There's no denying that Google's Panda and Penguin Updates have drastically changed web marketing for a large majority of webmasters and online marketers, especially those who have ACTIVELY built their inbound links and ACTIVELY optimized their sites and content to rank high in Google. That's the key starting point here and it should be noted - webmasters and marketers who have strictly followed Google's guidelines regarding link building and SEO, have for the most part, been rewarded with higher rankings in Google after Penguin.
Now, Google has been continuously doing updates to its Algorithm, the complex formula it uses to rank websites and content on the web. Over the years, some of those updates or changes have been major, anyone remember the Florida Update? However, the main factor which has made Panda and Penguin such savage creatures is the fact Google is applying these updates and fallout across your WHOLE site. Have a few pages of inferior or low quality content and Panda will lower your entire site in Google. Have too many bad or unnatural links coming into your site and Penguin will lower your entire site in Google.
In other words, with Panda and Penguin, Google is making SEO personal - it is going directly after the webmaster or site which violates Google's guidelines. Anyone or any site which is preceived by Google as manipulating its search results will be made invisible in Google. You could even have the most relevant and the highest quality content on the web - but if you (intentionally or unintentionally) break Google's rules, your great content will be ignored.
Obviously, the outcry from affected webmasters has been enormous, and Google has pulled back somewhat from strict adherence to these new changes. Some of your quality pages, which are not breaking the new Penguin rules, can still keep their rankings or the drops won't be so huge. Perhaps, Google realized, delivering the best results was for the greater good of its search engine.
If you have lost your Google rankings and traffic, you must first determine if the Penguin Update was the cause? This is relatively easy to figure out, just check your traffic logs... if you saw a sudden drop in traffic on or around April 23-24 of 2012, more than likely you have been a victim of the Penguin Update. Before Penguin struck, Google also sent out emails to webmasters in Google Webmaster Tools, making them aware their sites had unnatural links and these links should be corrected or removed.
Penguin also looks at the structure and layout of your site, is it OVER optimised for certain keywords? Are you keyword stuffing your pages in order to rank high in Google? Is your site overly structured to rank high in the search engines, rather than to satisfy your visitor?
Penguin is like a filter, which your site and your link profile, has to pass through before Google can give your content the thumbs up. Trigger too many wrong signals and your site/content gets penalized or lowered in the rankings.
What are these Penguin triggers?
While completely knowing what Google is judging here will probably always be a secret, but most experts agree, it is your overall link profile which is in question. Do you have any paid links? Do you have any links from link farms or bad (not trusted) neighbourhoods? Do you have too many interior links pointing to the same keyworded page? Is your link profile varied - links coming from other sites, social profiles or sites, forums, guest blog posts... and just not all your links coming from one source?
And the big trigger here - do you have too many links with the same "anchor text" pointing to your site or interior pages on your site. If you have hundreds, or even thousands of links with the same anchor text (the clickable underlined portion of a link), this will be seen as unnatural and tell Google you're trying to manipulate its rankings.
One major issue which many webmasters have discovered, has to do with article marketing. For years, many webmasters and online marketers have used articles to promote their sites. Create a well-written and informative article on a topic relating to your site, this article gets picked up and placed on countless related sites around the web, in the past this was seen as a form of a vote for your site and content. After Penguin, the links in the resource box with the same keyword anchor text can now be judged as "webspam" by Penguin. Game over for many high quality sites - unless Google comes out with its promised "Disavow Link Tool" in GWT.
So how does one build links on a Post-Penguin web?
- For one, you have to keep a close watch on your OVERALL link profile. Make sure the links flowing into your site are versified and varied. Make sure you're getting a wide variety of links coming from different sources. On a Post-Penguin web, your link profile will be crucial.
- Have links coming from different sources such as Press Releases, YouTube Videos, Guest Blog Posts, Forums related to your site, even links from comments should not be ignored.
- Make sure you take advantage of social bookmarking/networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Google+... have bookmarking buttons prominently displayed on your site. Most sites/blogs now have a bookmark widget on the left hand side which moves down the page and is always in the visitor's view - making it extremely easy to recommend and share your content.
- Make sure your site's interior structure/pages and links are NOT overly optimized to certain keywords or keyword phrases. Make your links natural and of benefit to your visitors and not just for the search engines.
- Make sure you have your site listed with Google's Webmaster Tools and follow any suggestions/advice given directly to you or your site. Fix any 404 pages, especially if these pages have valuable links pointing to them.
- Make sure you know and follow Google's Webmaster Guidelines as to site quality and link building.
- Make sure you're extremely careful about any links which can go viral. For example, links in any articles which can be picked up by other sites, should have neutral anchor text "visit our site" or point directly back to your domain URL. If you're still building one-way links via articles, it's probably best to only use unique articles and place them on only one site.
- Make sure the anchor text in your inbound links is varied and natural. Some experts even say you should not have any keyword anchor text links over 2% of your total incoming links to that page. While this may be a little extreme, it is best to be safe than sorry. Instead of having the exact keyword phrase in your links, use a neutral "click here" anchor text or use your domain URL. Another simple way is to use both your brand and the keyword phrase in the anchor text.
Always remember, link building should be a natural process and for the most part, out of your hands. It all comes back to building and creating great quality content which other webmasters and users will WANT to share with others. Incoming links built this way will be natural and shouldn't cause or trigger any penalties when it comes to ranking in Google. However, after Penguin, you must keep a close eye on all of these links and your link profile, if you want to stay safe and more importantly, if you want to stay in Google's good graces.