seo in a post-penguin world
TRANSCRIPT
SEO in a Post-Penguin WorldHow Google's Panda & Penguin are Affecting Your
Site's Rankings
Kent Lewis (@KentjLewis)President & Founder
Anvil Media, Inc. (@AnvilMedia)
Agenda
Search Engine Algorithm History
What is Penguin?
Diagnosing Penguin Penalty
Placating Penguin
Post-Penguin Best Practices
Resources
Agenda
Panda vs. Penguin: At-a-Glance
Panda targets low quality content, thin content, duplicate content, etc.
Penguin targets spam (and at this point it’s heavily targeting unnatural inbound links).
“The change will decrease rankings for sites that we believe are violating Google’s existing quality guidelines”
Targeting spam, not over-optimization
Typically 500 smaller updates annually
Penguin has impacted about 3.1% of queries (compared to 2.23.11 Panda 1.0’s 12%)
Lives outside of main search index (like Panda)
Penguin Impact
Human quality raters evaluate content
Machine-learning = identifying patterns
May also reward properly optimized sites
Page Quality: Man vs. Machine
Domains (exact keyword match, parked)
Page titles & navigation (keyword-stuffing)
Cloaking, redirects & doorway pages
What is Penguin?
Change history illustrates a variety of changes
Exact Match Domain (EMD) update separate
Algorithm Update Timeline
User experience (bounce rates, social sharing)
Advertising (above the fold)
Affiliates (thin sites)
What to Avoid…
Diagnosing Penguin Penalty
Did you get this warning message via Webmaster Tools?
If so, you may have been hit by Penguin…
Consolidate similar pages
404 offending pages or move to a new domain
Be thoughtful with advertising placement
Delete, Destroy or Dilute offending links
Placating Penguin
Remove unrelated or very low quality links
Get more high quality and relevant links
Vary your anchor text
Take it easy on the internal “SEO” linking
If you are doing sponsored links, be careful!
Cancel or remove unnecessary footer links
Placating Penguin
Understand Google Webmaster Guidelines
Fix the obvious problems
Resubmit to Google once 100% repaired
If form doesn’t work, post to Webmaster Forum
Placating Penguin
Good design & experience = rankings
Multimedia experience = images & video
Don’t forget social media: trust & authority
“…the reputable sites tend to spell better and the sites that are lower PageRank, or very low PageRank, tend not to spell as well."
Matt Cutts, Google Search Quality
engineer & industry hero
Post-Penguin Best Practices
Move The Needle
1. Audit your website to assess penalties
2. If confirmed, develop optimization plan
3. Revisit SEO content strategy
4. Revisit SEO linking strategy
5. Implement and monitor for 90 days
6. Adjust strategies based on results
Move The Needle Exercise
Diagnose impact of Penguin & PandaClean up your actDesign for end users, not search enginesCreate unique & engaging contentOptimize, syndicate & promote your contentFocus on engagement metrics
Key Takeaways
Brick: Marketing Google Panda Updates
Google Webmaster Guidelines
SEL: Webspam Targeted in Update
SEL: Google Panda Update
SEL: Penguin Recovery Tips
SEOmoz: Google Algorithm Change
SEOmoz: Panda & Penguin Panic
SEOR: Google Penguin Warning
B2C: How to Fight Penguin-Panda Updates
Mashable: Google Penguin Recovery
Resources
Read articles & white papers in the Anvil Resources sectionSign up for our monthly email newsletter & webinarsRead our blog or follow us on Twitter (@AnvilMedia)Ask questions about search, social media or mobile marketing
@KentjLewisPresident & FounderAnvil Media, [email protected]
www.onlinemarketinginstitute.org www.anvilmediainc.com
Thank You