1. Link Building
Post Penguin

2. So, what has
changed?

3. In reality,
NOTHING
except that….

4. The responsibility
is 100% yours

5. Further Pressure Penguin
Unnatural Link
Warnings
Disavow Penalties all
over the place
&

6. What has
HAPPENED?

7. Throw as many links
as you dared
Some counted some
did not
If you threw enough of
the right stuff you won
Pre 1ST quarter of 2012

8. MORE FORMAL
SET OF LINK PENALTIES
&

9. IS A PENALTY / FILTER
PENGUIN

10. TO DULL THE EFFECT OF
DESIGNED
People Chasing the Algorithm

11. Google have sent a
number of waves of
unnatural link
warnings
There is now a
much more formal
procedure to get
the penalty
removed
They are still
sending them
Link Penalties

12.  % of anchor
 % of sitewides
 % of suspect cctld
 more links that 40x or 50x
Signals to look for

13. Risk is obvious in the anchor text distribution
www.linkrisk.com

14. WE ALL NOW FACE
THE PROBLEM
Links are STILL
the signal… but..

15. Google have hidden
what they consider
a bad link well
To rank you have to
build, but you have to
manage the risk far
more

16. 1. 2. 3.
Have someone
audit your links
with experience
Audit what you
have
Determine what is
risky and what to
remove
Manage the risk of link building

17.  Removing is almost as bad as not
removing
 If you determine what the problem links
are, out of every 100 links you identify
as bad Google probably only thinks 20
are bad
 Removing all 100 is as bad for your
rankings as getting penalised in some
cases

18. FOR EVERY LINK
YOU REMOVE
You have to consider what
you might have to add & how

19. THE MYTH
OF NATURAL LINKS

20. What makes a link
problematic?
Purpose of
the site
Commercial
Anchors again
and again
Poor link metrics
(Majestic / Moz /
PR)
No Social
Activity on a
site (Twitter /
Facebook)
Banned
Words
Links to bad
places
No interaction
on the site
Wrong
CCtld

21.  Validate every link opportunity
 Only buy link building services if the
company can demonstrate that they
know what risk is and how they
handle it
 Be realistic in your link risk
exposure

22. Don’t follow what everyone else
does or you’ll be in the next filter
Guest Posts Infographics

23. WHAT TO DO IF YOU
GET CAUGHT?

24. 3 Main Risks:
Penguin Link
Devaluation
Link Warnings

25. AND WAIT FOR GOOGLE
REBALANCE

26. WITH CAUTION
REBUILD

27. Manual Penalty:
 Link audit and clean-up
 Link removal attempts
(keep records)
 Disavow the links that
you cannot remove

28. WAIT!

29. REINCLUSION REQUEST
IF YOU AREN’T SUCCESSFUL TRY AGAIN

32. REDIRECTIONS
AND NEW DOMAINS
BEWARE WHAT PASSES…

33. TAKEAWAYS

34.  Audit your link profile
 Make sure whoever does the audit
knows what they are doing
 Don’t stop building but do build
with care and attention
 Watch your link profile all the time

35. BIG THANKS
MASSIVE THANKS TO @PAULMADDEN AND THE LINKRISK TEAM
Kristjan Mar Hauksson
@optimizeyourweb