Imagine waking up one morning and finding your order file is empty. You check your website - everything is working properly, then you look at your analytics - No traffic. A little bit of searching and you discover that Google pushed out a Penguin refresh. You feel a knot in your stomach - is that the problem? Even after Penguin is confirmed, the first reaction is often to deny the reality. Webmasters convince themselves that it must be a mistake. They can't believe they've broken webmaster guidelines. Surely their links can't be spam. This slideshow explains: How to tell if your website has been impacted by the Penguin Algorithm. How to perform an effective link audit How to prepare and upload a disavow file. What to reasonably expect in terms of a recovery, including how long it will take and whether or not traffic and rankings will return.

1. Google Penguin: Diagnosis and
Recovery
Chuck Price
Reconsideration.org
MeasurableSEO.com

2. Can You Relate to this?
• You’re a website owner that works Really hard
• Over time you have built up good traffic and SERPs
• Then One Day its all gone
– Your order file is empty
– Traffic is nil
– Rankings are gone
– You Panic

3. What Happened?
If you have employed “link building” methods
that are not compliant with Google’s
webmaster guidelines, there’s a good
possibility that you are paying the
consequences for engaging in what Google
classifies as LINK SCHEMES

4. What ‘s a Link Scheme?
Any links intended to manipulate PageRank or
a site's ranking in Google search results may
be considered part of a link scheme and a
violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.
This includes any behavior that manipulates
links to your site or outgoing links from your
site.

5. Examples of link schemes:
• Buying or selling links that pass PageRank. This includes
exchanging money for links, or posts that contain links;
exchanging goods or services for links; or sending
someone a “free” product in exchange for them writing
about it and including a link
• Excessive link exchanges ("Link to me and I'll link to
you") or partner pages exclusively for the sake of cross-linking
• Large-scale article marketing or guest posting
campaigns with keyword-rich anchor text links
• Using automated programs or services to create links
to your site

6. And there’s more: Non-editorial Links
Text advertisements that pass PageRank
Advertorials or native advertising where payment is received for articles that include links
that pass PageRank
Links with optimized anchor text in articles or press releases distributed on other sites. For
example:
There are many wedding rings on the market. If you want to have a wedding, you will have to
pick the best ring. You will also need to buy flowers and a wedding dress.
Low-quality directory or bookmark site links
Keyword-rich, hidden or low-quality links embedded in widgets that are distributed across
various sites, for example:
Visitors to this page: 1,472
car insurance
Widely distributed links in the footers or templates of various sites
Forum comments with optimized links in the post or signature, for example:
Thanks, that’s great info!
- Paul
paul’s pizza san diego pizza best pizza san diego

7. Prevent PageRank from passing by
• Adding a rel="nofollow"
attribute to the <a> tag
• Redirecting the links to an
intermediate page that is
blocked from search
engines with a robots.txt
file

8. Link Schemes = Double Trouble
Manual Penalty or… Penguin Algorithm
Found in Google Webmaster Tools:

9. What’s the Difference?
Manual Penalty or…
While Google relies on
algorithms to evaluate
search quality, they’re also
willing to take manual
action on sites that engage
in link schemes by demoting
them or removing them
entirely from search results.
Penguin Algorithm
Penguin is the code name for a
Google Algorithm update
aimed at decreasing search
engine rankings of websites
that violate Google’s
Webmaster Guidelines –
specifically link schemes.
Websites impacted by Penguin
are not technically penalized,
but rather feeling the impact
of this link based algorithm.

10. How Can I tell If My Site is Affected?
First, check for a Manual Penalty
On the Webmaster Tools Dashboard,
click Search Traffic.
Click Manual Actions.
• Two types of actions are displayed on
the Manual Actions page.
• The Site-wide matches section lists
actions that impact an entire site.
• The Partial matches section lists
actions that impact individual URLs or
sections of a site. It's not uncommon
for pages on a popular site to have
manual actions, particularly if that
site serves as a platform for other
users or businesses to create and
share content.
Check for an Algorithmic Penalty:
Compare traffic drops in Analytics
against Penguin Rollout Dates
• Penguin 1 - April 24, 2012
• Penguin 2 - May 26, 2012
• Penguin 3 - October 5, 2012
• Penguin 4 (AKA Penguin 2.0) -
May 22, 2013
• Penguin 5 (AKA Penguin 2.1) -
October 4, 2013
• Penguin 6 (AKA Penguin 3.0) -
October 17, 2014

11. Penguin Penalty Checker Tool
Powered by
http://www.reconsideration.org

12. Oh, nooooooooooo – I’ve been Hit!
Now what?

13. If you don’t already have a GWT
account, sign up for one

16. The Backlinks that Google discloses are a “sampling.”
• GWT data is most important when
you are looking to recover from a
penalty.
• EVERY link that falls outside of the
webmaster guidelines must be
cleaned up via link removal or the
disavow tool.
• Only in the most extreme cases is it
necessary to gathering link data from
3rd Party tools. (Moz, ahrefs, Majestic,
etc.)
• A third party tool will, however, be
useful to properly analyze the Link
Data
• Pro Tip : Don't Rush
• Fight the urge to do a quick
reconsideration request within hours
or days of a penalty. Those who don't
take the proper time and steps to
address a penalty can expect the
following notice from Google::
• “Removing links takes time. Due to
the large volume of requests we
receive, and to give you a better
chance of your next reconsideration
request being successful, we won't
review another request from this site
for a few weeks from now. We
recommend that you take the
necessary time to remove unnatural
backlinks to your site, and then file
another reconsideration request. "

17. Focus on the following link
characteristics
•The URL of the page linking to you
•The URL on your site that is being linked to
•The IP of the URL linking to you
•The anchor text used
•The Percentage (Mix) of Anchor text
•The follow/nofollow status of the link
•A measure (rank) of the link’s trust & authority
To Determine which Links to remove

18. Post-Penguin Link Audit Considerations
Keep in mind that Penguin is just the latest anti link spam algorithm rolled
out by Google. They are hammering websites built on link schemes and
rewarding sites with a natural backlink profile. A natural profile contains an
assortment of link types, pointing to a website. Your audit should turn up a
good mix of:
Brand links: Variations include: Your Domain, YourDomain.com,
www.YourDomain.com, YourDomain.
Exact-match anchor text keyword links: These anchor text links should point
to the most appropriate page on the website (the one you are optimizing).
Partial-match keyword links: It’s important not to over-optimize with exact
match keywords, otherwise you could trip a phrase based filter.
Generic Links: Like “Read More” or “Click Here.” Keep in mind that good
content should fill this need with little if any work required on your part.
Page title links: Some of your links should be the same as your page title.

19. Paid Links
These kinds of links are the ones
most likely to draw a manual
penalty. When attempting to
recover from a manual penalty,
every paid link must be removed.
No exception.
The Google spam team spends time
every day rooting out paid links.
After awhile, spotting a paid link
becomes second nature.
That juicy link that you are certain
that you can slip by Google will
stick out like a sore thumb to the
trained eye and will only prolong
the agony of a manual penalty.

20. Exact Match Anchor text links (EMAT)
• These kinds links , in
quantity, are very likely
to trigger the Penguin
algorithm.
• The practice of using
EMAT links in non-editorial
“link building”
is self defeating.

21. Links that appear on a domain that
isn't indexed in Google

22. Links that appear on a website with a
malware or virus warning

23. Links that overtly or covertly appear on
the same page as spammy, unrelated links
http://ticonderogarealty.com/community-links/
But wait… what’s wrong with this page – these links look beautiful.

24. Yes Ma’am – Until you look at the source code:

25. Links that appear on a domain and page with
Google PageRank that is gray bar or Zero
This usually signals poor quality or low trust, but it could also indicate a new
domain and / or page that hasn’t been updated in the PR bar. Gray PR is not
the same as PR 0 (zero). The graybar is sometimes a quality indicator, but
doesn’t necessarily mean that the site is penalized or de-indexed. Many low
quality, made for SEO directories, have a gray bar or PR 0.

26. Links coming from link networks
Link networks are a group of websites with common
registrars, common IPs, common C-blocks, common DNS,
common analytics and/or common affiliate code.

27. Sitewide Links – especially blogroll
and footer links

28. Watch for exceptions to the rule
• After a manual review, I am able to determine that at
least one sitewide link found in the tool is natural
and there is no need to remove it
An example of why human intervention is necessary to get a link audit right.

29. SPAM TLDs
• This one has geographic implications, but the most
common are .ru and .cn. It's very rare that an English
website would naturally attract massive numbers of
links from non-english websites. Find ‘em at Fiverr

30. Penalized Domains
Links pointing to your site that reside on a website that has been penalized
algorithmically or manually send a poor quality signal

31. No Value Links
• Links not Found: No link could be
located on the page. Disavow. An
argument could be made that if the
link isn't there, there's no need to
disavow it. My view is that it's better
to be safe than sorry and prevent
damage from a spam link that might
somehow reappear.
• Page Offline: Links on pages that
are no longer on the web. Disavow
using the same rationale as above.
• Scrapers: Links on spam sites that
copy their content from other
websites. Disavow – the likelihood of
getting a response to a removal
request is almost nil.

32. Set Up a Dedicated Google Drive Account
• Now it's time to drop link data into a Google
Drive spreadsheet with the following info:
• Link From URL: URL where the link resides.
• Link to URL: The page (URL) on your website
the link points to.
• Email contact: For the "Link From" website.
• First Link Removal Request: Insert date of
removal request.
• Second Link Removal Request: Insert date of
removal request (One week after first
request).
• Third Link Removal Request: Insert date of
removal request (One week after second
request).
• Link Status: Live or removed.
• Keep meticulous records on this
spreadsheet. This is the supporting
documentation that you will be
submitting with your reconsideration
request to prove to Google that you
have made a serious effort to resolve
the problem.

33. Request Link Removals
• There is a growing level of
link removal fatigue among
webmasters. Some have
gone so far as to add email
filters that send link
removal requests directly to
the spam folder.
• In order to break the link
removal request fatigue, it's
extremely important to
write an effective link
removal request. Keep it
short and specific:

34. What is the Best Email Approach?
• Some prefer to use an email address associated with
the penalized website: Joe@example.com. The
thought is that a domain based email provides
maximum credibility. My concern with this approach is
getting a domain's email torched by having it marked
as spam.
• My preferred method is to use Gmail from the
Dedicated Account created for the link removal
campaign. A cc to Joe@example.com seems to add
sufficient credibility. By having all of the email
outreach documented there, it's easy to share with
Google. Using Gmail canned responses further adds to
the efficiency.

35. Start Emailing
• Using the information on your
Google Drive spreadsheet, add the
personalized details to your emails
and begin sending. Record the
date of every link removal request
sent. In some cases you will need
to submit a web form in lieu of an
email – remember to also record
these form submission dates on
the spreadsheet.
• Record every link removal and
remember to stop emailing
webmasters after links are
removed. After five days have
passed, send a "second notice", to
those who failed to respond the
first time.
• Once again, record every link
removed. Stop emailing those
webmasters that comply. After
five more days, send a "final"
notice to any holdouts.
• The last step is to wait five more
days to allow responses to the
third round of emails. Any links
still remaining, after three
removal requests, will be added
to the "Disavow Links tool.“
• Yes, this is a lot of work, but
failure to show a good faith effort
to resolve the problem will only
extend your penalty time.

36. Disavow Links
• Log into Google Webmaster Tools, go to the
Disavow tool, and select your domain. • Clicking Disavow Links
prompts a menu asking
you for a file containing
the links you want to
disavow. This file should
include all of the links
initially targeted for
disavow plus any links
targeted for removal, that
were not. Upload the file
and you're done.

37. Submit a Reconsideration Request
• When filing your request, here are some key points
to consider:
• Be specific: Carefully review Google's webmaster
guidelines.
• According to Google, the following activities are link
scheming:
• Buying or selling links that pass PageRank.
• Using automated programs or services to create
links to your site.
• Linking to a site for the sole purpose of getting a
link back.
• Building a link network for the purpose of linking.
• Large-scale article marketing or guest posting using
keyword-rich anchor text.
• Buying advertorials or articles that include links that
pass PageRank.
• Creating and distributing press releases with
optimized anchor text
• Disclose all activities that you were engaged in that
fell outside of the guidelines
• Confess Everything: You must be completely honest
and upfront. You need to provide as many details
and specifics as possible. A simple: "My site now
adheres to the guidelines." won't fly. If your link
building foundation is built on SENuke and blog
networks, then say so. You won't be telling Google
anything they don't already know. If you fail to
disclose a paid link you think Google "can't detect,"
then you're just wasting precious time and burning
trust with Google.
• Accept Responsibility, Promise it Will Never
Happen Again: Explain what you're doing differently
now and why it will never happen again (e.g., you
fired the person who was doing your SEO or you've
changed your policy). If the spam team doesn't get
the sense that you have made a serious effort to
clean up your backlink profile, they won't believe
that you are serious about change.
• Being a Huge AdWords Client Won't Help: The
spam team couldn't care any less about your PPC
budget. To them, it's irrelevant.

38. Key Takeaway: Penalty Revocation
Equals Permanent Probation
Google penalties get more severe for repeat offenders
After being penalized you have no choice but to strictly
adhere to the Google Webmaster Guidelines. This will be
a hard pill for many to swallow as the revocation of a
penalty is just the first step in what is likely to be a long
recovery period to regain traffic and rankings.

39. Questions? We would Love to hear from You!
Contact Information:
Email:
chuck@measurableseo.com
Twitter: @ChuckPrice518
Skype: ProWebPromo