This document provides advice on how to identify and manage risky links to avoid penalties from Google. It discusses:
1. How Google's Penguin algorithm targets unnatural or low-quality links and has penalized many sites over time.
2. The types of links that carry more risk, such as sitewide links, links with suspicious anchor text, or links from sites with poor metrics.
3. Steps to audit existing links and identify risky ones, including looking at anchor text distribution, link metrics, and site activity, to determine which links to potentially remove or disavow.
4. Tips for recovering from penalties, such as thorough link cleanups, removal or disavowal of
16. Google have sent a
number of waves of
unnatural link
warnings
There is now a
much more formal
procedure to get
the penalty
removed
They are still
sending them
29. YOU HAVE TO MANAGE
EACH ONE
EVERY LINK HAS RISK
30. Validate every link opportunity
Only buy link building services if
the company can demonstrate
that they know what risk is and
how they handle it
Be realistic in your link risk
exposure
32. We needed to try understand what the link
risk was of every link we had placed or
were going to place
33. Google have
hidden what
they consider a
bad link well
To rank you have
to build, but you
have to manage
the risk far more
34. MANAGING THE RISK OF
LINK BUILDING
1. 2. 3.
Have someone
audit your links
with experience
Audit what you
have
Determine what is
risky and what to
remove
35. Removing is almost as bad as not
removing
If you determine what the problem
links are, out of every 100 links you
identify as bad Google probably
only thinks 20 are bad
Removing all 100 is as bad for
your rankings as getting penalised
in some cases
41. What makes a link
problematic?
Reason for
the site
Commercial
Anchors again
and again
Poor link metrics
(Majestic / Moz / PR)
No Social Activity
on a site (Twitter /
Facebook)
Banned
Words
Links to bad
places
No interaction
on the site
Wrong
CCltd