Google penalty for aggressive link building - how to recover?

[tshirtdeal]

Ok, I have decided that my newer site (1 year old) has been given a tough penalty from the big "G" at first I thought it was an algo...

anyway, I figure I went to aggressive on a page I was trying to get to rank with an off page linking to it in to agressive a manner...

- I spent a few months on one keyword trying to build links and did not really change anchor text to much -

well, lesson learned I guess, I just got a bit obcessed on how quick I could try and get a site up and a high demand keyword to rank well, (all part of trying to figure this SEO stuff out)

I took what seems to be something like a -30 penatly as the homepage went to page one back to about page 4 to 6 and stays around there...

The keyword page I tryied to get to do good (not the homepage) dropped off the map....

Looking at Google webmaster it appears that that page has like 2000 external links, (I have NO IDEA how it got that many links at all, i figured I got about 40 to 50 while trying to build links to it) while most of my other pages have like 10 to 50 with a few having about one hundred....

any advice on how to recover from this the best way? Will this last forever? Or in time can it work out? Should I just add content for now and not worry about linking at all?

Did I completly kill this site for Google or is this a slap that may be able to recover?

Thanks for any help!

[tshirtdeal]

I should mention, pages remain indexed and no page rank drop...the ranking drop occured about two weeks ago...

Any help is much appreciated on how to recover the best from this problem....

My fault for getting pushy though...

[idolw]

just work on your site and keep getting links.
or build a new site and wait for the oldie to recover. if it really recovers you should end up with 2 sites :-)

[soxos]

I don't think this will be a manual penalty.
Check out the thread on -30

What you need is a few high trust links going direct to the problem page using the same link text that you thought was spammy. Meanwhile change the title so it contains just 1 keyword (not the phrase) and 5 other decriptors, not your keywords. Then wait...

[internetheaven]

Excatly how many links per month are you classing as "agressive"?

Mike

[tshirtdeal]

Thanks for the help

can you explain a bit more what you mean by this "change the title so it contains just 1 keyword (not the phrase) and 5 other decriptors"

The thing is I spent three months focusing on one keyword (not changing the anchor, my links just had the keyword, which is a broad big keyword ( such as widgets not blue widgets in Ohio)

the thing is, I do not get a ton of links when I try, but I do get decent ones when I do...I was in my head at like 30 to 40 links for the page, somehow Google webmaster shows over 2000 backlinks to that page?

I have no clue how that occured, but this must have triggered a filter because this is a more new site and no other page has even close to that, except my homepage which has many links...put homepages usually do and this site is on par with other....

How the heck did this one inner page end up with over 2000 links? I did get it on the first page of Google for a while before it was just knocked out...could first page just create a ton of attention and natural backlinks like this?

Oh, what does "MANUAL PENALTY" mean....I guess you mean it was filtered by algo and not a human edited penatly?

Thanks for any help!

[Hissingsid]

Hi,

Have you looked closely at where your 2000 backlinks are coming from?

Cheers

Sid

[tshirtdeal]

I have to look a bit better tonight, I just noticed it last night and took a brief over look...

I do article distribution and it looks like many from article sites from first glance...

many links from same domains as well...

wierd...

Think someone could of done some sort of Google bomb on me to knock me out?

[tshirtdeal]

OK, after looking at the 2000 plus external links showing up in Google webmaster,

These are mainly all coming from 4 related and themed blogs in which I wrote some content for them in exchange for a link...

They placed the links in blog roll or sitewide area which is providing me a link to every URL of their blog, so the overwhelming majority of these 2000 links are from 4 blogs and Google is showing them as a link on every single domain they have...

Could this cause a problem?

Also a couple of them are in an area that looks like paid link adverttising, I have never paid for a link in my life as I simply never have the budget for the prices people want and i am a solo lone man grass roots SEO guy.....

do you think that Google just assumed I paid for these links? or someone reported me for paying for them?

If anyone thinks these 4 blogs that are giving me all these links are the problem please let me know and advice on how to remedy the problem is very appreciated!

[Hissingsid]

The new algo could simply be filtering them out or not giving you any credit for them which could easily cause a drop of 30 without any "penalty" as such.

Who knows what the real answer to your problem is. I guess you will need to wait until you think, what the heck I might as well do something. If you get to that point you could try asking the blog owners to remove your site wide links and put the odd one or two in the articles that you wrote so they look more natural.

Do you give the blogs links?

Might be worth experimenting with removing those.

I wouldn't recommend experimenting unless you think you have little to lose. It might all go right on its own.

Cheers

Sid

[soxos]

If the 2000 links are from just 4 blogs, then I would go as far to say its probably not a penalty at all, and as is mentioned above just a devaluing of these links.

Re link text -v- title text ###SPAM ALERT###
My take on this is if the majority of your links contain your keywords then try to make sure your title does not contain the exact keyword phrase.

Eg, if most of you links contain "small red widgets" and that phrase is found on the page, then try just having "small maroon - shipped in 24 hours" as your title.

But in light of the fact the 2000 links are coming from just 4 blogs im not sure if its even worth trying to deoptimise you titles away from your link text.

Sorry mate, if I was you I would spend my time getting some high trust links.

PS. Manual Penalties / Human Edited are not nice, and much harder to recover from. Algo penalties, whilst frustrating, and sometimes unclear, usually have no long term effects once you are rid of it.

[mirrornl]

thx Soxos,

I have the same problems for some of my sites

I removed problem keywords from titles of 4 websites

we'll wait and see

[tshirtdeal]

Thanks guys for the help... I am just lost on this one...

I just wish I Knew if I took a penalty or not...guess it is part of the learning process and it has me thinking, thats for sure...

Part of me thinks now it is not a penatly but rather part of the algo change which re evaluted my site as getting there to fast and just really deappreciating my value , perhaps I can recover by slowing down...

but again, part of me just thinks I really over optimized links to one page and it got filtered and a penalty...

my plan of attack is to add all new updated content to my pages and de optimize them a bit and give them more of a review personal touch...

then in a month do a article for them and distribute it with different anchor with vague keywords related...

then try to get a few solid one way links with different anchor text....then sit back till I see "G" traffic come back a bit and go back onto the site more...

Honestly after taking this hit and thining about it...from now on when this happens I am going to sit back HARD on the site and just add content once a week until I see it getting back, and focus my main attention on other sites that do not have the problem....

[vetofunk]

I am in the same boat as you. I actually have a thread on here about the same exact problem. Your problem is like exactly what I have, except those quick 2000 links I found were from two directories, not blogs. I was able to get my link removed from one of the directories, just waiting on the other.

Check out my thread:
[webmasterworld.com...]

[tshirtdeal]

As I posted, it seems I took an algo pentaly of some sort...ranking dropped off Google and homepage went from 1 to 6-7 area...

One month later I have lost 90% of traffic from Google....

any ideas on what to do? I feel I was to aggressive with linking for one page over the course of a few months...

Not really sure if this is exactly why, but it is the only thing I personally could have done wrong....

can I recover from this or is my site dead for good with Google?

[edited by: tedster at 8:14 am (utc) on May 31, 2008]

[ecmedia]

Here is what you can do.
1. Do not give up on G -- your business will be dead.
2. Keep working on your site as if nothing happened. Build links, add content, etc. You could even keep linking to the page with the exact keyword. If my page is about "pink widgets for young moms" I see no reason to name it otherwise.
3. You will recover in 30,60, or 90 days (experience of some of my friends but there is no guarantee) and you will get credit for all the link building, provided you were not doing anything else fishy.

[tshirtdeal]

Thanks Ecmedia!

That is what I feel in my head...I was going to just continue doing things the way I was...I am pretty white hat, just got carried away tryng to get one keyword going....

I learned my lesson...

You really feel it could recover in a couple months though?

Thanks for the help!