Since its release in April 2012 this algorithm they dubbed as “Google Penguin” has put together tighter guidelines for website optimization in order to avoid numerous spam factors such as content spinning, cloaking, keyword stuffing, and more.
Google Penguin basically penalizes the websites engaging in over-optimization with their link building strategies. This fight against black hat SEO left countless websites from around the world to experience major drops in traffic from their previously high rankings.
Some of the practices that Penguin directed were:
- Having a closer look at the links directing to your site. Low-quality links are taken out.
- Penguin took down blog networks that allowed subscribers to buy their service to roll out contents with their site’s attached link. The algorithm has a big “no-no” for manipulated contents.
- The algorithm penalizes marketers spamming their keywords in blog comments.
- Websites with unnatural anchor texts are closely monitored.
These are just some of the many works that Google Penguin is addressing to try and make things better as well as to direct the people to do what is right.
Now, the question you should be asking is “How do you survive the regime of Google Penguin?”
With the continuous research online, we have gathered some answers on how to do it right.
Penguin-Secured: 6 Tips to Make Your Link Building Strategy Rule!
1. Proper Keyword Distribution
Never drown your website with too much keyword. Ideally, the safe keyword density is 2-3 percent.
Google described keyword stuffing as “…the practice of loading a webpage with keywords in an attempt to manipulate a site’s ranking in Google’s search results. Filling pages with keywords results in a negative user experience, and can harm your site’s ranking…”
Along with this, they provided a short tip on how to deal with the problem:
“To fix this problem, review your site for misused keywords. Typically, these will be lists or paragraphs of keywords, often randomly repeated. Check carefully, because keywords can often be in the form of hidden text, or they can be hidden in title tags or alt attributes…”
Remember to keep your keywords always in check and naturally incorporate them with your content. For ALT attributes, make sure it describes your content or image well.
2. Quality Content Is Still King
Prior to the algorithms that Google released, the web was swarming with low-quality and poorly written content, that obviously only have the intention of driving clicks and scheming their way to the top ranks.
Now as algorithms, like Penguin, were implemented, poor-quality contents have been penalized or totally washed out. Good quality websites now have the chance to be read and appear on top of the rankings, since Penguin is taking down contents that have:
- Duplicate copies with just keywords changed.
- Meaningless content that does not help reader and does not offer relevant answers to their queries.
- Excessive links disregarding where those come from.
- Stuffed keywords without minding the normal keyword density and whether they fit the context.
So, instead of publishing articles with “topping the search engines” in mind; produce unique and high-quality ones that readers would find relevant with the pure intent of really helping people find the solutions to their queries.
3. Anchor Text Diversity
Online research found that one key factor of a site dropping ranks was because of the over-optimization of "money keywords" as their anchor texts.
Google penalizes websites using “money keywords”, for more than 65 percent, as their anchor text. They made it clear that an unbalanced percentage of anchor text can get your content or website in the danger zone of being punished.
However, online data analysis from thousands of websites found that the ones who weren’t penalized are using anchor text less than 50 percent. This means that their content has a more natural-looking backlink profile.
Hence, keep in mind to not constantly use the same texts – and remember to mix them up with URLs or some “click here”.
4. Submit Guest Post To Quality Blogs
This is undeniably one of the best techniques in driving traffic and followers back to your website. A good blog is where you can see real people communicate, comment and react to the things they see in the site.
If you have unique articles that you want to share to the world, make sure you submit as guest post to the most relevant and reputable blog sites available online. Some of the examples are:
- Seomoz (Youmoz) – it has a 420 Alexa Ranking and a PR 6 Root Domain.
- Site Pro News – a Root Domain PR of 5 with Alexa Ranking of 8125.
- Daily Blog Tips – Alexa Ranking of 5852 and Page Rank of 6.
5. Take Advantage of Social Signals
Social media sites are the celebrities in Web 2.0 today. Along with social media are social signals which are actions made by users to share links or contents from across the web, such as: tweets, likes, votes and +1’s.
Online searches nowadays have become more personalized, which take priority based on your location or recommendations when logged-in to your social networking profile while doing queries in search engines like Google and Bing.
You can use this to your advantage by building backlinks from the shares, and likes of Facebook, tweets of Twitter and +1’s of Google Plus. Still, remind yourself to make it look as natural as possible by using many different sources.
6. Spare Some Time With Your Webmaster Tools
This is a free service offered by Google for webmasters. It is a direct connection where it gives useful and crucial information as Google reads your website. It mainly helps in improving your site’s Google search result visibility.
Webmaster Tools alerts you with errors happening in your site such as 404’s, content blocked and so on. It is best to clean up dead ends in your site to make search engines crawl it easily.
These are just some of the countless ways in surviving the Google Penguin era. Undeniably, Google will still continue to find ways and launch updates in months or years to come, and we may be opted to change our marketing strategies again.
However, if you continue to keep your toe on the line with the basic rules of SEO – you can make it!
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