Google Penguin 2.1

Everybody's beloved aquatic bird is back, and now site owners are once again asking how Google Penguin 2.1 has affected their website.

As he did for Penguin 1.0 and Penguin 2.0 Glenn Gabe at G-Squared Interactive has analyzed 26 websites impacted by the algorithmic change to decide what factors contributed to sites that got hit.

Why Sites Were Hit by Google Penguin 2.1

Not amazingly, Penguin 2.1 appears to have recognized newer link spam – those links that were created at a later date than the Penguin 2.0 rollout in May Of that link spam, Gabe said the following stand for the culprits:

•    Forum spam: This includes comments in forums with accurate match anchor text links.

•    Forum bio spam: Biographies of forum users containing accurate match anchor text links.

•    "Do follow" blogs: Blogs that don't add no follow to the links posted. "Let's face it," Gabe said. "Being listed on do-follow store sites can entirely send Google a signal that you are trying to game links."

•    Blogroll spam: Watch for blogroll links gone incorrect. "Some may be fine," Gabe said. "If you are unsure which ones are bad against good, ask for help from a seasoned SEO."

•    Spammy directories: If you've used spammy directories in the past, and still have links out there, Gabe said "nuke them, have them no followed, or disavow them."

•    Blog comment signature spam: Google seems to be targeting these links even when they're not followed, Gabe said.

Gabe also marked a new culprit: classified websites showing up with heavy aberrant links leading to destination websites. He also said that, unfortunately, he has seen proof of negative SEO rearing its ugly head during Penguin 2.1.

"I’ve had several companies reach out to me that are claiming negative SEO," Gabe said. "And after looking at the condition, I have to agree with them. And worse, I saw an entire business category (in a geo area) get hit with spammy links. That seemed very doubtful. All the business owners (who are competitors) were all blindsided."

Tips and revival Recommendations

Its business as natural on how to deal with cleaning up your site for the next visit from Penguin, Gabe said. That means downloading and analyzing the links, creating a plan of attack to take away and disavow as needed, and if you have to, remove pages.

Here are Gabe's top five recommendations on what to do if you've been hit by Penguin 2.1:

•    appreciate that Penguin heavily targets unnatural links. Your new content and social activity won't trigger a recovery.

•    Carefully analyze your link profile, while keeping a keen eye on exact match and rich anchor text. That's what Penguin targets.

•    Remove those links if you can, and disavow the lasting links. And use the domain operator in the disavow file when the domain is low-quality. Don’t try and target specific URLs on a spammy domain, when you can nuke the whole domain.

•    Make sure more aberrant links aren’t being added as time goes on. Gabe said he's had a number of business owners think they cleaned up their situation, only to get hit harder during Penguin 2.1. After checking their link profiles, you can clearly see more spammy links were added during the spring, summer, and fall. This is what got them hit by Penguin 2.1.

•    Move fast and be insistent. Gabe said he has seen Penguin recoveries during Panda updates, so there is a option of recovery prior to the next official Penguin update.