up my competition in the SERPS I have scanned their sites with a fine tooth and comb. I have found that these sites practice in the very things that I have practiced in the past and have removed thinking that may be some of the reasons I was hit with Penguin.
Some of these factors are:
- Link Scheme with sites they own (C Blocks)
- Content for Search Engines (Keyword rich text)
- Exact anchor text in back linking profile
Yet even though my competition practices in these methods (One site even places exact anchor text in the footer and header of every page for one of their other forum site) they seem to have not even been touched with any of the recent updates. In fact it seems their ranking have increased.
In scanning these sites the only major difference that I have been able to see between them and I is that their SERPS are higher than mine and they have way more social signals than me. One site has about 73k facebook likes where I only have about 300.
My question is Can Google ignore penalties for sites that have higher SERPS and /or social signals that would effect another site that had lower ones?
My other question is related to back links
My main site has links from another site I built a long time ago (Pre SEO and not knowing what I was doing) somewhere in the 73k range. Obviously a HUGE signal to Google that this might be spam and I am aware. I have removed the links from that site but unfortunately the average crawl rate per day is very low so it is taking a very long time for Google to find those pages and re-crawl them to find the links gone. Since that site I have than has those links pointing to my main site has very low traffic I am totally willing to kill that entire site with a 404. Can this help speed up the removal of those links from that site? I figure since the site no longer exists all links from that site will be removed almost immediately from my main site.
Any thoughts?
-
I believe that social signals are important however I doubt if Google has a way of knowing how many "likes" you got (Bing may know due to their somewhat partnership).
What I do believe is that Google does recognize people coming from social media like FB and gives you credit for it (as a site that has social appearance)and that it does recognize other types of shares such as twitter, tumblr, stumblupon and obviously Google +.
There was an article here at MOZ once and they tried to analyze social signals. I thinkk that the result was that there is a correlation but not necessarily causation.
Good luck
-
gentleman you are both correct and I apologize for my incorrect answer. I had been under the assumption that you did understand or have something to do with this other site. My apologies for not reading thoroughly enough you made the right choice by listening to these gentlemen.
Respectfully,
Thomas Von Zickell
-
Just uploaded my list, hope to see results from it
-
yes, great timing! I think Matt said in his webmaster video that disavowing will also take a few weeks. Please let us know how you get on. Good luck!
-
Halarious that the disavow links was just released from google webmaster tools today
-
There are so many factors that come into play with rankings positions, it;s almost impossible to pin it down and definitely not one factor like FB. If Google ranked sites that strongly based on FB engagement then FB would be nothing but spam. FB should be thought of as a marketing tool and a traffic driver not something the help with rankings, although I do believe Google does consider if you have social media presence in their algorithm.
If you have the power to kill off 73k links from one site to your do it, if it's not a site u care about 404 the site, or remove the links on that site, or if you can change the configuration to nofollow those links that works too. The links can still be there as long as they are nofollowed and no longer pass PR.
Speed up the crawl rate in WMT if you want to get respidered more after cleaning up bad links on your site. Explain in detail to Google what you did specifically to clean up your site and humbly request reconsideration.
-
On the first question I don't quite agree with Thomas. I think that social signals are an important part of the mix but I don't think that having 73k Facebook Likes will undo the damage caused by a manipulated link profile.
If you've been hit by Penguin - and if you're sure that's what's hit your site - then you simply have to sort out your unnatural link profile. That means getting links removed, or at least making every best effort to do this, and making detailed notes of your attempts, which you can submit to Google on a Googledoc if required.
High rankings would NOT have protected your competitors from a Penguin update. They are separate things. Google does not "think" along the lines of "Oh well, this site may have a crap link profile but at least lots of people seem to like it on Facebook, so let's give it a free ride". Penguin is algorithmic. There is not a committee of Googlers deciding which site to hit on an individual basis.
Social signals are important and they will likely come into play once you've fixed your link profile. But, in my opinion, not until then.
-
What about header links to all my main pages, Im sure those are not considered redundant. Did you find redundant interior links on my site?
-
I would 1st off definitely tell you without a doubt the difference your ranking is because of the 73 thousand Facebook likes they have over your 300. To Google Facebook represents something that is real data that can be quantified by Real people so that is the difference. You probably were both penalized equally however they are beating you because of the social media presence.
73,000 links sounds extremely high obviously if you're willing to 404 them you should before you in the domains name and every site that you're linking to I would keep the links in place take the domain off-line just killed the DNS for short Time.
Also inside your own website look for redundant interior links I know it sounds crazy however it affects your link flow in a amazing way.
Sincerely
Thomas
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Inbound link is follow link but we put no follow link back - is it beneficial for rankings?
Dear Moz Community, We are operating in a niche market, where there are not so many content marketing options. What we are left with are link exchanging with relevant sites that are on the same topic but to not directly compete with us. Now we know that if we link back to site A and site a links back to us - for google this is not a very good link. But, some of the sites we are exchanging links with, do not know the term follow vs no follow links. My question - if your link is to site A is a no follow link but they give us a follow link - does it mean thats a better option than a follow vs follow. Thanks for help!
Link Building | | advertisingcloud0 -
How new website / blogs can earn backlinks?
Hi, As link wheels, link pyramids and paid links are penalized by google and the only chance to get back links is to earn them. My Question is that with a new website / blog, how a newbie with no relationships with established bloggers, can earn links? Because writing quality contents and detailed posts (e.g. more than 3000 words posts twice a month) still would benefits for those blogs having already traffic to share these contents and in case of new blog, due to very low traffic, it would take months or years to enter in the game. Please propose step by step strategy / plan / footprint for newly born website and marketers. Thanks
Link Building | | Kashif-Amin0 -
What is dofollow back links
hi i am new in online feild i dont know waht is backlinks i want get high backlinks for my web site my site url is Paki.pk how i use this site for dofollow html tags please make dofollow http://paki.pk/ please help
Link Building | | Starelse0 -
Links Removed from Site but not Google Webmaster Tools
I have a new client who has been fighting to get past an unnatural links penalty. One of the biggest reasons behind it was that they paid to get a followed link/ad on a blog network, well this ad ended up being a site wide link which ended up giving them thousands of back links within a few days. After getting the owner of the blog network to remove the link i manually spot checked a handful of pages and used screaming frog to crawl looking for a link referencing their site. From what i can tell they are all gone. However they are still in Google Webmaster Tools as well as Google's index and it has been a couple months since they have been removed. Does anyone have any advice on getting them removed from Google's entities even though they are already off of the website? Thank you in advance,
Link Building | | kchandler
Kyle0 -
Is Back Link Building still Good Practice
Since all the updates from Google I'm unsure as to whether I should be pursuing good quality back links and how many per month?for my website www.polesandblinds.com . We don't have a very large back link profile and its at least half of some of our competitors, we are currently active on blogging and the 4 main social sites. Many Thanks I look forward to your suggestions/advice/criticism.
Link Building | | JonnytheB0 -
Should I get these links removed?
Hi, I am trying to clean up the seo of my website. Recently stopped using a professional which might have been using grey hat tactics. I am researching, researching , researching but having trouble pulling the trigger on what I am finding. I have a couple old link exchanges going on. They are quite old. Some of them are on the footer of a website, and therefore bring in a lot of links (ie every time a new page is created). I am wondering if I should ask to get these links removed.. My link profile is pretty bad(at least according to me), nothing extremely bad, but lots of leftover of links coming from petitions, forums etc.. that I can't get removed. I have recently gotten some mention on good website but they have a way around linking directly to any website so I dont get much help from that.. If you guys need my website I can share if need be. thanks!
Link Building | | CassisGroup0 -
Backlinking / Link Building Services
Hello, Our site is struggling organically and one of the key factors (not surprisingly) is a lack of backlinks. We have hired a content writer and are working on a content strategy to generate quality, relevant backlinks. But this is more of a long term project. After reviewing backlinks to our competitors' sites, it seems clear that they are using agencies or services to generate backlinks (most coming from low quality sites). I'm aware that this isn't a good long term strategy (although it seems to be serving them well at the moment). I was hoping the community could provide some insight on products or services out there that provide "safe" backlinking strategies. I don't want to do anything that is going to harm us in the future. I've read a bit on the hoth, and it seems fairly safe and potentially effective, but it's hard find much objective advice on the topic. Any insight is much appreciated - thanks in advance! Jason
Link Building | | ba_seomoz0 -
Google Webmaster Tools notice of detected unnatural links ...
Hi, We recently got "the message" from Google about unnatural links for two of our 50 sites. Ranking has dropped significantly since, we did not take any action to remove the links. All our 50 sites were managed by the same SEO company but only two got this message. We are in the process of understanding the best ways to deal with this situation, but currently there are two main approaches we can detect: Remove the links, resubmit for reconsideration Ignore the message and do not do anything, if you do something it is actually like admitting you did something wrong, and Google can not prove that you did... Any insights on what approach we should adopt? Thanks in advance.
Link Building | | jid1