SEO and Link Building strategies has completely changed after the arrival of Google Panda and Google Penguin Algorithm.Old SEO techniques and link building methods don’t work any more.These continuous Algorithm updates lead to pathetically decrease in traffic of many bloggers.So,Today I will be discussing what all Google Panda and Google Penguin Updates wants from you and how you can fix it.
Most important factors which leads to this Panda Effect are increased Bounce Rate or 404 errors and poor grammar.
Bounce Rate : I think you might be familiar with this term as I have already discussed it earlier.Alright if you are a new visitor then let me tell you about this.It is the rate of people redirected or bounced back to SERP page after visiting your website.This clearly means that they did not find something useful information on your blog or website that’s why they immediately leaved your website.This usually happens when we use wrong titles or tags.It can also increase when your blog have lots of 404 errors which can be fixed either by 301 redirection or creating a custom 404 page with links to most popular posts on it so that visitor stays on your website.
Google can also identify quality of your content by % of new visits as if your content attracted new visitors then it clearly means that your website has quality content.
Time spent by visitors can also distinguish between quality content and low quality content.
Google does not like Poor grammar or spun content so it can lead to Google Panda Effect.
SEO and Link Building strategy to follow after Google Panda and Over SEO Penalty
As I already said above that we need to change the way we optimize our website and also the way we create backlinks.There are many mistakes which even webmasters do without knowing the impact of those mistakes on their rankings.
- Quantity and Time interval of link building : I have seen many of webmasters purchasing backlinks on Fiverr.I have already discussed its impact before Google Penguin Update.Earlier if you ha some authority backlinks and then you purchased backlinks from fiverr then Google would automatically devaluate the spammy links you purchased from fiverr But now your domain will be penalized.Even if the links are not spammy then also your domain can be penalized for creating huge backlinks in short interval of time as Google will come to know that it unnatural linking and there will be no way out for you except getting a new domain.My suggestion is to create 5-10 manual backlinks by commenting on blogs but after reading the post,These links gradually add up and after some time you will have good number of quality backlinks but if your blog has PageRank greater than 3 then blog commenting will not be very beneficial for you instead you can go for guest posting.One PR5 link achieved by guest posting is much better than 1000 PR1 links.
- Deep Linking : Most of the bloggers give link to their blog’s homepage in comments or guest posts whereas they should give preference to internal pages or categories.If you are like me who removes content not getting traffic from search engine or have low quality furiously then you should give link to category which is performing well on search engine.Maintain the ratio of 60:40 (internal links : Home page links) it will give you best results.
- Mass spamming : While there are so many spamming softwares available online which were successful earlier when they just launched.Now if Google find 15% of your links on spammed pages whether you did it manually or automatically,Then it will be automatically flagged spam website by Google and its near to impossible to recover from that.
- Partial Matching Anchor Text:Till now we have learnt to use keywords of our blog or website as anchor text in comments but now you need to reconsider.Lets take example of this post,Lets assume keyword of this post “SEO and Link building after Panda” now If i commented on any blog with link to this post with exactly this mentioned keyword then my blog will get slapped by Google So, what should I do now.Wait ,what if I use similar related keywords or permutation of keywords.For eg : I can use “SEO after Panda” etc.This is also called text diversity.I can also use natural signals like “Click Here”.This strategy can amazingly help you in ranking well as it keeps you on safer side.
So what basically Google Panda wants ? - Fresh content that means your blog should be updated regularly.
- Quality of the information you are providing which should also makes sense to your readers.
- Most of bloggers still think that only quality of article matter but length also matters,Your article should be of 500 or more words.
- No spun content should be used for creating backlinks by web 2.0 submission or submission to article directories.
- Well written description,Keyword in the title and headers in web page.
- A well constructed sitemap of your blog.
- Fast page loading (super important).
- SEO optimized blog.
- Authority backlinks with frequency by which you are making backlinks.
- Good number of returning visitors.
- Low bounce rates and 404 errors.
Now lets talk about recent Google’s Penguin Update
This update held on 24th Mar 2012 was next to nightmare for spammers.As spammers were continuously achieving higher ranking in SERPs So Google took an immediate action to combat with spammers but somehow many bloggers still misunderstood it.They might have purchased links from Fiverr or any other source,In their point of view they are not spammers but mostly backlinks people used to sell on Fiverr are spammed to death that’s why Google’s Penguin Update have affected them.So never purchase backlinks Instead make them manually.
How to recover From Google Penguin Update ?
- Avoid Duplicate content or thin content: If Google needs fresh content then it does not mean that you will start copying articles.Even i would say that don’t rewrite the article or post some content which is already on web.Instead do some research before writing any post and try to deliver everything to your audience.For eg : A kid also knows how to disable facebook timeline,That’s next to useless or you are just filling your blog.Write even a single post in a week but that should be best out of you,That single post will be much better than 5 useless post.Some bloggers provide information by dividing into several posts instead they should provide everything in one post.Google Panda when arrived in 2011 was not too strict about duplicate content but now penguin update not only recognizes the duplicate content as well as spun content So if you are spinning articles and then submitting them to article directories or web 2.0 micro sites then you need to think again.Here is an example of spun content :
- Never Practice Cloaking : You all might have heard about cloaking as it is even being practiced many authority sites but if your site is average then your site will get slapped by Google’s Penguin Update.In cloaking basically hiding text under webpages from Google.In this technique search engine are shown different versions of webpage than which visitor see.
- Never hide text : Using same background color and text color,hiding text behind images,setting font size zero are some of the activities which search engine easily detects.
- Keep it all Whitehat :I don’t think that you can not figure out which technique is Whitehat and which technique is Blackhat.Most of us get attracted by better results in shorter time by Blackhat but they lasts for very shorter time also.Guest posting,Blog commenting and Social bookmarking are some of Whitehat methods to build links which will never fail and If your blog is pr3+ blog commenting will not work out well.
- Avoid keyword stuffing: Keyword density should not be more than 3%,2% is ideal.If you don’t know about keyword density then here is how it is calculated.Keyword Density = (Number of Keywords*100)/(Total number of words)Don’t forcefully repeat keywords,Your statement should make some sense.Here is an example of keyword stuffing :
image credits : Official Google Webmaster Central Blog and Matt Cutts.
Sergey Brin disclosed that Google AdWords income doubled after the introduction of Over SEO Penalty,I think you got my point.
Here is an awesome Infographic explaining the changes in algorithm [View Larger Version] :
Infographic Credit : State Of Search
Okay let’s try to understand the master-plan of Matt Cutts :
Image credit : SEO NONSENSE
I am quite sure that if you follow above mentioned strategies then you will see great rise in your rankings and thus traffic.So what is your strategy ? Do share with us 🙂
Aakash Goyal
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Very nice and detailed post. Yes, Google is trying to push PPC to reach their target revenue of 4.5 billion by 2013. But isn’t it bad on their part? They claim to show relevant results, but how can they do that at the cost of advertiser’s money!!
Exactly Preeti Google is now following illegitimate ways to promote ads and make money.
yes, i have been seeing many changes since the aggressive updates of Google’s Penguin and Panda, which mainly focusing onto to prevent low quality sites to rank well . I am even pretty sure this all will be happening for the sake of providing best user experience only . . it does then this must go on to keep the scrapers away the system of Google.
Ram this is still a mystery that all this happening is for the sake of providing best user experience or to get more profit 🙂
Does clocking an affiliate link is against Google’s rule? I am using pretty link plugin to clock my affiliate links? Will it harm my search engine ranking?
yes,Cloaking an affiliate link is against Google’s guidelines you can refer here http://goo.gl/Dd1SB but if you are using pretty link plugin you can simply nofollow the cloaked affiliate links.
What does it mean by ‘if you are using pretty link plugin you can simply nofollow the cloaked affiliate links’?
Should I avoid this plugin and use naked affiliate links on my website?
You can use this plugins but also nofollow the links generated by this plugin so that search engine could not follow the links.