Was hit with panda in 2012, what to do now?

[TVape]

Hi Folks,

back in june 2012 when link building was the thing and I had no idea how to do it and hence outsourced link building. Company 1 would write a post and distribute it on multiple different domains after spinning it. Company 2, after company 1 was fired did directory submissions on PR0 websites for two months before i discontinued the service with them.

I still have the excel file of the links they built.

It goes without mentioning that the links were junk. When panda came about our website was hit. Back then i let it slide and we stopped link building and started doing things "white hat". Genuinely doing good things so to say. I never however did anything to fix the penalty.

Now i would like to look back at that issue and see if the penalties are still holding us back and if I can do anything to fix it.

Should I address this issue now or is it too late to matter?

How would i do it, a link audit through a freelancer?

What do you SEO mozters recommend?

[MarieHaynes]

Thanks for the mention Rebecca. I wanted to point out that link removal is likely not as important to Google when it comes to Penguin rather than a manual penalty. I wrote more about this here:

http://searchenginewatch.com/sew/how-to/2374406/penguin-recovery-should-you-be-removing-links-or-just-disavowing

Also, the comments in your disavow file are not read by Google. The file is processed automatically so lines starting with "#" are just skipped. They're mostly for your own records. It's confusing because the documentation Google gives makes it look like you should be including info about whether or not you've tried to remove a link in your disavow file. But really, this is only information that is necessary in a reconsideration request which would be for a manual penalty.

[MarieHaynes]

These are all good questions, but tough ones to answer. I had a quick look at your backlinks and you've definitely got links that will be likely to affect you in the eyes of Penguin. If rankings dropped in May of 2012 that fits as there was a Penguin update then as well.

If Penguin is the culprit, then in order to escape, the following has to happen:

1. You have to do a really thorough cleanup of your links. I recommend removing links that are easy to remove and disavowing everything else on the domain level. The only sites that I have seen recover from Penguin are sites that have been VERY thorough with their disavow work.

2. Google has to recrawl your links to see that they are now removed or disavowed. This can take weeks and some links can take months to get recrawled.

3. You have to wait for a Penguin refresh to happen. At this point we have been waiting since last fall and Google says it will be a few more months yet.

4. You have to have a good site with decent good links. (It sounds like this is not an issue for you.)

I understand your frustration with SEO experts. The problem is that in the past, very little technical knowledge was needed in order to do SEO. Anyone could buy or build links that would work. But now, the pool of people who can effectively help a site rank is significantly smaller. And, anyone who does really good work is either quite booked or very expensive.

As far as link cleanup goes, I feel that there are some people who have a really good sense of what Google wants to see cleaned up, but there are others who do a horrible job. You definitely want to make sure you don't hire someone who relies mostly on an automated tool for link disavow as often those will flag good links and will miss a lot of bad links. If you are going to hire someone what I would recommend doing is asking for references and examples of sites which they have helped escape Penguin. Don't let them hide behind an NDA. If someone is good at doing Penguin work they'll definitely have a list of people willing to recommend them.

The other issue is whether there are other things holding you back. That's tough to answer without really digging in. A thorough site quality audit is never a bad idea. But, from what you've explained it certainly sounds like links are the first place where I would focus. I would want to get those links cleaned as soon as possible so that you have a chance to get them recrawled before Penguin rolls out again.

And finally...Go Jays Go!  

[Carson-Ward]

First make sure what you're dealing with.

1. Go into Google Analytics >> Acquisition >> Organic and find the week (or day, if you can) of the drop in organic traffic.

If you don't have GA, you can try something like Searchmetrics.

2. Correlate to this:

https://moz.com/google-algorithm-change

3. Look for recovery in organic traffic.

If you think Penguin is still impacting you, I'd recommend requesting removal. In my experience it's not very effective to seek the removal of links, but it's worth a try. If you don't think it's impacting you or still affecting you, just do good stuff going forward. In either case, submit a disavow on the bad links. Don't get caught up fixing things that aren't impacting your site.

If there is an organic impact, this is what I'd suggest.

-Start with a good form letter. Include the URL where the link is located, write up a professional, well-phrased request, and send it out. If there are a ton of sites, you might want to have someone who knows a good link from a bad link sort it for you and gather contact info.

-Send a follow-up to sites that don't respond.

-Submit the disavow and wait for an update.

You could hire someone to do link removal, but I don't think it's often a good way to spend money. Many of these sites are abandoned, and no one is reading the email.

If it's Panda after all, submit a new question and we'll talk

[BradsDeals]

It's my understanding that Google generally wants to see some kind of good-faith effort at removal. When we submitted our own disavow file, it included notes about our contact attempts.

[TVape]

And also, How would you recommend we systematically appoach this issue to find the actual source as u piint out?

[TVape]

Thank you for the answer rebecca. I understand why google is requesting us to contact the webmaster first, but generally i doubt "freedirectoryseobest.com" and "articlemarketingforseo.com" are professionally enough set up for their webmasters to actually answer. Would google be upset if i just disavow the links without contacting the webmaster. that would save lots of time. what you think, Rebecca?

Mit freunlichen Gruessen nach Deutschland

[MarieHaynes]

Are you sure it was Panda that affected you? As far as we know, Panda really has very little to do with the quality of your backlinks and rather is about the overall quality of your website.

Were you hit around April 24, 2012? That's when Penguin first came out? But, it can be tricky, because there were Panda updates around the time too - April 19 and April 27.

Ah...but I just reread your question and you said that you started building links in June of 2012. There was also a Penguin update on October 5, 2012.

I've seen a lot of people who have gone on a crazy link pruning spree when really, if the issue truly is Panda, cleaning up your links is not going to help. If you've got spammy links, it's never a bad idea to clean them up. But, it sounds like the more pressing issue here is trying to figure out exactly what hit you. It's also possible that this has nothing to do with Panda or Penguin and actually is something else.

If you can pinpoint the date of your rankings drop, then let us know. That will help.

[Bio-RadAbs]

Should I address this issue now or is it too late to matter?

• Never too late

How would i do it, a link audit through a freelancer?

• Depends on your budget and time.  Rebecca's suggestion is good to use a tool like Link Detox and contact every webmaster. If you got the time to do it yourself, go for it..otherwise if you got the budget, hire a freelancer but check everything.

What do you SEO mozters recommend?

• Rebecca's post summed it up

[BradsDeals]

First, if bad links are the culprit, then the issue wasn't Panda so much as it was likely Penguin.

If you have the links in an Excel file, then you're off to a really good start. Run them through a utility like Link Detox to see which are truly bad (there may be some gems in there worth saving). Reach out to every webmaster and request the links be removed. Then build and submit a Disavow file through your Google Webmaster Console.

Also, read up on how to use the Disavow Tool. And anything else Marie Haynes writes about Penguin is bound to be gold, too.