Dmfb revoked 20140508
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Revoked! A Case Study of Successful Penalty Removal
@jennyhalasz
Who Am I?
@jennyhalasz
Experienced.
14 years in search Columnist for Search Engine Land Instructor for ASPE Speaker – SMX, SES, Internet Summit… Agency, in-house, consultant
Have removed over 100 Google penalties
@jennyhalasz
Ethical.
@jennyhalasz
Elemental.
@jennyhalasz
If Google were a dragon…
@jennyhalasz
Case Study: So you’ll listen to what’s next
This was our message:
@jennyhalasz
So Where’s the Penalty?
Deeper inspection showed: Brand term traffic improved Non-brand term traffic dropped Non-brand positioning dropped
@jennyhalasz
What Next?
Review links Remove directory submissions Remove article submissions Remove paid links Beg for nofollows Beg for removals Send a gazillion emails with no response Submit disavow files Submit reconsideration requests Get rejected Repeat Repeat Repeat Repeat Repeat Repeat
@jennyhalasz
Clearly, this wasn’t working!
1,000 to 2,000 new links a month Traffic unaffected, but brand losing share Competitors taking over top spots Industry growing significantly
@jennyhalasz
Plan of Attack
Review links for patterns: Many pointing to /index2 Very unrelated sites:
Postpartum stress Landmine victims Non local fire stations
Most of these were nofollow
@jennyhalasz
Affiliates Out of Control
We learned 3 key things: 302 redirects don’t stop PageRank When calculating penalties, sometimes
nofollows count Black hat is a dirty business
@jennyhalasz
Cleaning House
Updated affiliate program to: Require nofollows Not allow the brand name to be used as a
paid link Allow the client to kick affiliates out for
black hat behavior Contacted top affiliates
Had heart to heart Got many links removed Set all links to /index2
@jennyhalasz
The Custom 404
Set /index2 as a copy of the home page Had it return a 404 response 301’d all other links to it
@jennyhalasz
Reconsideration and REVOKED
31.8% increase in traffic post penalty
@jennyhalasz
Other Great Results
2,000 extra daily visits 50%+ new visitors Rankings for key terms up 20+ positions Approximately $10K more in daily
revenue (avg conversion rate of 8%, avg order value $65)
bitly.com/bundles/jennyhalasz/1
@jennyhalasz
So – will you listen?
@jennyhalasz
Step 1: Download all Links
As many as you can! Google Webmaster Tools Bing Webmaster Tools Majestic SEO aHrefs Open Site Explorer (Moz)
@jennyhalasz
Step 2: Gather Data
Look for Patterns: Anchor text Follow/nofollow ratio Site wide links
Find out what’s been done: Reports from other SEOs Paid links (check credit card/paypal
statements)
@jennyhalasz
Step 3: Consolidate, DeduplicateDump it all in Excel Download the free template: bitly.com/bundles/
jennyhalasz/1 Make your first two columns:
Domain URL
Copy (don’t cut) the URL into the first column, find/replace for: http:// https:// www. (don’t forget the dot) /* (this will remove everything after the only remaining
slash
@jennyhalasz
Step 4: Eliminate
Use Screaming Frog, put this in the custom configuration as “includes”:<a.{0,100}href=.{0,100}?site\.com(.{0,100}?)(nofollow)<a.{0,100}(nofollow).{0,100}href=.{0,100}?site\.com(.{0,100}?)
Collect info on server response, eliminate: 5xx 4xx (except 403)
@jennyhalasz
Step 5: Review
Sorry, there’s no trick to this. You have to do it. Manually.
@jennyhalasz
Step 6: Contact
Find email addresses: On Site On whois.net or other registrar website Use contact forms
Don’t use an email you want to keep Be nice
“Google penalized us” “No reflection on your website” “Appreciate your time”
@jennyhalasz
Step 7: Recontact and Record Sorry again. Allow at least 1 week between contacts Record it all – every email you send,
every response you receive. Google’s watching you.
Contact 3 times unless email bounces or reply is negative.
DO NOT PAY ANYONE ANYTHING!
@jennyhalasz
Step 8: Update Spreadsheet
Use a Google Drive spreadsheet Categorize everything Make sure it all pastes in (warning) Share it: “anyone who has the link can
view”
@jennyhalasz
Step 9: Update Disavow File
Text document Full domains, not individual pages De-duplicate it Format as “domain:site.com” – no
spaces, no www. Upload and make sure there are no
errors Re-upload until it’s right (no penalty for
wrong tries)
@jennyhalasz
Step 10: Reconsideration Request BE HONEST: What did you do wrong? History of the situation:
When did you receive your manual action? What was it for?
What are you doing to address it? Link to your Google spreadsheet
How can we be sure you won’t do it again? Tell Google you know you broke the rules You won’t do it again Specific measures you’ve put in place
Ask to be reconsidered. Thank the reviewer.
@jennyhalasz
The Outcome
You may be rejected.Try, try again.Eventually, you will succeed.
But be honest. If you’re not really trying, Google knows.
@jennyhalasz
May You Live to Rule Another Day!
Jenny Halaszwww.jlh-marketing.com
@jennyhalasz
That link was: bitly.com/bundles/jennyhalasz/1