Comments on: Why So Many Suffered from Google Penguin Update + How to Recover

By: Brad Dalton

Brad Dalton — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 04:47:00 +0000

I’ve linked dozens of pages internally using the same anchor text for backup WordPress as these posts contain php tutorials. Google has penalized me for this because i have a warning on each of these posts to backup before editing php files. Google is using the shotgun method and wiping out quality content because their algorithm is poor quality. The reason they keep on changing it is because they cannot get it right. Because the people who write the algorithm are poor quality

By: Rick Noel

Rick Noel — Sun, 12 Aug 2012 04:46:06 +0000

Solid advice Barrie on how to recover from the Google Penguin update. I love the penguin graphic too, how appropriate! As many have learned the hard way, the wrong kind of SEO can be catastrophic, just asked those penalized by Panda and Penguin. Record numbers of websites were negatively affective by “unnatural links.” Few impacted have fully recovered based on talking with impacted businesses. Without unique quality content that fills an information need and adds values to readers, its very difficult, nearly impossible to get natural, inbound links. Your suggestions on how to recover from the Penguin are right on in our experience. Thanks for sharing.

By: Marie Wiese

Marie Wiese — Sat, 11 Aug 2012 14:42:38 +0000

Barrie,
This is a great post. Thank you for writing it. Many of our clients are small business owners that understand they need their sites to be found but don’t understand the in’s and out’s and complexity of Google. You have summed it up really well here in a way that will make this content easy to share with my clients – thank you.

By: Christopher Skyi

Christopher Skyi — Sat, 11 Aug 2012 05:11:24 +0000

“Scale down Internal Links – A problem we found with one of our client’s sites was the number of links in their drop down menu which was in the header of every page”

Probably the problem with “bed” internal links is the same problem Google has with external links: linking with the same ‘money’ keyword over and over and probably not even linking to highly relevant pages for that keyword.

However, having a horizontal nav. bar at the top of your site with drop down submenu items to your main pages is good usability, i.e., you want site user have have access to your main navigation no matter what page they’re on. The last thing you want is people getting lost on your site trying to find their way back to some page or area. A horizontal (or vertical sidebar) with the same links to the same pages on every page helps the user (just search for “best practice website navigation site:.edu” to see current thinking and research about this, thinking and research Google is well aware of). I doubt Google would frown on that.

By: Gareth Parkin

Gareth Parkin — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 20:43:09 +0000

This is inded an exceptionally well written post and informative one about the recent changes in Google which we all now have to revisit our previous strategies and adjust them accordingly. I would just like to point out one fact and that is in fairness to all those guys out there who are getting castegated for how they used to go about seo, they were simply playing by the rules as they existed. It was not their fault that Google allowed this to happen, if they had played the totally ‘white hat’ card I would say that their clients would have been shooting them down saying our competitors are kicking our butts so what are you going to do about it. So I do not think that all is necessarily black and white so to speak. The goal posts have changed and we all have to react to that, the top seo guys will recognise that and change their strategy accordingly the others will fall by the wayside.