Revoked! A Case Study of Successful Penalty Removal

@jennyhalasz

Who Am I?

@jennyhalasz

Experienced.

14 years in search Columnist for Search Engine Land Instructor for ASPE Speaker – SMX, SES, Internet Summit… Agency, in-house, consultant

Have removed over 100 Google penalties

@jennyhalasz

Ethical.

@jennyhalasz

Elemental.

@jennyhalasz

If Google were a dragon…

@jennyhalasz

Case Study: So you’ll listen to what’s next

This was our message:

@jennyhalasz

So Where’s the Penalty?

Deeper inspection showed: Brand term traffic improved Non-brand term traffic dropped Non-brand positioning dropped

@jennyhalasz

What Next?

Review links Remove directory submissions Remove article submissions Remove paid links Beg for nofollows Beg for removals Send a gazillion emails with no response Submit disavow files Submit reconsideration requests Get rejected Repeat Repeat Repeat Repeat Repeat Repeat

@jennyhalasz

Clearly, this wasn’t working!

1,000 to 2,000 new links a month Traffic unaffected, but brand losing share Competitors taking over top spots Industry growing significantly

@jennyhalasz

Plan of Attack

Review links for patterns: Many pointing to /index2 Very unrelated sites:

Postpartum stress Landmine victims Non local fire stations

Most of these were nofollow

@jennyhalasz

Affiliates Out of Control

We learned 3 key things: 302 redirects don’t stop PageRank When calculating penalties, sometimes

nofollows count Black hat is a dirty business

@jennyhalasz

Cleaning House

Updated affiliate program to: Require nofollows Not allow the brand name to be used as a

paid link Allow the client to kick affiliates out for

black hat behavior Contacted top affiliates

Had heart to heart Got many links removed Set all links to /index2

@jennyhalasz

The Custom 404

Set /index2 as a copy of the home page Had it return a 404 response 301’d all other links to it

@jennyhalasz

Reconsideration and REVOKED

31.8% increase in traffic post penalty

@jennyhalasz

Other Great Results

2,000 extra daily visits 50%+ new visitors Rankings for key terms up 20+ positions Approximately $10K more in daily

revenue (avg conversion rate of 8%, avg order value $65)

bitly.com/bundles/jennyhalasz/1

@jennyhalasz

So – will you listen?

@jennyhalasz

Step 1: Download all Links

As many as you can! Google Webmaster Tools Bing Webmaster Tools Majestic SEO aHrefs Open Site Explorer (Moz)

@jennyhalasz

Step 2: Gather Data

Look for Patterns: Anchor text Follow/nofollow ratio Site wide links

Find out what’s been done: Reports from other SEOs Paid links (check credit card/paypal

statements)

@jennyhalasz

Step 3: Consolidate, DeduplicateDump it all in Excel Download the free template: bitly.com/bundles/

jennyhalasz/1 Make your first two columns:

Domain URL

Copy (don’t cut) the URL into the first column, find/replace for: http:// https:// www. (don’t forget the dot) /* (this will remove everything after the only remaining

slash

@jennyhalasz

Step 4: Eliminate

Use Screaming Frog, put this in the custom configuration as “includes”:<a.{0,100}href=.{0,100}?site\.com(.{0,100}?)(nofollow)<a.{0,100}(nofollow).{0,100}href=.{0,100}?site\.com(.{0,100}?)

Collect info on server response, eliminate: 5xx 4xx (except 403)

@jennyhalasz

Step 5: Review

Sorry, there’s no trick to this. You have to do it. Manually.

@jennyhalasz

Step 6: Contact

Find email addresses: On Site On whois.net or other registrar website Use contact forms

Don’t use an email you want to keep Be nice

“Google penalized us” “No reflection on your website” “Appreciate your time”

@jennyhalasz

Step 7: Recontact and Record Sorry again. Allow at least 1 week between contacts Record it all – every email you send,

every response you receive. Google’s watching you.

Contact 3 times unless email bounces or reply is negative.

DO NOT PAY ANYONE ANYTHING!

@jennyhalasz

Step 8: Update Spreadsheet

Use a Google Drive spreadsheet Categorize everything Make sure it all pastes in (warning) Share it: “anyone who has the link can

view”

@jennyhalasz

Step 9: Update Disavow File

Text document Full domains, not individual pages De-duplicate it Format as “domain:site.com” – no

spaces, no www. Upload and make sure there are no

errors Re-upload until it’s right (no penalty for

wrong tries)

@jennyhalasz

Step 10: Reconsideration Request BE HONEST: What did you do wrong? History of the situation:

When did you receive your manual action? What was it for?

What are you doing to address it? Link to your Google spreadsheet

How can we be sure you won’t do it again? Tell Google you know you broke the rules You won’t do it again Specific measures you’ve put in place

Ask to be reconsidered. Thank the reviewer.

@jennyhalasz

The Outcome

You may be rejected.Try, try again.Eventually, you will succeed.

But be honest. If you’re not really trying, Google knows.

@jennyhalasz

May You Live to Rule Another Day!

Jenny Halaszwww.jlh-marketing.com

@jennyhalasz

That link was: bitly.com/bundles/jennyhalasz/1