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    Negative SEO

    Penguin 3.0: A year in the waiting

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    Google’s “Penguin Updates” target the easiest link building practices. Since Google’s algorithm uses links to determine whether a website deserves to rank, they use the Penguin Updates to punish sites that might be getting links in an automated fashion. Penguin Update 1: April 24, 2012, dubbed v1.0Penguin Update 2: May 25, 2012Penguin Update 3: October 5, 2012Penguin Update 4 : May 22, 2013, dubbed v2.0Penguin Update 5: October 4, 2013Penguin Update 6: October 17, 2014, dubbed v3.0 Penguin 3.0 was the sixth Penguin Update from Google, and actually much smaller than the original Penguin Update. It started on October 17, and is still rolling out. But it hasn’t been as much of a hit as previous updates:1. Google says less than 1% of queries will be affected. That’s less than a third of the original Penguin Update. 2. No new “signals” have been added. It was more of a “refresh” than an update. For those sites that disavowed or removed heavy amounts of links, it was a welcome change. 3. Talk of a larger Penguin update has already started, expected in Spring of 2015. Vigilance and Risk ManagementLast year’s update also opened sites up to more dirty tricks from competitors. Negative SEO has been possible for a long time, and only recently acknowledged by Google. The newest forms of Negative SEO put a competitor’s site into Google’s crosshairs with:– Links from the worst kinds of sites– Links targeting the worst kinds of keywords– Links targeting the right keywords, but in unnatural amounts PSST! Need a Free Link?Get a free link for your agency: Would you like our monthly take on the changing world of SEO delivered to your inbox? Subscribe to the Hyper Dog Media SEO Newsletter HERE! When you subscribe, each newsletter will contain a link idea for your business!

    July 2012 Changes in the World of Search Marketing

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    There weren’t any Penguin updates this month, but a couple of Panda updates to “refresh”. Google makes these updates and claims 1% of queries are affected. It sounds small, but is actually billions of queries. Google has in the past used a team of Quality Raters to examine certain search engine results pages, and has expanded that concept to regular web users. There are recent sightings of Google popups asking about the quality of the results. This could be tied into Google+, and could become a powerful social search feature over time. Google Penguin is perhaps a greater threat than Google Panda lately, and a Google Penguin Update v1.2 is likely coming soon. While Google Panda targets thin and low value content, Google Penguin targeted content and links that have been over-optimized. Google Penguin seems to penalize: Over optimization, where keywords are used too much on a page or site. “Spammy links”, like comments on blogs/forums that don’t seem relevant. Anchortext of links that is too homogenous. Links from spam/malware/bad neighborhood sites Footer links In order to Penguin-proof future Google rankings, we are recommending diversifying links in these areas: Diversity in anchor text Branded anchor text Diversity in the kinds of links acquired. Balance low and high PageRank links. Mix in some image links and nofollow links too. Google just last week said they do not look at how many nofollow links a site though. We have seen nofollow links as well as 302 redirects showing up in webmaster tools lately. So there may be changes in the works as to how Google deals with these. Since Google Penguin Update actually penalizes websites for links that may have not been created by them, for them, or for their best interests – the “Negative SEO” industry is getting quite a boost. Some SEO companies are also offering “link pruning” services, where they take the time consuming task of contacting websites to ask them to STOP linking – with varying results. Bing, for it’s part, has created a tool to disavow bad links. Google is said to be working on a similar feature in Google Webmaster Tools.