Link Earning AKA Quality Link Building After Real Time Google Penguin 4.0 Update (September 23rd 2016)

As we know it's been 2 weeks since the Google Penguin 4.0 real time algorithm (September 23rd 2016) stated to roll out to the core algorithm which has about more than 200 ranking signals. The complete roll out might take 2 weeks to 3 weeks as per Google's information and I believe there could be couple of tune-up in upcoming weeks to get the results even better.

As well Google announced that they will no more be announcing Penguin update which is real time, obviously :)

How is Google Penguin 4.0 different from previous updates?

• Algorithm now manages to devalue the spam instead of demoting the spam i.e. Google ignores the spam links and adjust ranking accordingly. This is the exact way the entire SEO industry, webmasters and business was looking for from very first Google penguin update which happened on April 24, 2012. Algorithms should be tuned for the better web results and the web results should not be tuned for the sake of algorithm!

• Now by using disavow tool, Google basically asks to help them to help you by using the disavow tool but it is not mandatory since the spam links are ignored by themselves. You technically need not use the disavow file to help fix your Google Penguin issues unless you get a manual action notification or if you knowingly spam the web frequently with bad link building and the site gets demoted.

• Since refreshed in real time, changes will be seen faster, once after Google re-crawl and re-index a web page. You can get the help from Google Webmaster manual fetch section.

• Now, no site wide penalty instead more granular, so could be a specific page impact for a specific keyword to the worst.

With the new changes of devaluing links in Google penguin algorithm even if the domain authority (DA) or page authority (PA) of the inbound links goes down, you need not worry, your website / web page doesn't get demoted.

Assume, now on Google will be using the disavow backlinks section for the internal purpose of improving the algorithm and gradually in some time Google might remove the disavow tool once for all as to avoid technical challenge for the webmasters and businesses.

Reference article: Penguin is now part of our core algorithm

Why Are You Afraid Of Google Penguin Update?

Would say, you don't have to be panic!

SEO recovery is doable. As per the industry experience and Google's confirmation, penguin update goes on regular basis and the major updates are announced and named in versions.

Started on April 24, 2012 (Google Penguin 1.0), May 26, 2012 (Penguin 1.1), October 5, 2012 (Penguin 1.2), May 22, 2013 (Penguin 2.0), Oct. 4, 2013 (Penguin 2.1), and October 17, 2014 (Penguin 3.0). Penguin 4.0 is expected in couple of months. Don't wait for Penguin 4.0 to hit your website.

First thing you need to know is about the information that to be collected before you start the work on Google's penguin lift and the proceedings in your website in order to stay back in the competitive search spot game!

(1) A Search Console (Former Google webmaster tools) account need to be created. Reference google.com/webmasters
(2) DA and PA check tool. Reference moz.com/researchtools/ose/
(3) Knowing how hard it has been hit your website. Reference reconsideration.org
(4) Manual action analysis. Reference google.com/webmasters/tools/manual-action
(5) Using Disavow tool. Reference google.com/webmasters/tools/disavow-links-main
(6) Social Media Promotion.
(7) Content writing and marketing.
(8) Inbound Marketing.

Login to your Search Console (Google webmaster tool) account and look for links to the site section under search traffic. Now you will see "who links the most, your most linked content & How your data is linked". From the list of "who links the most", you will be knowing the level of unnatural links, paid links and scrappy links if you have built it or if a third party did the same, you can use tools to check DA and PA for the websites and webpages.

Search Google for bulk DA tool. There are few free tools that can help you to list 100 domains. Pick the low domain authority (DA) and Page Authority (PA) URL's and save it in a notepad. Look for low DA sites & PA pages. Find the level of your keywords you have used to build links for the websites. You need to check for money keywords and brand keywords. Money keywords unnatural links are the most dangerous one. You need to contact the webmaster and request for the site removal. Again if you find brand keywords in a poorly maintained website like less worthy information, too much of Ads & Popups, scrappy content then again you need to remove your website from those domains and pages.

Most of the website webmasters won’t be responding and some would be charging for link removal. In the notepad file that to be disavowed, you can mention the details as said in one of my post "Disavow.txt Smart Code Report to Disavow Spammy Or Low-Quality Links".

An important thing that need to be checked is "Manual actions" section under "Search traffic" section. If Google penguin has been hit hard to your website, you will notice a message from Google about the site wide or partial penalty and list of sample backlinks that is harming your web site. Work on those and similar sites. Take a complete list based on the sample sites referred by Google and remove those backlinks. As well mention those in disavow text file and use request a review button. If your domain is not been hit hard then you will see a message "No manual action found".

This doesn't mean you are not hit by Google penguin, if you see a drop in traffic when the Google penguin algorithm is updated then you need to work on the process explained above. Once you are done with the link cleaning process and list of links to discount in the text file, you can upload the using Disavow Tool (https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/disavow-links-main).

In parallel you need to start with blogging, resource write-ups, inbound marketing and social media promotions by making use of top social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Google plus to name a few. All these signal will balance the discounted unnatural links and betterment your site traffic by regaining and improving SERPs.

You may also like,

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) 101 For Beginners
• Keywords 101 - Types of Keywords and Search Operators
• 5 Minutes Google Panda SEO Checklist
• How to Improve Content writing using SEO to Rank in First Page?
• What Google Hates?

Letter to Google on Search Ranking Choice!

We appreciate the webmaster tools improvement and developments but regardless the transparency.

(1) Can you show us why the competitor’s sites are ranking well even though my site is better when compared in all ways?

(Please don’t say it's because of domain age. Since we are in the industry we know the market share and the truth. The insight would help us to work on the site fixes.)

(2) Can you show a sample list of spam or poor quality backlinks other than mentioned in the manual action review request?

(3) Can you mention the algorithm update in webmaster tools that caused the traffic drop?

(We know that can be noticed from analytics or from search queries data. Suppose if you update 2 or more algorithm in consecutive weeks, the guess would be broad)

(4) Suppose my competitor hires a team to build my site links with bunch of spam and poor quality links, what would be the result after an algorithm update? I need to find those links to disavow and wait?

(5) WMT links to the site shows old data. This is a common issue raised by everybody. Suppose we removed links from spam sites and used disavow tool, how do we know that you have reviewed those updates and our disavow links did not make any sense?

(6) How do you expect more natural link juice for a commercial site with an age of 1 year old or 5 years old compared to 10 years old site or brand site?

(Do you really validate brand sites or is it something undercover?)

(In some case the 1 year or 5 years old site would be more preferred by users when compared to 10 years old site. Small or medium sized business need to be given a chance)

(7) Can you show the website search engine guidelines score compared to industry best website score?

(8) What if you feel that the site has quality less content / duplicate content and are supposed to be quality content to our knowledge. Can you show some samples?

Let Google shuffle the results, collect the data and show the results as users prefer.