Data around test results in a post-Penguin world.

1. Life After Penguin
Diagnose, Recover, Rebuild
Ian Howells
@ianhowells

2. DIAGNOSE

3. Diagnosis Steps
1. Confirm the date you got hit
2. Confirm if your hit is site-wide or
page specific
3. Find the problem areas
halo18.com

4. In Case You’ve Been Asleep
April 24th – Shit got real.
halo18.com

5. Which Update Hit Me?
Google’s rolling out multiple updates
in a short time frame.
3/19 – BMR/ALN get de-indexed
4/19 – Panda 3.5
4/24 – Penguin
4/27 – Panda 3.6
5/26 – Penguin 1.1
halo18.com

6. Site-Wide or Page Specific?
1. Did every page lose it’s rankings?
2. Can you rank a new page for a lower
competition term?
halo18.com

7. RECOVER

8. Causes
Luckily, this isn’t all that complicated.
We’re essentially looking at:
1. Over-optimized anchor text
2. Lots of low quality, off-topic links
halo18.com

9. More than 65% Anchor? Good Luck Bro
(image via @MicrositeMaster - http://bit.ly/PrEduZ )

10. RECOVERY EXAMPLES

11. WPMU.org Recovery
Ross Hudgens worked with WPMU.org to
recover by…
1. Removing 15,000 site-wide footer
links from an owned property
a. Matt Cutts says this did it
2. Misc on-site issues like canonical
URLs
halo18.com

12. WPMU.org’s Recovery
(image via @rosshudgens - http://mz.cm/MwwveE )

13. My MFA Test
I started wondering if the penalty could
really just be linked to the URL.
Could I really just paste the content
onto a new URL and rank off my content
and what’s left of my domain authority?
halo18.com

14. Sure Can

15. My MFA Test
I then tested if a 301 from the
“penalized” page will pass the ranking
hit to the new URL.
halo18.com

16. YUP – Vanished 5 Days Later

17. REBUILD

18. What We Already Know
Based on my tests thus far, if your
penalty is just on the page level, you can
start over with the same domain.
halo18.com

19. What We Already Know
Unless it torched your home page.
Then, you might just be screwed –
unless you control a huge chunk of your
links like WPMU did, or can get them
removed.
halo18.com

20. What We Already Know
I haven’t seen any duplicate content
issue from copy/pasting old content to a
brand new page.
halo18.com

21. What We Already Know
You can’t, however, keep those links by
301’ing them into your new URL.
halo18.com

22. Rebuild
If your home page is safe, start moving
your torched pages to new URLs without
any 301 redirect and go back to link
building.
halo18.com

23. Rebuild
For solid links to your old (now dead)
URLs – you’ll need to do outreach to get
them changed to your new URL.
halo18.com

24. Rebuild
The alternative to moving pages would
be to find your spam links and get them
taken down… and then wait for the next
refresh/update.
halo18.com

25. Rebuild
I took one look at how much work that
would be, and promptly decided that
trying that would be reserved for the
crazy and desperate.
halo18.com

26. MORE TESTING

27. On-Going Testing
I’m currently looking into the
impacts of…
302 redirects
Canonical Tags
Alternate Home Pages
Cross-Domain 301’s
halo18.com

28. 302 Redirects
Would a 302 pass (even some) ranking
benefit without passing the penalty?
halo18.com

29. Canonical Tag
Can you pass some ranking benefit
without passing the penalty via the
Canonical Tag?
halo18.com

30. Alternate Home Pages
If my home page is torched, can I switch
my home page to be /index.php or /home/
and use a 302 or canonical from the root
of the .com to skirt the penalty?
halo18.com

31. Cross-Domain 301
If these 301’s are poison (which they
seem to be) – will that hold true if I point
to a separate domain?
halo18.com

32. Negative SEO?
If the other page is targeting the same
keywords that I was, could you use a
301 like this for negative SEO?
halo18.com

33. An “I’m Innocent!” Loophole?
If Google’s protecting against negative
SEO – can you move your content to a
new domain and rank it with the help of
a 301 from your torched domain?
halo18.com

34. I DON’T KNOW YET.
BUT, I’LL LET YOU KNOW.
SOON.

35. Ian Howells
@ianhowells
halo18.com