How To Survive Google's Unnatural Links Warnings & Avoid Over-optimisation

[JJMcClure]

Nice article on SEO Moz by Modesto Siotos and it's worth following the links in the article to some other really useful info.

How To Survive Google's Unnatural Links Warnings & Avoid Over-optimisation

The signal I'm most curious about is how Google would recognise an unnatural spread of authority links. Perhaps if the distribution was top heavy? Maybe there's a natural ratio of authority links to less authoritative links. If this becomes a popular theory, I expect an authority link % to spring into being, just like their used to be with keyword density....

[Kay]

Some good stuff in there, thanks, JJ.

I enjoyed reading this one about six changes to make (linked to from the article you mentioned), but not because I was learning anything new. It was reassuring. Some of us have been doing things that way for years. Reciprocal links? Urgh! Cruddy link filled footers? Lots of my competitors do that - we don't. So far I am liking the Penguin. Oh, and BTW, despite our AS income having been on a horrible downward trend since Panda, it's suddenly on the up-and-up again since Penguin.

I expect that just as Panda penalised some people unfairly, so will Penguin, but for me personally Penguin is a step in the right direction.

[grynge]

Wow so much I have missed out on. I have to go through the logs and see where I stand. Can't wait to see which sites got hit and which didn't. I know a couple of my small sales sites have been making sales so they must not have gotten hit and some of my AS revenue is down so I must have been hit there. Will be an interesting couple of weeks catching up to what has gone on lol

[Clinton]

There was a PR update the other day as well (though nobody seems to have mentioned it anywhere here on any thread).

[succor]

Just FYI; I concentrate my efforts on on-site SEO. It is the only thing I have total control over. I use good techniques and, like Kay, none of those six things from the article surprised me. External link building is something I need to learn more about; most of the techniques I've read about seem kinda dodgy to me.

I read the article as well as the linked articles. I did some google searches looking for more information on things I didn't fully understand. I am still a little confused about the following.

A. Excessive Link Acquisition Check
Acquiring a high number of links over a short period of time has never been a good practice and webmasters need to keep an eye on the levels of acquired links, especially these days that negative SEO seems to become more of an issue.

D. How To Check For Unnatural Link Authority Spread
Another area where overoptimisation can occur is when backlinks are consistently gained from authoritative domains.

Assumptions:

• When they are talking about "a high number of links over a short period" in A. that include the links from "authoritative domains" in D.
• They are two different measurements though; one is for the total number of links and one is for the percentage of those links that are authoritative links.
• The penalty appears to be for a spike in getting the links, ie. a large amount of links in a short period of time.

Questions:

• 1. I'm not sure what a large amount of links is nor do I know what a short period of time is. Does anyone have any ballpark figures that I might find helpful?
  • a. Are we talking about 10's in x amount of time, 100's in x amount of time, 1000's in x amount of time, or more than that?
  • b. Is the time-frame in hours, days, weeks, or something else?
• 2. Why not just spread the links over a longer period of time to avoid the spike? I don't think this would help with the authoritative links since it is a percentage... then again maybe it would. Now I've really flippin' confused myself! Dag nab it!

Thanks for the assistance.

[JJMcClure]

Questions:

• 1. I'm not sure what a large amount of links is nor do I know what a short period of time is. Does anyone have any ballpark figures that I might find helpful?
  • a. Are we talking about 10's in x amount of time, 100's in x amount of time, 1000's in x amount of time, or more than that?
  • b. Is the time-frame in hours, days, weeks, or something else?
• 2. Why not just spread the links over a longer period of time to avoid the spike? I don't think this would help with the authoritative links since it is a percentage... then again maybe it would. Now I've really flippin' confused myself! Dag nab it!

Nothing about the speed of link acquisition being a spamming signal makes any sense to me. It means I can bomb your site and get you penalised and it doesn't take into account the fact that there are perfectly credible reasons why a site might gain links fast, for example if something goes viral, or it it's news related and time critical. Now news sites and blogs risk penalties if they post something that lots of people link to in a short time?

It's not logical.

[succor]

Nothing about the speed of link acquisition being a spamming signal makes any sense to me. It means I can bomb your site and get you penalised and it doesn't take into account the fact that there are perfectly credible reasons why a site might gain links fast, for example if something goes viral, or it it's news related and time critical. Now news sites and blogs risk penalties if they post something that lots of people link to in a short time?

It's not logical.

Thank you for the reply. I agree that it doesn't make any sense. One or two of the links mention negative SEO and some of my search results also imply that it is possible to get someone else's site penalized. I hadn't thought about the legitimate examples you provide for a spike happening. Yes, from what I read, it appears they will be penalized.

While I agree with you and I appreciate the response, it doesn't answer my questions; the only reason I bring this up is because you quoted my questions. Anybody else want to take a stab at it?

[JJMcClure]

While I agree with you and I appreciate the response, it doesn't answer my questions; the only reason I bring this up is because you quoted my questions. Anybody else want to take a stab at it?

No one knows the numbers but I'm sure some people will do a 'keyword density myth' on this too and come up with arbitrary numbers for it. I'd assume that if I bomb your site with a million spammy links that might be enough

The best rule of thumb is that if it looks unnatural, it'll trip a filter, or it should do but they do miss stuff. What looks unnatural for one site won't for another so I don't even think this is about numbers, it's about fitting spammy looking profiles and that will vary from site to site.

[succor]

No one knows the numbers but I'm sure some people will do a 'keyword density myth' on this too and come up with arbitrary numbers for it. I'd assume that if I bomb your site with a million spammy links that might be enough

The best rule of thumb is that if it looks unnatural, it'll trip a filter, or it should do but they do miss stuff. What looks unnatural for one site won't for another so I don't even think this is about numbers, it's about fitting spammy looking profiles and that will vary from site to site.

Yea, I was afraid the numbers questions answers would be just a bunch of guesses.

Your explanation about the unnatural helps and it actually makes sense. Sometimes when I read I get information overload and things don't click so to speak. Because of your answer several things I have read are starting to make more sense. Thanks.