2. Panda and Penguin Strike!
• The sites below lost significant traffic
and ranking.
• Each penalty—even those that
occurred during Panda—were
attributed to links.
Graphs with Permission (1800FLOWERS.com, FSA or Colbert)
3. What Happened?
Last Year, I focused on Panda and on-page
content. I said that every page needed a raison
d’etre, a reason to exist on your site.
This Year, let’s focus on links. The same rules
applies. If you can’t justify a links—it was put
there naturally, it’s from a partner, it’s a real
review—it shouldn’t be there.
More and More, we’ve been seeing sites
penalized or hit by Panda and Penguin for
links. It started with Panda hits on sites that did
nothing wrong on-page, then with sites that got
emails from Google, then Webmaster Tool
warnings and then Penguin.
4. Why?
• Shortcut Link Building
• Fast
• Easy
• Never really allowed
• But they worked!
• What am I talking about?
• Seriously, you know. Don’t pretend.
• Paid Links
• Paid Blog Posts
• User Pages on Forums
• Automated Blog Comments
• Lists of Links
• Anything you didn’t work for
5. Even Good Links…
If you have bad links, even your good links will suffer.
FSAStore.com is partnered with many Third Party health care
administrators, all of whom have relevant, powerful sites—and all of whom
offered FSAStore a banner on their sites.
6. The Power of a Missing Link
Chart that shows traffic/rank increases with each link removal milestone
8. Discovery & Analysis
Single Link Multiple Links
Keyword Anchor (the reversal) Anchor Frequency
Suspicious Content Content Syndication
Content Mismatch Unspun Content
“Clue” Words Target Page Frequency
Link Placement IP/C-Block Frequency
10. Removal
• Remove as many as you can first, then disavow.
• Be liberal. You know which links are bad. If they hit more than a
couple of the above markers, they need to go.
Show 18F process.
11. Can You Still Build Links?
• Of course!
• It’s just harder (and isn’t that the theme of SEO in 2012?)
• And longer
• Quality over Quantity, for real this time.
• Creativity is rewarded now. The playing field is actually a bit more level
now.
12. Go Social!
• Alongside links, build social equity.
• I’m sure lots of other people will be talking about this today.
• Social is a completely new signal.
• It really works (GG graph below)
13. Want More? Contact Me
Eli Feldblum
201-815-9467
050-333-0915
eli@rankabove.com
@FeldBum
