Google guidelines on launching sites with multiple links post Penguin

[Whitey]

Although Google crawls billions of pages, it's inevitable that some sites will be missed. When our spiders miss a site, it's frequently for one of the following reasons:

•The site isn't well connected through multiple links from other sites on the web.
[support.google.com...]
Given the uncertainty and relative scarcity about links and linking since Penguin, what are SEO's doing for their clients to achieve multiple links and what techniques and criteria are still considered safe? What's your linking guideline checklist list looking like now? Is Page Rank and good backlinks [ amongst some bad ones ] still OK?

Thoughts?
.

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 2:13 am (utc) on Jul 1, 2013]
[edit reason] added text removed from title [/edit]

[aristotle]

It sounds like a Catch-22 situation. You're not supposed to create any backlinks to your new site, but if you don't, Google won't know it exists.

Actually, there's supposedly another way for you to get a new site indexed. You have to set up a Webmaster Tools account for it, then use Health->> "Fetch as Googlebot" to get the pages crawled for the first time. Then after a page is crawled, a "Submit to index' option appears. So by this process you can theoretically get a site indexed even if it doesn't have a single backlink.

Also, there used to be a "Submit Your Site" button at the bottom of Google's search results pages, but apparently it isn't there now. I remember naively using this button back in 2004 to submit my first site, but after i waited almost two months, Google still hadn't indexed any of its pages. I then heard about the Open Directory and submitted my site to it. It was accepted and listed within a few days, and that backlink must have led Google to it because it was indexed just a few days later. But if that old "Submit your Site" button still exists, I don't know where it's located, and it probably wouldn't work anyway. On the other hand, I don't know if the Webmaster Tools method really works either.

[mirrornl]

Also, there used to be a "Submit Your Site" button at the bottom of Google's search results pages, but apparently it isn't there now.

You still can, and it works like a dream :)

[google.com...]

[aristotle]

mirrornl - Do you mean that, using that button, you've gotten new sites indexed even when they didn't have any backlinks?

[mirrornl]

no, but a new page on a website, submitted through that link, was in the index within 10 minutes

[aristotle]

In the old days the old "Submit Your Site" button was at the bottom of all Google's search results pages. You didn't have to go through Webmaster Tools to use it. But apparently it's no longer available in that form.

At any rate, like I said earlier, it's not clear that Google will index a website that doesn't have any backlinks.

[mirrornl]

yeh, i remember those days...everything optimized for altavista, and finaally changed to G....

_{off topic... we will miss Tedster.... RIP}

[Saffron]

I thought Google discouraged link building?

How is a brand new site meant to build links without actually spamming other sites? I think Google are having a laugh at us.

[Whitey]

Matt Cutts @mattcutts 27 Jun Tweeted
Some deep wisdom here: "It's Frickin Hard to Build Links if Your Site Sucks" [goo.gl...]

Potential Client Checklist
It's Frickin' Easy to Build Great Links to Great Sites
...
When a site is truly great, building that link becomes a natural process. You find other great and authoritative sites, reach out and express the value of your website, and why their visitors would be benefited by a link from their site to yours.

No strategies, no tactics, no manipulation, no subtlety. Just straightforward honesty, with everyone happy. The client gets great links, the linking website's visitors aren't misled and provided a valuable resource, and we get to go home knowing we made the Internet a better place.

Build Links, Add Value
[searchenginewatch.com...]
Great communication here. Any more thoughts?

[treeline]

A lot of people aren't going to like this part:

Simply said, if you're going to do something, you may as well take the time to do it right. Otherwise, you'll regret it. Cutting corners never pays off in the long run, and in the end will result in more time spent with continual fixes or an entire rework.

..continual fixes/rework sounds like a popular response to Google changes...

[gadget26]

Cutting corners never pays off in the long run, and in the end will result in more time spent with continual fixes...

For a minute there I thought he was talking about Google's algorithm. (500+ changes per year.)

[diberry]

Well, with respect, I'm going to disagree a little with Matt. In 2008, what he said was absolutely true - it's how I got inlinks. But since then, social media has totally changed the way folks link, and the algo can't follow most of those links because of how Facebook and Twitter choose to function.

Even webmasters are preferring to "link out" through social media these days because of the FUD that Google might mistake a genuine editorial link out for a sold link and penalize your site. That can't happen on your Facebook page.

So now these social media links have replaced traditional links... and Googlebot can't follow about half of them. Whoops.

I'm convinced of this because in the last year or so I've begun discovering great sites through social media INSTEAD of Google - when I go search for them in Google, they just don't rank like they would have in 2008. Googlebot literally doesn't realize how these sites resound with visitors because it can't follow the buzz like they could when it was all traditional links.

I think Matt's perception is skewed because he's so focused on spam. When you look at people trying to cheat their way to rankings, it DOES look like, "Well, gosh, if they would just actually write good websites..." It's when you start noticing that certain great websites (not mine!) aren't ranking in Google like they should be, that you realize it's not working like it used to.

[EditorialGuy]

..continual fixes/rework sounds like a popular response to Google changes...

Sure, because:

1) Most people and businesses want immediate results.

2) SEO consultants get paid to optimize for search engines, not to be editors-in-chief.

[RP_Joe]

There's nothing wrong with building links, if you have quality content.

They should be natural. So, if you have a link bait page, it's only natural that some other websites will link to it. You should act as a PR agent, alerting those sites that you have this quality link bait page.
If, the quality is very good, other people will also link to those pages.
But, it's a much slower process than before. Were going back to the 1990's, when websites were built upon links. We would create a quality page, and show it to others hoping they would link to it.

So by and large, your blog posts are not going to get many links. Unless there is some remarkable content there. Which is very unusual.

We have to think entirely different. This is the biggest problem I see with most SEO people, and website owners. Their thinking has not changed. They are still thinking in terms of push marketing. We are in the era pull marketing, and Google is enforcing the rules.

It's also a very slow long-term system now. Many website owners don't like that. They want fast results. Those days are gone.

[RichH]

Just briefly going back to what aristotle and mirrornl were talking about earlier re. manually submitting to Google a site with no backlinks, I can confirm that this does indeed work. I manually submitted just such a site to both Google and Bing a few months ago. Google indexed the site in around 24 hours if I recall correctly whilst Bing required a few days. The site had no backlinks whatsoever but nevertheless appeared on page 1 of the SERPS in both Search Engines. Whilst it's been pinned firmly at number 2 on page 1 of Bing ever since, in crazy Google's SERPS, it's more like lightning, never striking the same place twice! It may appear anywhere from page 1 through 10 and sometimes beyond. I've given up trying to figure it out, it's like trying to predict Wheel of Fortune, "round and round the SERPS do go and where they stop nobody knows" :)