EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH Paul Dowling Institute of Education University of London
Paul Madden_SearchLove London 2013
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Transcript of Paul Madden_SearchLove London 2013
Goodbye Spam
Hello Data !
Who is this guy?Paul Madden
Used to be naughty
Now Nice ish
What do I do now?I sell links
I sell the removal of links
I sell data
I sell glue
What we will talk about today• My journey • The realisation of a need to change• The lessons from that journey • Learn from my problems
My History
“Paul is easily influenced by his peers”
Modus operandi • Competitive SEO• Enjoyed the grey areas• Small projects & high volumes
Made for Adsense• 500-2000 scraper sites a week• 2 cheques from Google a month• Learned the churn and burn game
Affiliate and link building• Small affiliate sites• More links required than scrapers• Learned how to get links
Link building• Too many damn links• Sell some to clients• Increase the diversity of what I sold
Volume
• Suppliers• Brokers• Inventory• Infrastructure
So..• Used to have millions of pages• Now have millions of links
Spammers adapt
Pre 2012 Google stance
• Links either counted• Or they didn’t
Post 2012 Google stance
• asdas
A Major Change• Increasing pressure• Directly aimed at SEO
The game has changed• Link penalties
A realisation
“I needed to know the risk of everything I had ever placed and everything I was going
to place”
Start gathering data
3500+ Profiles run
100+ servers crawling and crunching
92,961,923 urls analysed
NB: The average site has 26,000 links
1,650,192 domains with more than one tweet
2,948,872 domains with more than one Facebook like
969,543 domains with more than 1 G+
519,569 domains with Adsense
2,439,073 domains with tags extracted
100+ SIGNALS GO INTO THE ALGORITHM
Google 2013 has a long
long memory
Think you’re clean?• I’ve always been whitehat• I’d never dream of link
manipulation
Someone….• Will have had a weak moment• Will have made a bad decision• Will have….
Met me at a conference
They don’t go away…
• Links hang around…
• Shit ones doubly so…..
From otherwise responsible sites
webdirectory11.comsubmitontheweb.comseo-friendly-directory.co.uknaturaldirectorylinks.comlinkextras.comfreeseoarticlesubmission.comfreelink-directory.netlincdirectory.info1235directory.com
An Idiots Guide
Credentials• Over 100 penalty removals jobs done
• Power of LinkRisk behind us
• Been doing removals since 2012
Link Penalties• Confirm you have a penalty
Partial penalty / Site wide• Its almost always partial• It doesn’t make that much difference
• Google DON’T CARE
DIY or Full service?• It takes a LOT of time• Never go with someone who guarantees a
result• Sign off and approve every stage
DIY or Full service?• Honesty and transparency • You need a guide not a salesman• It’s a fluid process• There are lots of ambulance chasers now
Reinclusion < Read this
http://bit.ly/linkschemes
Link Schemes• Buying or selling links that pass PageRank. This includes
exchanging money for links, or posts that contain links; exchanging goods or services for links; or sending someone a “free” product in exchange for them writing about it and including a link
• Excessive link exchanges ("Link to me and I'll link to you") or partner pages exclusively for the sake of cross-linking
• Large-scale article marketing or guest posting campaigns with keyword-rich anchor text links
• Using automated programs or services to create links to your site
Link Schemes• Text advertisements that pass PageRank
• Advertorials or native advertising where payment is received for articles that include links that pass PageRank
• Links with optimized anchor text in articles or press releases distributed on other sites. For example:– There are many wedding rings on the market. If you want to have a
wedding, you will have to pick the best ring. You will also need to buy flowers and a wedding dress.
• Low-quality directory or bookmark site links
Link Schemes• Links embedded in widgets that are distributed across various sites, for
example:
– Visitors to this page: 1,472– car insurance
• Widely distributed links in the footers of various sites
• Forum comments with optimized links in the post or signature, for example:
– Thanks, that’s great info!– - Paul– paul’s pizza san diego pizza best pizza san diego
The anatomy of a penalty• Gather all the data you can • Spend longer analysing it than you
planned
No… longer than that
The anatomy of a penalty• Plan for multiple attempts from the start• Remove and record• Disavow• Ask for reinclusion• Expect to be told NO!
Repeat the processUntil they say YES
Gathering data
Gathering data
Analyse the data• XLS, MySQL or a Tool• Its more efficient to do it at root domain
level• Pivot or GroupBy
Divide into categories• Remove • Disavow• Investigate
Deciding what to remove• Domains• Metrics• TLD’s• Anchors• Number of links per domain
Look at every site in investigate• Record details as you go• Contact email / contact form• Category• Risk / Natural
Contact for removal
Contacting• Contact as a real person• Contact from the domain with the penalty• Use a webmail account• Contact forms get better response but
follow up with an email from the webmail• Two attempts is enough usually
Conclusions• Record a conclusion for every domain /
link• Removed (verify)• Disavow (inc paid and non responders)• Keep
Correct format• domain:example.com• http://www.example.com/page.html
• # comments always start with a hashtag
• UTF-8 .txt file!
The disavow• Annotate the file• It’s a live document• Technically you can remove lines….
The disavow• Submit your disavow… check its been
taken
• Then…..
WAIT !!!
The reinclusion
Reinclusion• Polite but brief• Explain you’ve changed• Prove it
• Prepare for fake people to respond
Avg 4-5 attempts
If you get deniedWhen
Principles• Make sure you know whats still live• Make sure you have all the data • Make sure EVERYONE has stopped link
building
Building whilst under penalty“Is like brushing your teeth whilst
eating a KitKat #searchlove”
Example links
Are NOT doing a good job
Article sites
Directory sites
192.ComYell.com
Forums
Guest blogs
Obvious scrapers
Sites not in any dataset
Sites already disavowed
Nofollowed Links!
302’s FFS
No longer existing
Penalty removal
1. Get rid of the obvious sh*t
2. Get rid of the commercial terms
3. Be more severe
4. Correct any missed issues
<conclusions>
My Journey…</conclusions>
• As a spammer I was aware of what signals I needed to make my sites rank
• As a link builder I was aware of what signals I needed to sell to make my clients rank
• As a link cleanup company we are aware of what links you need to remove to clear up any penalty and rank again
• I was in the signals business
• I am STILL in the signals business
• And I’ve realised….
• I haven’t really changed
• I was a spammer• I am now a data miner
• Which means I remain…
Proudly
An SEO
Penalty removal
1. 5%
2. 10%
3. 20%
4. 35%
5. Or more… 30%