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Did you guys have a high amount of exact anchor text? We were at roughly 33% for a single phrase when it hit us.
Ironically, the anchor text used for all the spam directory links wasn't even a good search term and we never optimized a page to utilize it.
We had a client's website hit hard by the Penguin update, particularly on the 24th. Sitewide each keyword lost 10-20 positions. It was in #1 or #2 for the past couple years.
We optimize all of our websites onpage features well and within the whitehat realm. Since this was the only website affected out of 50+ other sites, I am guessing the penalty came directly from the backlink profile which was quite bad. The client had bought two other directory link package deals about 4 years ago which all of the incoming directory links have the exact same anchor text. I warned him this was completely unnatural and we only went after "natural-looking" links since then. Keep in mind these links were from 4+ years ago and did very little for rankings as we came into the picture.
Out of 143 root domain links, around 45 use the same anchor text in link.
We started with about 50 links total 2 years ago and have since built a very good quality profile, or so I thought. I was almost certain is was enough various anchor text to dilute it down.
I'm wondering if any of your websites that have been hit have a high amount of exact match anchor text. I can't believe Google would penalize just for linkbuilding because it seems to be an easy way to attack competitors but all my data is looking that way. Let me know your thoughts if any of your sites have been hit. Thanks
I would say these badges are good to link to and are reputable companies. Linking to the good reviews may boost them in serps for your branding search queries which is better than any bad review sites getting the spot.
There are a lot of badges there and maybe you are passing out too much juice. Perhaps keep the bbb, verisign, mcafee and nofollow the rest. Just an idea.
I myself have done this for many clients. I have used a generic paragraph with near duplicate content on over 3000+ pages for one client and it has been going strong for many years. I have also tested websites with near 100% duplicate body text with exception to title, description, h1, image alts and they are ranking good as well with no problems.
I would advise the client of the risk of having duplicate content. You could use textbroker to write some content for each page at around $5 each just to be safe and to feel comfortable moving forward with SEO.
Most of my clients have come to me from other SEO's and I'm always wondering what will drop off when I optimize something because the work was clearly black/grey hat. The good thing is they know the value of SEO already and agree to pay to just fix old issues before moving forward most of the time.
I know the top black hat SEO's could for sure, check out this recent seomoz post: Insurance garbage ranks
In 6 months, I don't see a white hat ever achieving long term ranking in top 3 for "insurance" even with a multi million dollar backlinking budget.
I just did a large 5k page website with the same kind of auto generation, It worked very well. I'm not sure how your website is setup and if the content is all on the database but ours is and we just had to fill in some variables like this.
<title><?=ucfirst($ctar[county_name]);?> Jail, <?=$star[state_name];?> | Bail Bonds & Lawyer Resources</title>
Most likely you are looking for something like strip tags.
I agree with you about Joomla, It is awful in my experience for creating duplicate content issues.
Hey Dan,
Go for links from websites that relate to your industry. It takes more time but it will prove much more valuable in the long run.
How do these companies market themselves so well? Is it 90% social media?
I'm curious to how they initially got off the ground and it seems like I need to be exploring these marketing techniques as well.
It seems like these pages were gaining links for you so I would suggest recreating them to the best of your ability. Hopefully it will be high enough quality content again that people will continue to link to it. A 301 is great too but content that relates to something may not be what people will link to in the first place.
Either way it sounds like you know what you are doing SEO wise, but now just think what would be better for the reader.
Perhaps 301 them all now and create the pages as you have time? Good luck.
You could try reaching out to them and buy the domain.
Registrant Name:Shane Fletcher
Registrant Street1:PO Box 2061
Registrant Street2:
Registrant Street3:
Registrant City:Milton
Registrant State/Province:Queensland
Registrant Postal Code:4064
Registrant Country:AU
Registrant Phone:+41.9873843
Registrant Phone Ext.:
Registrant FAX:
Registrant FAX Ext.:
Registrant Email:shane@firechildcreations.com
Expiration Date:16-Nov-2011 06:18:07 UTC
I've had a very good experience with Media Temple over the past 2 years now. I have 3 DV servers with them all with Plesk. Give them a call if you can afford to buy 12 months service, they take 10% - 20% off. I got in trouble with godaddy dv hosting where my bandwidth usage went crazy a couple days and they billed me 6K without an alert or anything. They ended up taking $4500 off but the supervisor was a real jackazz to talk to. Anyway MT has been a dream so far, and they offer a better service then godaddy in my opinion by far.
You can't tweet now until the auction ends. Twitter withdrawal
Great Stuff
I just did a large 5k page website with the same kind of auto generation, It worked very well. I'm not sure how your website is setup and if the content is all on the database but ours is and we just had to fill in some variables like this.
<title><?=ucfirst($ctar[county_name]);?> Jail, <?=$star[state_name];?> | Bail Bonds & Lawyer Resources</title>
Most likely you are looking for something like strip tags.
Hi Theresa,
Did you clear your browsing history before you did the manual search? Your browser may be saving the site because you've already visited it. To go from the 90's to first page in your results is probably the browser.
Best Regards,
Daniel
We had a client's website hit hard by the Penguin update, particularly on the 24th. Sitewide each keyword lost 10-20 positions. It was in #1 or #2 for the past couple years.
We optimize all of our websites onpage features well and within the whitehat realm. Since this was the only website affected out of 50+ other sites, I am guessing the penalty came directly from the backlink profile which was quite bad. The client had bought two other directory link package deals about 4 years ago which all of the incoming directory links have the exact same anchor text. I warned him this was completely unnatural and we only went after "natural-looking" links since then. Keep in mind these links were from 4+ years ago and did very little for rankings as we came into the picture.
Out of 143 root domain links, around 45 use the same anchor text in link.
We started with about 50 links total 2 years ago and have since built a very good quality profile, or so I thought. I was almost certain is was enough various anchor text to dilute it down.
I'm wondering if any of your websites that have been hit have a high amount of exact match anchor text. I can't believe Google would penalize just for linkbuilding because it seems to be an easy way to attack competitors but all my data is looking that way. Let me know your thoughts if any of your sites have been hit. Thanks
I know the top black hat SEO's could for sure, check out this recent seomoz post: Insurance garbage ranks
In 6 months, I don't see a white hat ever achieving long term ranking in top 3 for "insurance" even with a multi million dollar backlinking budget.