Penguin: Is there a "safe threshold" for commercial links?
-
Hello everyone,
Here I am with a question about Penguin. I am asking to all Penguin experts on these forums to help me understand if there is a "safe" threshold of unnatural links under which we can have peace of mind. I really have no idea about that, I am not an expert on Penguin nor an expert of unnatural back link profiles.
I have a website with about 84% natural links and 16% affiliate/commercial links. Should I be concerned about possibly being penalized by an upcoming Penguin update? So far, I have never been hit by any previous Penguin released, but... just in case, you experts, do you know what's the "threshold" of unnatural links that shouldn't be exceeded? Or, in your experience, what's the classic threshold over which Google can penalize a website for unnatural back link profile?
Thank you in advance to anyone helping me on this research!
-
Thank you Joshua for your additional reply and insights, may I ask you what are your two mentioned specific word phrases you wrote above about? Just curious, because those could be "brand" related keywords like "Virtual Sheet Music" or "Classical Sheet Music Downloads" which are both our own trademarks, therefore they should be considered as "natural"... you know what I mean.
As for our affiliate links, yes, those are the URLs I am concerned about. I was thinking to 302 redirect those instead than 301, but I am afraid also to lose a big deal of juice from them by doing that, even though I am aware that Google could have already discounted those links at some extent, but I am not sure how much, and I don't want to risk losing that little juice that could help us with rankings if not really needed. So, my choice would be to leave things how they are, and, yes, as you are suggesting, start building more "link-baits" to have more natural links, but as you know, that takes time...
I am eager to know your thoughts about my points above. Thank you!
-
Fabrizo,
Thank you for the the clarification. Ok so I did my own backlink analysis real quick and I'm actually seeing that 18% of your overall links are using a very specific two word phrase. At this point, I would stop building any type of exact match backlink and and start building with a variety of branded, url, maybe a couple clicks here, and so on and so on.
I think that you have hit a pretty close threshold in this circumstance. It may also be worth just focusing on writing some really good content in the meantime. Focus on Latent Semantic Indexing to cater to RankBrain and perhaps try putting together one really big idea that will capture the attention of journalist and bloggers. That way you will start acquiring a solid balance with strong semantic relevancy. That's what I would do at least until this new Penguin update is released.
On the other hand, I can tell which links are affiliate and which ones aren't. Each affiliate link is appended with /?af=verter so that the affiliate can get credit for that purchase, however, that means that the actual link is being built to a 301 redirect in which I feel Google dampens the affect of the link... by about 15% at least. Also, it is easily detected by Google but that doesn't mean they will necessarily penalize you for those events.
Now, Google might start frowning upon that. I can't be certain until it happens, but they've always been somewhat enemies with affiliate marketers.
There are more algorithm updates coming up in the near future and Barry Schwartz just reported that there is a big Penguin update coming in the near future: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-launch-date-penguin-22694.html
Keep in mind that this next update will be an ongoing version rather than a refresh.
-
Yes, I just watched that video 2 days ago, brilliant! Thank you Thomas, I am much less concerned now.
Appreciated!
-
Thank you for your answer Joshua, in my case I am talking about affiliates links that use often similar anchor texts that look like ads.
To give you a real example, my website is virtualsheetmusic.com, and pretty often affiliates link to us with, randomly, the following kind anchor text:
"download sheet music at Virtual Sheet Music"
"classical sheet music downloads"
"find violin sheet music on Virtual Sheet Music"
And so on... from what you describe, I shouldn't worry about it, first of all because of the percentage of this kind of anchor texts, second because they are varied anyway (they are not all the same), but of course Google is able to spot a pattern there and understand that they are not natural. Also, most of our affiliates have used our ready to use, copy & paste links, therefore many of them are exactly the same kind of links, but still, just around 16% of our overall inbound links.
I am just worried that Google could see that as a "link scheme" of some sort, and possibly penalize me... your final thoughts?
-
Rand kind of touched upon this with number 3 on here: https://moz.com/blog/weird-crazy-myths-about-link-building-in-seo-you-should-probably-ignore-whiteboard-friday
-
Fabrizo,
I think that you are asking the question that every link builder thinks about. When you say unnatural, that can mean a lot of things, so I would ask you to clarify the types of sites you are referring to. I tend to think about link building in a different way. Even if a link is "unnatural", which I define as a link that is built to the website by means of influence or submission, then it doesn't mean that penguin is going to see it as unnatural.
Instead, I consider the types of links that are pointing to my site. For instance, if my client has a scholarship and I reach out to a few regional universities which successfully acquires 4-5 .edu backlinks I wouldn't say that is natural but Google will still reward me for that.
Now, if I find a tool that will auto-create 200 web 2.0 profiles, spin massive amounts of content and then generate 1000 backlinks from various subdomains, then I can see that as being a detectable signal that Google will pretty easily pick up on.
If you are talking about a few fiverr gigs that you paid for or even paying a blogger to write an article and submit a contextual link to your site, I wouldn't be too worried about it if you vet the site and ensure that there aren't any red flags like too many outbound links, the site isn't indexed, the Moz spam score isn't through the roof and they have real credible backlinks pointed to their site as well.
From a perspective of looking at footprints, or possibly a private blog network you may have created, I'd say that everyone has their methods. There is a right way to build a blog network, and there is a wrong way to do that. You have to understand the footprints Google looks for and decide whether or not its the right choice for you.
I think the ratio you described is perfectly fine quite honestly. You have to consider that every backlink profile isn't perfect whether they are all natural or not. Consider if I decided I didn't like CompanyA.com in the serps being ahead of me and I decided to have some fiverr.com guy create 20,000 backlinks with all of the same anchor text pointing at the home page. That would be a negative SEO tactic that might damage their rank. However, Google knows that exists and their algorithm is also built to take that into account. They may still lose rank but if the site has a high amount of authority and trust with Google, it is likely not going to affect them as much and they can always disavow.
When it comes to anchor text, I would think in terms of ratio. I don't like my anchor text to exceed 15-20% and I think about it semantically. I use keyword variations in themes or groups so they are all diverse and then build with branded terms, the url, click here, etc....
It's all about balance. Not all links come from premium editorial content, bloggers, article directories, local citaitons, etc... There's a blend of links that naturally occur when you have a popular website and my focus would just be on ensuring that I am keeping that balanced and using competing sites that perform well to compare.
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
-
Buying a blog that already has links and authority
Hello, I hope all are well and keeping safe. I am about to launch a brand new website and am looking to get a slight boost of links to get started. I looked on Fiverr, but realise that this may not be the best option. I have found a blog for sale that matches with a section of my niche. SO have a couple of questions: 1. Is it still worth buying blogs and doing a 301? 2. If yes, would it still work if i 301 these to a category of my main blog? 3. According the moz tool, it has a spam score of 2%, I am attaching an image of the spam score from moz. I am a bit lost and would appreciate any feedback on best practice or if anyone has tried something similar. Many thanks Shehzad O92dqn7
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | shehzad0 -
What is really a bad link in 2017?
Hi, Routine answer is: A link which doesn't provides any value. Tired of listening to this statement where we can see number of back-links been generated with different scenarios. There are still many low DA websites which speaks exactly about a brand and link a brand naturally. So, is this a bad link or good link? Let's be honest here. No one gonna visit such pages and browse through our website; it's all about what it's been doing in-terms of SEO. Do these websites to be in disavow list? Beside the context how a brand been mentioned, what are the other metrics to disavow a domain? Expecting some real answers for this straight question. If it's a low DA site and speaking about exactly our website- Good or bad? Vice-versa...high DA website mentioned website with less matching content. What is the proportion of website authority and content context? Can we keep a medium DA backlinks with some Moz spam score?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | vtmoz0 -
Companies creating spammy links to charge money to delete them?
Hi all, Yesterday I was checking out ahrefs.com and realizing that one of our main competitors was getting new spammy links to its website from junk directories, rusian forums, porn sites etc. I found it to be weird but I thought that maybe they hired a black hat company without knowing it. Today I began finding the same type of spammy links pointing to our site. I'm completely sure we did not create them.I was checking out some of the new directory links and their listings consist of new pages including only our company's website and absolutely no descriptions. I did a little more research and find out that many of those new directories/listings belong to the same company ( seems to be located in Argentina, but I'm not sure). I also remembered paying that company long time ago to delete two links to our website that were included in their directories. I have to tell you, I'm completely out of my mind and I really don't know what to do. The two possibilities I can think about are: 1- A competitor has hired somebody to point spam to our site, to our other competitor, and may be some other competitors in the industry.(because as I tell you before our main competitor in the area is getting new spammy links too) 2- These black hat companies that own directories and other junk websites are pointing spam to us to get paid to remove links. Whether is #1 or #2 is getting out of control and I really don't know how to manage it (except from disvowing links as soon as I find them). I would appreciate suggestions/advise. Thanks. Ana
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | anagentile0 -
Where Is This Link Coming From?
According to Moz Analytics we have a link coming from here: http://www.grayshadowfinancial.com/ The anchor text is earthquake prone map. I can't find the link, but if I cntrl+f "earthquake prone map" it shows in the find box, even though I can't see it. I'm guessing this is some spam tactic and they are hiding this with their CSS? Is there anyway I could see it? Best, Ruben
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | KempRugeLawGroup0 -
Link worth?
These are not my links but does anyone know what the value of one link from something like below is (bio or body) http://designwebkit.com/web-and-trends/how-many-fonts-designer-really-need/ www.thebuildingblox.com/termite-turmoil-how-to-identify-and-remedy-the-problem/ http://creativeoverflow.net/the-10-best-alternatives-to-dropbox/ in comparison with links from below www.01fangchan.com
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BobAnderson
www.1.inerdentos.ru
www.1000empregos.com
www.1stdirectory.co.uk
www.2halsi.com
www.3dir.co.uk
www.514friends.com
www.57billion.com We disavowed around a 1000 links of the above quality (crap) and need to rebuild decent quality links and i would just like to know what the guess is on how many links such as below would need to be built to compensate for the loss. http://designwebkit.com/web-and-trends/how-many-fonts-designer-really-need/ vs www.01fangchan.com Would need to replace 1000.0 -
Link-Building - Directories
Hello, The SEO world is a bit confuse in the last months with the Google Antartic updates. Its normal since Google is trying to kill SEO to have more Adwords publicity results. My most recent doubt is about directories. I heard Matt Cutts from Google in a recent Google Hangout saying that registering a website in directorys was ok, but not the ideal method to become relevant in the internet world. However it seems that this procedure is not against the Google policies. Now, here in the forums, I already saw someone writing about adding your site to directories and how dangerous that situacion is. So, whats your opinion about adding your site to free and pay directories as first link-building strategy? If directories are out of the question, why SEOmoz as a huge list of paid directorys? Is SEOmoz outdate?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | PedroM1 -
If I were to change the geographic keyword such as "foreclosures in Dallas" on 20 related blogs to "foreclosures in Los Angeles" what would happen?
In other words I'm wondering if someone built up an internet presence for their company through multiple websites over the years and then decided to move to another part of the united states, would it work to change all the keywords to the new location? Would that work toward getting them ranked in the new area or would you have to create entirely new websites? Thanks guys.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | whorneff3100 -
What's been your experience with profile link-building?
What have your experiences been? Short Term? Long Term? There isn't a lot written about it, and I'm wondering where it falls in the order of things. I was very hesitant to jump in, but have launched a few campaigns, both for local geo targeting phrases, and national accounts. Surprisingly, I've seen a surge in rankings, but also wonder how short lived they will be. I've noticed the links still don't come up in tools like open site explorer, but I'm able to find them when searching for the unique username I used while building the profiles. The sites I'm listing on have no relevance to industry, unless by chance, although the PR's I'm using are all 4 or higher. Is this considered gray hat?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | skycriesmary720