Forum Moderators: martinibuster
I was recently chatting to a client webmaster of a site we had done some work on last year and I could do with some advise on a specific link building issue he has to pass on if anyone has any ideas.
The problem is that his specific site was featuring in the top 20 of Google for the sites main search term “Blue Widgets”. (It’s a very nice site by the way) In order to increase traffic to his business he had got some of his staff members to submit the site to a number of directory type sites and similar they had found – The title tags being “Blue Widgets”, “Widgets blue” “widgets of Blue” etc etc etc – You get the picture..
The net result of this action meant that they had self created a very high number of low quality type “similar anchor text” links to the site in a short period and in doing so it looks like a case of “Google Bowling”. I.e. they bowled themselves out of the serps by acquiring too many low quality links to fast or certainly at least an unnatural link pattern was self created. The site now is in the index but doesn’t feature.
They obviously want to get out of this mess and back to where they were before and are looking for ideas.
The only advice I could give was to say they would have to simply “wait it out” the site hasn’t been grey barred or removed or anything it just doesn’t rank for its primary keywords.
Outside of this im wondering if it could help if they could attract some natural quality links? – Could this restore the balance for them? Or is it a case that once the penalty is triggered you have to serve your time in the Google prison no matter what until they decide to release you?.
Any one have experience of this? Thanks in advance
Cheers
Rich
Indeed, Matt Cutts is on record warning against rampant link dropping, as getting those links removed can be difficult.
But the priority is to check outgoing links, especially to cr*p directories (and any other reciprocal links) - clean up the site 100% and see if that helps.
While reciprocal links are not necessarily all bad, in the context you describe, the risk is simply too great - remove them all.
If there's any link problem, bad neighborhood or whatever, the number one priority is "Don't Link To It" - so be sure ALL your links are clean and trusted and non-recip.
Does google frown upon this for even sites with decent PR?
