However, unlike Panda update penguin update was not severe on blogger. It was more targeted towards the people, who bought theme footer links, indulged in private network link scheme, keyword stuffing, over optimization etc. It has also sparked the debate of rise if negative SEO which has been around since the born of SEO industry itself. It would be difficult to comment whether negative SEO works or not, but there were few attempts to prove the same. Matt Cutts of Google Webspam team already provided some steps to get rid of Penguin slap, but the result could be only seen when Google rolls out a ‘Refresh’ update. In worst scenario users would have to start from the scratch again. WMPU is an excellent example of how footer links from theme can affect you negatively. Of course, they will come back to where they were before when Google decides to roll out the next refresh. But still it is an excellent example of what not to do to over-optimize your site.
SEO Tips after penguin update
- Over-optimization: Over optimization has always been a debatable issue. Always try to provide best quality content to the readers not search engine. Never ever try to stuff keyword in your post. Besides maintaining keyword density below 4%, users should avoid linking to bad neighbors, excessive internal linking, no anchor text variation and other related issues. WordPress users often use SEO smart link plugin to interlink the posts with desired anchor text. Use the plugin wisely and try to provide anchor text variation otherwise penguin penalty will incur in next update. Same goes with ‘search term tagging’ plugin. It inserts the keyword at the bottom of the post which is a bad SEO tactic.
- Social influence: Social influence will always play an important role in judging the brand’s reputation. Social networking site not only brings traffic but improves your SERP(Search Engine Results Page) as well. Google+, Facebook and Twitter help a lot if you have just started a new blog. Try to indulge in getting as many votes/ likes as possible. Authors reach will be a next big thing to watch out for in SEO industry.
- SEO Links: SEO link building is a wide subject and there is no way one could summarize it in a single post. As mentioned earlier in this post, try to get the links from legitimate source only. WordPress theme footer links was one of the factors Google considered while rolling out penguin update. It reflects the importance of quality links. Guest post, quality commenting, quality wiki links, social bookmarking/ voting will play a major roll. Penguin is a domain level penalty, hence it becomes important for an end-user to gain links from trusted source.
- Thwart Spammers: Instead of relying on Google to nail spammers, it is recommended to take some serious steps against them. To stop RSS scraper use Yoast WordPress SEO plugin or RSS Footer plugin, which can be configured to insert link back to your original post. Whenever you find someone copying your post immediately DMCA them. There are many cases where spammers rank higher than original poster. Regular DMCA notice will remove them off from search engine index.
Remember, Google penguin is just an algorithm and no algorithm is perfect. Try to follow the above method and you could retain your lost traffic back in next update.
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About Amit Shaw
Points to be noted. 🙂 These kind of news and updates helps us a lot in future. Thanks for the share. Please try to mention “How to increase followers to the social media websites naturally” if possible. Waiting for your next updation. 🙂
I will try to come up with some thing similar very soon
Ohkk Ricky waiting for that. 🙂
So the moral of the story here is:
1. create a page for users rather than search engines.
2. build a natural appearing link profile, rather than spamming a single keyword over and over again.
3. Embrace social media!
Panda, Penguin, or maybe later on, Zebra or Killer Whale, I’m just getting tired with all these animals! Although the intention of these updates were good, but they seem to be affecting some good sites as well. Anyway, thanks for sharing these tips!
Agree. Each and every blogger is tired of these. These are made to hurt genuine bloggers :(.
Nice tips Amit.
Killer whale? Lol..As I mentioned earlier, no algorithm is perfect. Of course, we can blame Google and do nothing about it or we can move on and start doing something which might help us.
Yes Amit, I am agree with your last point – “Google penguin is just an algorithm and no algorithm is perfect”.
But recently it is the main headache and it is creating trouble for SEO so we should think to challenge it.
As always good explanation of the update. Looks like those who over-optimise are going to be hit. The the thing to concentrate is content.
‘Contest is King’…but now even gaining link has also become a vital part of SEO. Too many bad links from neighbors can adversely affect your ranking.
You are right Ricky. On the one hand we say Content is King, and on the other hand link building is also a necessary part of SEO. And getting good links is very important now a days.
over optimization is harm in resent google update as well as some spammy anchor text also harm your site’s ranking in search engine. this is the ever spammed in years ago.
thanks amit for seo tips.
it seems that any type of link scheme is subject to penalties. I agree that google will get more sophisticated as time goes by.
No point in using any type of manipulative SEO practice ! no point at all!
You are correct. It will take time and to be honest it will never be a perfect algorithm. Google has done a fantastic job in nailing link schemers. See most of the famous private networks are dead now
Nice Tips bro !!!
The cute creature has been transformed into blogger’s nightmare by Google. I hope I would be able to tackle the next update.
Anyways, the above article is amazing with amazing tips 🙂
Yes you are rite Amit… SEO is evolving and Google is getting smarter. Quality content, better optimization, worthy links and total reading experience is what finally counts. Thanks for the beautiful write-up. I Wish you mention some more tips on how to recover from Penguin penalty too. 🙂
Brays,
Next iteration of this post will be published very soon. It will cover each and every step in more detail.
Awesome Information And Good Points To Be Noted. I Agree That Over Optimization Will Kill Your Ranking…
I Have A Question? Why Google Is Using Good Animals Name To It’s Bad Updates…:-)
Link building is must have thing to do when we are going to do SEO. Building great content is best way to viral link building 🙂
Thanks for the post, Amit.
Wow, great post Amit. I was recently got hit by the Penguin algo update, and still struggling to get recovered. Thanks for sharing these fascinating tips 🙂 !
nice tips amit one of ma website get penguin attack will try to implement this suggestion hope able to see some good result
Do let us know how everything goes, Rohit
Has been hit very badly by recent Panda update and I think the cause is over optimization only. Gonna work on your tips and lets hope will recover the same status of website.
Amit, thanks for the great tips you have provided. Seems like no matter what updates take place, having a quality content is a must to take your blog to success. I wonder one day an update will be rolled out where it will be mentioned that ” those who promote through social media will suffer “…anything is possible from Google.
I doubt that this will happen in near future. Google loves social networking site. Promotion through social media plays a major role in ranking. In fact, next follow up post will enlighten readers about importance of social media engagement.
Many sites has got affected by this google penguin effect. And this is the post the blog owners must look at. These tips will surely help you to recover fro this update.
If you follow these points, You’ll never get hit by any algo updates..
I liked the point that no algo is perfect ..really superb which makes me happy and wanting to wait for the nest update,
Great tips, even some of the blogs got hit by the penguin cause of search term tagging wordpress plugin. Also we need to remove the duplicate content from the blog..
Quite happy with this article, you clearly mentioned the plugins that are effecting a quality blog. Be careful while using those plugins…
The only thing that matters after Penguin Update is : Quality Content. The mission of Google is to find the best content. If we want to get traffic from Google, just provide the best content 🙂
Thank You Amit Shaw For sharing this very useful – vital seo tips. Really this is an awesome article.
Definitely Amit….Though very few sites have been affected by Google Penguin…This is an indication of now web spam tolerance by Google..Nice Post…
Really actionable tips for all those effected by the recent algorithm changes . Quality content always has been the best long term strategy to rank well in search engines. But nowadays Social Influence plays a vital role in getting traffic via search engines , one example of this is the Google Authorship
Over optimizing is really prohibited now and the idea is to keep it simple and straight forward. Don’t do any thing silly and unnatural.
Hi Amit,
First I want to let you know that I haven’t forgotten about your invitation to guest post here. I have to just think about what topic would better fit your blog and my knowledge together.
I really enjoyed your post. What has always helped me with Google is that I have NEVER written for the search engine, ALWAYS for the reader. That is the very reason why I am annoyed when a client who ask me to write for them is too focused on keywords to the detriment of the quality of content. Thanks for the reminder 🙂
Hi Sylviane,
Hope you are doing well. Nice to see you on itechcode again. 🙂 Glad that you liked my post. I always prefer to write for Reader not for SE. Because its make me secure about any update(Penguin or Panda).
BTW That is way when you asked me about topic, i din’t provide you any keyword 😉 i told you only Topics 🙂
Hope soon i will see your superb guest post on iTechCode.
Thank you so much for visiting and dropping your comment.
Have a nice day.
Best Regards
Hello Amit,
It shows that content is still king. People who write for their reader not for the bots will always be on safe side. While people who run for ranking and do over optimization will get their self noted in Google spam list as you said in you post.
So always try to write content that people enjoys reading, people find helpful then you have not to worry about Google animal gangs. Feed those Google Animal with quality contents and they will stay happy and far from you. 🙂 Nice post amit bro.. )
The penguin update is the best thing that has happened to me in my bloggin years. Traffic has increased tremendously. 😉
There are a lot of good points and suggestions made here that may improve a site’s ranking in the Google network. I for one am fed up with Google and everything they stand for. They have become too large and now dictate to the entire world how you must run your website. They treat everyone like a trained monkey jumping through their current hoop. I have nothing but contempt and extreme loathing for them and their egomanical founders who have more money than brains and common sense. My only wish is that some other search engine would put them into bankruptcy and rub their snobbish noses in the crap they have created. I could write a book on my feelings toward them but it would be a waste of time, because the world will continue to do the “Google dance” and bow when Google speaks.
Nice tips, infact many popular blogs which has traffic more than 5k a day has affected by Penguin Update and has lost most of the traffic from 5k to 500 in real. These awesome tips should be noted by them whom’s blog are affected by Penguin Update!. Really Wonderful tips!
Hi Amit,
This is really good read. I did something on the Penguin update also and I’m sure that as we continue to talk about this many more people will take the doing SEO the way it should. Thanks for sharing.
Really these are vital tips. I think over optimization is one of the main cause that most of the blogs has been affected by Penguin. Thanks for the tips.
Nice read amit.I have infact written on the same topic on my blog.Do have a look.It speaks about 3 important points one should know after penguin update.
Thanks for sharing this. This is somehow enlightened my mind about things related to Penguin update. Actually 1 of my sites is heavily slapped by this algo – from more than 3.5k pageviews it is now at around 300. I will apply the recommendations here and let’s us see what will happen when Penguin will refresh.
Awesome explanation of the SEO effects of Penguin algorithm Amit. Penguin has already come out with an update on May 24th, which is driving all the webmasters really crazy. Quick updates in short duration, what is Google upto? If you ask my opinion Penguin was a disaster, it has done nothing to improve the SERP. It may have removed spam, but should not Google’s first priority be ‘providing relevant results in SERP’?
Hi Amit,
Thank you for the great tips, specially number 4, I wish that I know about the many plugins available for WordPress before I started my blog on Weebly. Any way the best way to handle SEO now is to stop thinking about it and focus on publishing great content aimed to humans and do comment on blogs and relay heavily on Social Media.
WOW! I just deactivated the “search term tagging 2” plugin from my WP site. Nice post Amit and I know if one follow your tips then no problem with any Animal (Panda and Penguin) lol.
Thanks for sharing another cool post brother,
Abhijit….
Hi Amit. Thanks for sharing this very helpful post. After the Penguin update, and after the de-indexing, we really should be careful. Sometimes, over optimization happens even if we didn’t intend to do it. But this should be a refresher for all of us.
Again, very helpful post, Amit! Thanks for sharing!
Hi Amit,
Awesome post you have shared with us. Excellent SEO tips after penguin update. Keep up the good work.
Thank you.
I am using SEO smart link plugin on my WordPress blog, and the recent penguin update on 6th October, hit my blog. I don’t know the actual reason, however I am using SEO smart link plugin with no more than 5 link allowed to interlinking. Could you please visit my blog and take a look on it, and please suggest what may be the possible reason?
Best Regards!