Google Penguin 2.0 - How To Recover?

[chanel27]

Hi all,
Last year, we have engaged a SEO company who promised to bring us to the first page on Google. But after 4 months, we actually found out that he might be using doing non quality mass link building tactic and this caused our ranking for all 3 sites we given to him to drop in ranking overnight on 22nd May 2012 after the Google Penguin 2.0 rolled out.

Is there anything we can do to recover?

[AlanBleiweiss]

Exactly.  Because they take this stuff quite seriously.  And they're not just going to do a 10 second review if you've got 50,000 links, let alone take your word for it.

And since we're now in the age of "Google needs to teach people a lesson and create an atmosphere of deterrence", they no longer hesitate to take action when they believe it will be a better motivator.

[Dr-Pete]

Yeah, the worst thing you can do is remove 5 links, then go to Google and say "Hey guys, is that enough?", then 5 more links - "How about now, guys?", etc. You're wasting somebody's manual labor at Google, and believe me, it does piss them off.

[AlanBleiweiss]

And I've got a new client who had not received a manual penalty notice, yet they lost rankings from Penguin 1, so they did a disavow, then a  reconsideration request after only cleaning up a fraction of the mess first.  A week later, they were manually penalized and got the dreaded notice.

This is why its so important to be wiling to do a real clean-up, and personally I just don't see the overwhelming majority of sites being trusted enough as a brand (from brand-like signals) to do things half-ass or in reverse order.

[Dr-Pete]

So, here's the problem - it depends on how big you are. I've seen companies use reconsideration as a back-channel in some cases where the penalty seemed algorithmic, and they were big enough for Google to communicate with them. I suspect it's not the "approved" method and it won't work for most of us.

What's irritating is that some Google reps have said that disavow is applicable to Penguin, but others have said that disavow doesn't work without reconsideration. So, if Penguin is algorithmic AND we're supposed to disavow links BUT disavow only works with reconsideration AND you can' use reconsideration for algorithmic penalties, then pardon my French, but WTF? Some piece of "official" information is wrong - we just don't know which one.

The picture from SEOs I've talked over the last couple of years is much murkier than the official advice, as usual.

[MarieHaynes]

Interesting reply Dr. Pete.  I had not heard that reconsideration could be at all useful for Penguin.  In this article (http://searchengineland.com/penguin-update-recovery-tips-advice-119650), Danny Sullivan said he was told by Google,

"Within Google Webmaster Central, there’s the ability to file a reconsideration request. However, Google says this is an algorithmic change — IE, it’s a penalty that’s applied automatically, rather than a human at Google spotting some spam and applying what’s called a manual penality.

Because of that, Google said that reconsideration requests won’t help with Penguin. I was told:

Because this is an algorithmic change, Google has no plans to make manual exceptions. Webmasters cannot ask for reconsideration of their site, but we’re happy to hear feedback about the change on our webmaster forum."

[MarieHaynes]

Good discussion here.

I'd like to echo Dr. Pete when he says that we have not seen many credible cases of Penguin recovery.  I find it very interesting that it has been several days since Penguin 2.0 and I have yet to see a credible case of recovery.  I really thought that with the advent of the disavow tool we would see a good number of recovery cases but this has not happened as far as I can see.  As such, I think that anyone who tells you what you need to do in order to recover is just taking their best guess.

When the disavow tool came out I had a few people give me some Penguin hit domains.  I disavowed a large number of domains and fully expected to see a boost in rankings after 2.0 and some of these sites dropped even further.

My gut instinct is that in order to recover, sites will need to remove a large number of unnatural links and then do a FANTASTIC job at attracting new links.  The problem is that sites that were ranking well previously on the power of spammy links probably weren't doing a great job at attracting links naturally.  Plus, new links that are attracted are not likely to be exact anchor text links so ranking high for a particular keyword is going to be a challenge.

What I don't know is whether Penguin just devalues all of the spammy links or actually causes some type of negative ranking factor to them.

I have many questions and no one that I have seen so far really knows what the answer is to recovering from Penguin.

[SmashDigital]

Well I originally wasn't going to comment anymore, but...

• Karl: "Reconsideration request and the disavow tool DO work and we have used them on 2 clients with proof. It can take anything from 4-12 months for you to actually see the positive results, they do work" **--  Correlation does not equal causation. Waiting 4-12 months and then thinking that was the cause is pure guesswork. **

• Dr. Pete: I enjoyed your write-up first of all, and you seem to be giving some more realistic advice on what can happen. One thing is standing out in your comment:  "Disavow can work, but Google needs to see a clear removal effort and it almost always has to be paired with reconsideration"
  -- Recondsideration Requests = A reconsideration for manual penalties = No change for algorithmic penalties

So of course it's possible that the disavow tool does work, but it seems to be so rare that any time it does there is a specific thread started somewhere about it.

• Dr. Pete: Creative 301's DO work, as I have numerous sites built on just that. You are correct in saying that they do not work like 2 years ago. There needs to be "padded" links to help counteract the bad ones, and maximize trust in my opinion. At best, you will actually see a long lasting site without the penalty, not necessarily a temporary uptick (although still possible of course). I have done it multiple times, it's not theory.

Everything that I have mentioned thus far this is under the assumption that 2.0 is similar in nature as 1.0 and is just an extension on that.

Lastly, it should be obvious at this point that I like Grey Hat for some projects. I try not to just accept the same information that is fed to the herd without testing it myself to see if it's true. Through testing I have found what works and what does not for my needs, and have also discovered that a lot of what they tell is in fact just another way to try and deter what works. I have big rankings to back up everything that I say.

[Dr-Pete]

Even Google's reps don't seem to agree on whether reconsideration works for Penguin, but I've seen a fair amount of evidence that disavow won't solve any problems without reconsideration, so I actually think you do have to file reconsideration in these cases.

"Creative" 301-redirects are very dangerous and do not work like they did 2+ years ago. At best, you'll see a temporary uptick and end up in a worse position down the road. I've even seen some folks suggesting (on limited evidence) that Penguin 2.0 clamped down harder on bad, redirected links. We've absolutely seen 301s carry penalties, both manual and algorithmic, over the past couple of years.

[Dr-Pete]

Just wrote up some data on Penguin 2.0:

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/penguin-2-were-you-jarred-and-or-jolted

I just want to add, though, that I'm not speculating about the new ranking factors yet, because we just don't have that information. No one has specifically recovered from Penguin 2.0, and I don't think anyone can tell you exactly what changed.

By the very fact that it's called "Penguin", though, I think it's safe to assume that these new factors are an extension of the old philosophy. I generally back Alan's procedure, because I've talked to reputable SEOs who have had success with it. That success often comes after a hard-fought battle, though. The number of Penguin 1.0 recovery stories that I can document are fairly few.

If you know for a fact you have bad links, you do need to try to remove them first. Disavow can work, but Google needs to see a clear removal effort and it almost always has to be paired with reconsideration, from what I'm seeing. Unfortunately, 2-3 Google reps have given us 2-3 stories on the process, so I'm going by what I've seen work for SEOs who I trust (who have shared details privately, in most cases).

[bradwayland]

Actually, I would agree with Alan.  It would be best to try to get links removed first and then use disavow.  As for the reconsideration requests I am picking up on a great deal of cynicism regarding these.  Maybe this is just a strange coincidence but nowadays it seems that people always think their loss in traffic is penguin or panda.  I actually had a situation where a site lost a bunch or traffic in late April of last year.  Of course no one thought it was a manual penalty but in the end it was.  After reviewing the information we didn't believe it was from the algorithm changes but a penalty.  We did very little work because we weren't really aware of any wrong doing.  Then we submitted forreconsideration and 3 days later received notice that there was a manual penalty and it had been removed.

Maybe this was a poor recommendation but I do believe that many people are trying to connect every loss of traffic to Panda and Penguin.

[KarlBantleman]

100% in agreement with Alan here. Reconsideration request and the disavow tool DO work and we have used them on 2 clients with proof. It can take anything from 4-12 months for you to actually see the positive results, they do work. Try and get the links removed first BEFORE using the disavow tool because Google wants to see that you have made an effort to get them removed rather than just take the easy way around!

It is true that you won't get responses from them all, especially if it is article websites where the webmaster rarely does anything on the site itself. That is when you use the disavow tool, just make sure that you are 100% certain that the links are doing your website harm.

Be honest though and look at which links are spammy and do your up-most to get them removed first. It takes time and a lot of effort but it will work....eventually!

[AlanBleiweiss]

Travis,

Please don't use this system to go on a political rant.  If you personally have not to this point had any positive results from something it does not automatically mean that "solution" is invalid, fake, or provided purely for conspiracy reasons.

[SmashDigital]

Google Best Practices = Propaganda to keep people poor.

The entire point of the spam team is to keep you from manipulating the rankings. They do this by any means necessary, including misleading propaganda.

Disavow tool = A tool for the Spam Team to gather information on platforms.

[AlanBleiweiss]

< sigh > and Travis is also not quite accurate.  Disavow and Resubmit requests DO work when they're done properly.

[AlanBleiweiss]

Actually that first recommendation you got in this answer thread is both backward and flawed and does not follow best practices. No offense to Brad but it's just outright wrong.

The first step should be to clean up all the link mess - documenting the process - noting which sites were contacted, how they were contacted.  Only after that is done should a disavow be submitted with all the links you couldn't get cleaned up.

And a resubmission request should only be made if a manual penalty was assessed, not if it was an algorithm penalty.  So unless you got a manual penalty notice in Google Webmaster Tools, resubmission requests are not going to help.

[SmashDigital]

Disagreeing here,

Following that advice will most likely not do anything except keep you in the dog house.

Let's go over it:

1. The disavow tool is complete rubbish and barely does anything (IF anything)

2. If your crappy SEO company is like most of the other crappy ones, they were simply building bulk links on platforms that can be posted to for free. No one who owns any of these sites is going to care, is even going to read a request, or even be able to. A lot of these sites get x,xxx+ links/posts added them daily. Your chances are slim to none, especially if there are a lot.

   Asking your links to be removed will only ever work on smaller blogs where the links were posted and/or someone cares. Most of these links you would probably want to keep anyway.

3. Don't bother with a resubmission request. Again they are rubbish unless you have a squeaky clean link profile. More importantly though, as Brad pointed out, penguin is an algorithm update, NOT a manual penalty. Reconsideration requests will only work will manual penalties. IMO reconsideration requests will only get Google spam team employees eyes on your website for them to actually see your spam. The chances of them coming to the site otherwise are one in a million.

4. Can't argue with the comment of adding good content.

How To Actually Recover

1. Hopefully you were being smart and not doing the linkbuilding to your home page.

2. There are all kinds of creative 301-redirects that can be done to possibly shake the penalty without losing all your link juice. You have to create proper buffer links on the new pages.

3. In general new pages that you create will not have the penalty. Penguin is a page by page penalty, not a site-wide. So if you start with new things you should be fine. It sounds like your link building company was crap anyway so it shouldn't be hard to replicate the results of your old campaign.

4. If you want some hands on advice, I can make you a case study in recovery if your site fits the right criteria. Message me your details if interested.

Cheers

[chanel27]

Thank you so much for your tips!

I will surely be doing that Brad!

[bradwayland]

My recommendation would to be to do the following items.

1.  disavow all the links that you believe came from this practice

2.  contact all the sites after disavow and ask them to remove the links to your site

3.  submit a resubmission request through webmaster tools.  Penguin 2.0 is not a manual penalty but in this case it would be good to alert Google that your site was hit hard but also you may have a manual penalty.  I would want to try to fight against penguin 2.0 if it is possible that it was a manual penalty with strange timing.

4.  change your strategy and start working on creating good content and earning good quality links.

Good luck!