Sha Menz: Keeping Penguins From Your Door

Getting link analysis and cleanup right

Keeping Penguins From Your Door

@ShahMenz

#StateofSearch @ShahMenz @rmoov

about me

hangs out in link removal trenches

penaltygeek

goes towar withrampagingpenguins

never met a natural link she didn’t love

#StateofSearch @ShahMenz @rmoovare we entering unfamiliar territory?


you don’t have a penalty?

Don’tbet on

it

thinkyou’re safe?


“but I just want to build good links”


the smartest

people listen to the best

experts!Paddy Moogan

Mozcon 2014 “Actively disavow and remove low quality links”


“Be actively disavowing and removing the low quality links that you find when doing link auditing. Even if you don’t think you’ve been hit by Penguin...even if you don’t have a manual penalty.

If you’ve got links that are clearly low quality, ones where you look at them and you really know they’re not good, try and remove them, try and disavow them ”

what Paddy said


why hesaid it

it’s a percentage game


Your backlink profilewith natural links

Your backlink profilewith unnatural links


If you don’t leave a fishy mess...

You won’t attracthungry

Penguins

Risk assess your backlink

profile


Googlehas been talking about building

Penguin into the core algorithm

for a long time

Gary Illyes

John Mueller


Google has said they intend to have the next Penguin Update

released by year’s end

but...

“we’ll not release

something unfinished.”

Gary Illyes, Nov 2015


Don’t be caught napping!


WHENit happens

It will NOT be the

Penguin that you

know!


but what am I looking for?


high risk

high value anchor text

notrelevant

Scaledand repeated

manipulativeor SEO focused intent


don’t fall for the dumbest mistake ever


would you keep a link from this site?mit.edu


mit.edu

maybe not!

#StateofSearch @ShahMenz @rmoov“Awesome domain! Keep that!”

#StateofSearch @ShahMenz @rmoovpeople buy the “badass” backlinks line


if you can sell it, “it ain’t natural”

#StateofSearch @ShahMenz @rmoovpetition site manipulation is not cool


#WTF?!



but that’s not all...


www.spamflag.com/link-identification-guide/

get this

http://www.spamflag.com/link-identification-guide/


what if it’s already too late?


something’s fishy?


disavow

yourgo-tosolution


“can’t someone do that for me?”


YES


rmoov autogenerates disavow files


does disavow work?

YES


actively manage

Negative

SEOmultiple uses

penalty resolution

trustmanagement


pitfalls but thereare

pitfalls you need

to be aware of


site variants updatedisavows for all variants

resource:article at

dfwsem.org

“Are You StuckIn Google’s

Penalty Box?”

resource:article at

rmoov.com

Penalty ResolutionFlow Chart

https://www.dfwsem.org/are-you-stuck-in-googles-penalty-box/

https://www.rmoov.com/google-penalty-resolution-flowchart.php

https://www.rmoov.com/google-penalty-resolution-flowchart.php


only see one variant? You may never see one of these...


disavow is canonicalcannot negate effect of links to site A by disavowing them at site B

site A

site B

Hat Tip: Maile Ohye


wait! don’t push that button


this is not an updatemust addnew disavow data to your existing listsbefore upload

resource:post at

google.com

Disavow Links Tool Help Doc

upload to disavow links

tool is an overwrite

https://www.dfwsem.org/are-you-stuck-in-googles-penalty-box/

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2648487?hl=en


format errors UTF-8or

7-bit ASCII

downloads from

disavow tool are not text

files!

.txt

convertyourfiles!


who remembers ASCII?


beware comment bloat!


file size limit that file size

errorwill spoil your day

KeepcommentsminimalWebspam Team

doesn’t see them

2Mb

Somethingchanged

Oversize files are no longer

trimmed. now return error


don’t disavow ip addresses

Unless you have absolutely no other option


laziness = stupidity

disavowdomains,

not ip addresses

ip addresses

are not tied permanently to

domains

all URLs represented

by that ip string

will be disavowed

Other sites represented by specified

domainon same ip will NOT

be disavowed


best practicedisavow entire

domains


should I disavow specific URLs?

only toprotect future referrals from

coveteddomains

or forspecific

edgecases

you saygive me a reason


there are always links you don’t know about


some links just won’t die


managing disavow files

disdit.comFree

DisavowManagement

Tool

Add orremove

domains for existing

disavow lists

Generate entire domain

Disavows from a list of

URLs

http://www.disdit.com/why-disdit.php


how long does it take?


the basics

If Google cache has updated

Disavow file isprocessed!

disavowed links

DO NOT disappear

fromGWMT!

DON’Tthink of a disavow

decision as a temporary

fix

#StateofSearch @ShahMenz @rmoovit’s time to put this on...


“You are what Google thinks you are”

until you can prove otherwise

own yourmistakes

learn to love

process



you gotta dig

startwithdata


combine and de-duplicategoogle analytics referral anomalies

google webmaster toolsbing webmaster tools opensiteexplorer.org

mine the SERPsmajestic SEO

SEMrushahrefs


do you already have something in your paid toolkit?

Cognitive

SEO link navigator

Web CEO

http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/3524/the-fastest-most-accurate-unnatural-link-detection-case-study/

http://okaymarketing.com/easily-cleanup-negative-seo-web-ceo-rmoov/


on using trust flow...

DON’T use either trust flow OR citation flow as a

raw metric for making decisions on links you

should keep or remove

DO divide by

citation flow and look closely at

links or domainswhere result

<20%

you can use report filters in Majestic to do this, or just do it in your spreadsheet




It seems like my page ranks well for some keywords, but is penalized for the most important one - is that possible?

YES unnatural linking penalties are page

and keyword specific



use links:domain.com + “keyword phrase”


Don’t go another step until...

checkanalytics for high-volume

referrers!



link analysis

free tools

browser plugins


There is no substitute for humans


but youWill needtools


Spamflag


redirect path

http://www.ayima.com/

http://www.ayima.com/


User Agent Switcherchrome extension helps identify cloaking & hacking


Majestic Link Maps


free trialpaid versionimport link data


fix what you own

fake forum

profiles

Article directory

submissions

spammy social

bookmarking profiles





send email

do not treat webmasters

as the enemy

behonest

behelpful





submit forms

check for third party contact

forms at country specific domain

registries

On sitecontactforms




are youdoing itwrong?

If you think 20% link cleanup is a good result, you need to try harder!


always think outside the (mail)Box


can you adapt link acquisition ideas to

step up your link removal game?

find smarter ways of approaching webmasters to boost your cleanup outcomes


and if you think you just found the next

great trick to fool

Google...

you’re wrong.



helpful features


you can now have rmoov send SMScampaign alerts to your phone


choose to ignore nofollowed links


pre-crawl feature eliminates “dead” links

call us (786) 348-2163email us [email protected] us @rmoov

mailto:[email protected]

Marketing

Sha Menz: Keeping Penguins From Your Door