SEO expert advice needed :)

[jmckiernan86_gmail.com]

So I have a niche site that I'm pretty sure has received an over-optimization penalty. This was about nine months ago or so. I haven’t really done much with the site since however I’d like the site to start appearing in the serps again, as I am adding fresh content and trying to create a really useful resource.

I don't appear in the serps for any keywords related to my niche anymore. The site IS still indexed though. I didn't get any messages telling me that I was penalized so I don't think it was manual. I didn't use any spam or anything like that but I believe the penalty was probably for anchor text over-optimization and/or too many links to non-home page urls in comparison to the total amount of links the site had.

I know removing these links or changing the anchor can help but the thing is the site only has about 30 total linking root domains pointed at it. So I was wondering if I could just add more links to other pages/the home page and add more links with varied anchors/naked urls to change the ratios and make it appear more natural. Now, would/could this fix my penalty?

I am frustrated that I even received a penalty at all because much of my competition is ranking for fairly competitive terms with no real solid links pointed at their site and tons of comment spam. I have some relevant links/quality links so I am hoping that fixing this penalty could help put me back where I was before I got knocked into oblivion.

There is one example of a competitor with a PR0 site getting good traffic and ranking for some nice keywords with only a bunch of self-set up web properties (and some comment spam) containing one only page for the purpose of linking back to their money site (blogspot, wordpress, weebly, mywebstarts ect). On top of that a lot of the sites I'm competing again are MFA, garbage sites that are written by non-native English speakers that offer zero value to the visitor. I need to start out ranking these spammers again. What should I do? thanks!

[jmckiernan86_gmail.com]

The site I'm referring to is cnainfo.net. The reason I know there was an algo penalty is that I no longer show up in the serps for any CNA keywords where I used to show up high for many. I plan on doing more social media interaction, fresh content and other thinks that naturally attract links but first I think i need to get this penalty removed.

So I will re-phrase and ask a simple question "can i get an automatic penalty removed simply by adding more links to make the profile appear more natural?

Thanks for your help Jesse, I appreciate it

[jesse-landry]

Right well you didn't really address my question at all either. I will reiterate - if you provide your domain we can better assist you and discover any problems you speak of.

Your question is not clear here, which is why I was unable to answer it and probably why nobody else has responded to your thread. (clear questions are answered quickly in this forum 99% of the time.)

So I'd suggest simplifying the question and re-phrasing it as it is unclear what exactly you're asking here. And as always, your link would help this community to answer any questions.

I will say this - if your question is "how do I rank for my targeted keywords" then the answer is to build quality content and develop real organic links. But I think you already know that. I'd worry less about anchor text, honestly. I think people focus too much on what their anchor text is these days and in reality Google is looking for a natural link profile so the best way to achieve this is let it come naturally. If your anchor text is heavily weighted already, then yes it would be good to remove those links or edit them if they're good links. Depends how weighted.

Also, if you don't have a message in GWMT about unnatural links then you probably weren't penalized for such... (*keyword: "probably.")

[jmckiernan86_gmail.com]

Jesse - I wasn't asking about internal links. everything I'm asking about is external. Thanks for your attempt but you didn't really answer my question at all.

[jesse-landry]

I must admit I'm slightly confused and not sure I'm grasping a full vision of your site. As always, a link to your domain would definitely help this community be able to provide you with useful advice.

That said, the one thing that jumps out at me from your post is your discussion about changing the anchor text of internal links. You really don't need to worry about the anchor text of links located within your site pointing to other pages of your site. Anchor text/unnatural link penalties come from external domains linking in. I'm not sure if that was what you meant or not but I just want to point that out.

Without seeing your site it's hard to say, but I would just start working on some basic SEO campaigns. Optimize all of your pages, identify keywords, start a few blogs, keep fresh content coming, get social media involved, etc.