Penguin Recovery Questions (My own thoughts)

[roosh]

Hey,

Since my last thread got closed I've started a new one, no idea why I don't see the problem with it.

Someone did reply to say I was asking questions already answered in this forum and I should search, but surely by that logic if I have a question I should just google the answer and not post in a forum?

I imagine most questions relating to seo have been asked here more than once? And via google I'm sure I could find an answer to anything, but since its more of an ad engine than a search engine, its not always easy to find what your looking for. Same applies for searching internally on forums, I have done this with limited success many times.

Anyway I will answer my own questions, but I'm no expert so was really looking for someone who knows more about seo than me, but maybe it will help someone.


My questions are:

1).Are links from poor sites hurting your rankings, or are they ignored/carry no value?

Answer, probably not unless they are REALLY bad. They are more likely to be valueless.

2).How would you identify a site as "bad"?

Answer, Does it rank? What's its domain authority/page rank/. Does it look bad, or a good resource for webmasters?

3). What is the correct anchor text distribution, I generally hear no more than 20% unnatural anchor, is this correct?

Answer, I would say this is about right, some people go higher or lower, 10-15% targeted keyword is probably safest.

4). If you have an EMD for example "RedLeatherShoes.com" is your brand name "Red Leather Shoes" and could you therefore legitimately use the anchor keywords "Red Leather Shoes", and can you use "Leather Shoes" or "Red Shoes" or "Shoes Leather" as these are partial "brand matches"

Answer) I have no idea what the answer to this question is, or whether you can have a brand name and it not even be mentioned in the url.

5). How is your anchor text percentage calculated, say you have 1000 links on one blog, and 2 links on another blog, is a 1 link takes from each separate site, or is total anchor links taken for the percentage??

Answer, I would have thought that google looks at just the separate sites, not number of links. I have heard sitewide links are bad, but I don't really understand why, I would have thought this happens a lot on blogs, (recommended resources lists, sites of interests) and I can't really see the problem with internal sitewide links

6). If you want to dilute your anchor text to natural anchor text domain.com, click here etc, does this mean its a good idea to do this internally or if doing it on external sites, does it matter how you dilute, i.e. can you
correct your anchor text percentage with a lot of low value "natural links"?

Answer). I would have the sense that internal would count as 1 vote, so prob not a big deal if you are over optimized on anchor text

7). Has anyone recovered putting into practise such techniques and is there any penguin recovery service worth paying for?

Answer). Heard some stories of recovery, but pretty vague. have no knowledge of a reputable penguin recovery service.

Thanks, Phil

[joshz]

Hey,

Since my last thread got closed I've started a new one, no idea why I don't see the problem with it.

Someone did reply to say I was asking questions already answered in this forum and I should search, but surely by that logic if I have a question I should just google the answer and not post in a forum?

I closed the thread. The questions have been asked and debated in serious detail. But since you refuse to search, I will briefly give you my personal 2 cents on each question. It's Friday and I'm in a good mood.

1).Are links from poor sites hurting your rankings, or are they ignored/carry no value?

Answer, probably not unless they are REALLY bad. They are more likely to be valueless.

Yes. Poor links can and do hurt rankings thanks to Penguin and the Unnatural Link messages/reviews going on. 1 poor link could be worthless, a profile of poor links could be dangerous and could yield a penalty.

2).How would you identify a site as "bad"?

Answer, Does it rank? What's its domain authority/page rank/. Does it look bad, or a good resource for webmasters?

A poor link profile. A site that is considered a bad neighborhood. A site that is not relevant to it's linking site.

3). What is the correct anchor text distribution, I generally hear no more than 20% unnatural anchor, is this correct?

Answer, I would say this is about right, some people go higher or lower, 10-15% targeted keyword is probably safest.

There are many debates and figures around. I GENERALLY tend to agree with the example you've said. However, you're still looking at this black and white. It's not a percent as much as it is the actual context of the link on said linking page. If you had 5 links, 4 optimized anchor text the anchor text percent would be 80%; however, with that low link count, in a low comp. market you could dominate (assuming the links [with optimized anchor text] where on good, relevant sites)

4). If you have an EMD for example "RedLeatherShoes.com" is your brand name "Red Leather Shoes" and could you therefore legitimately use the anchor keywords "Red Leather Shoes", and can you use "Leather Shoes" or "Red Shoes" or "Shoes Leather" as these are partial "brand matches"

Answer) I have no idea what the answer to this question is, or whether you can have a brand name and it not even be mentioned in the url.

I'm not 100% sure on this, so I will give you my opinion: EMD is not as black and white as people are thinking. I think a lot of it depends on Google profiles, social signals and the context and recurrence of said EMD/branded company name text. Meaning, your example might be better if some links said RedLeatherShoes Online Store, etc. Grouping the words together usually is a symbol of branding, such as SEOchat, SEOmoz, Facebook, etc.

5). How is your anchor text percentage calculated, say you have 1000 links on one blog, and 2 links on another blog, is a 1 link takes from each separate site, or is total anchor links taken for the percentage??

Answer, I would have thought that google looks at just the separate sites, not number of links. I have heard sitewide links are bad, but I don't really understand why, I would have thought this happens a lot on blogs, (recommended resources lists, sites of interests) and I can't really see the problem with internal sitewide links

I would focus more on the LINK PROFILE than 1 by 1 links.

6). If you want to dilute your anchor text to natural anchor text domain.com, click here etc, does this mean its a good idea to do this internally or if doing it on external sites, does it matter how you dilute, i.e. can you
correct your anchor text percentage with a lot of low value "natural links"?

Answer). I would have the sense that internal would count as 1 vote, so prob not a big deal if you are over optimized on anchor text

I would keep internal links as natural and EASY FOR THE USER as possible. That said, the biggest no-no in web design is putting click here links. Not for SEO, but simply for user experience. Click here's went out in the 90's. Look at Wikipedia as an example and their internal linking - this is the king of kings with link juice bleed and internal linking, IMHO.

7). Has anyone recovered putting into practise such techniques and is there any penguin recovery service worth paying for?

Answer). Heard some stories of recovery, but pretty vague. have no knowledge of a reputable penguin recovery service.

AFAIK it's all mush. There are 2 high profile stories/claims; however, the details supplied were too vague and lacking that I have rejected both claims. Others, such as Dr. Marie and Fathom might have better stories or sources to back or disproof this.

[roosh]

Hi Josh,

Thanks for taking the time to reply. I wasn't trying to be lazy not searching, I've spent all morning researching this and other days to, I was just hoping for a fresh up to date response from an expert, so really appreciate you taking the time to respond.

Most of what your saying makes sense, I agree with the internal linking structure, it should make sense for the user which linking to the relevant keyword would.

Interesting take on EMD's, I suspect you are right about the website as one word being the brand, I have seen examples that go against this though.

I can understand what you are saying about relevancy being important for links, but I still think high anchor text ratio even if relevant and on high authority will be penalised.

I also read something interesting about anchor text becoming meaningless as a ranking factor and the signals will instead be taken from the keywords of the page that is linking out, this seems a better model to me.

Thanks, Phil

[joshz]

Hi Josh,

Thanks for taking the time to reply. I wasn't trying to be lazy not searching, I've spent all morning researching this and other days to, I was just hoping for a fresh up to date response from an expert, so really appreciate you taking the time to respond.

Most of what your saying makes sense, I agree with the internal linking structure, it should make sense for the user which linking to the relevant keyword would.

Interesting take on EMD's, I suspect you are right about the website as one word being the brand, I have seen examples that go against this though.

I can understand what you are saying about relevancy being important for links, but I still think high anchor text ratio even if relevant and on high authority will be penalised.

I also read something interesting about anchor text becoming meaningless as a ranking factor and the signals will instead be taken from the keywords of the page that is linking out, this seems a better model to me.

Thanks, Phil

You're welcome.

EMD's raised a lot of question, so please don't take anything I've said in stone, those are just my opinions based on visuals, experience and friends who also manage and SEO websites.

I don't think anchor text will become meaningless; rather, I think the association of anchor text vs. the relevance on page mentions or references relating to the keyword increasing. I've seen onpage SEO become more important than ever, post penguin, but still obviously nowhere near as important as links, be them optimized or not.

[DarrenHaye]

Some of this is way off base.

2).How would you identify a site as "bad"?

Answer, Does it rank? What's its domain authority/page rank/. Does it look bad, or a good resource for webmasters?

Domain authority is nothing to do with google, it's SEOMoz.. so it and also pagerank are not good indicators whether a site is "bad" just an indication it might be good. .

Looking at their links, content and rankings manually with a discerning eye is the only real way.

3). What is the correct anchor text distribution, I generally hear no more than 20% unnatural anchor, is this correct?

20% unnatural ?! you don't want anything to look unnatural.

5). How is your anchor text percentage calculated, say you have 1000 links on one blog, and 2 links on another blog, is a 1 link takes from each separate site, or is total anchor links taken for the percentage??

Sitewide links are much more likely to be an advert, or a link to your own site etc. , I would rather have a single link on a strong page than a sitewide link.

[roosh]

Hey Thanks Darren,

Yes it does seem a manual look at a site is the safe option, but for speed sometimes indicators are necessary.

100% natural links will prob be the future, but people are still ranking off anchor text, if google scrap anchor text rankings then there will be no manipulation.

Phil