Not a pleasant concept and folks the world over are feeling the pain and pressure it is inflicting with its current activities. To be honest it is doing so much at present that you’d almost be pushed to try and fathom out where to start, what to take notice of first?
Well the subject I want to discuss today is that of the current so called “Over optimisation” slap that currently appears to be doing the rounds either brought about by or part of the current war against High Page Rank Networks.
The latest casualty appears to be Build My Rank hard on the heels of Authority Link Network and a whole host of others. At the same time Google appear to be firing the starting shots against some of the major Press Release Agencies who supply (for a fee disguised as an upgrade / premium fee) dofollow links in their Press Releases. The most notable name that has appeared here is PRWeb.com.
As well as de indexing and downgrading sites that have getting links form these networks there also appears to be a huge increase in the so called “Google Re indexing Request”. Now this is where via Webmaster Tools, Google kindly informs the recipient that they have been guilty of dubious linking building practices and are going to be de-indexed but that they will be eligible for re indexing if they clean their act up and stop these nefarious activities etc.
Now I know that this is a gross over simplification of the issue but sometimes it is best to strip these down to the basics and then try and work your way up from there.
Firstly in a lot of cases this is long overdue and I am surprised it has taken so long to happen as some of these Networks were extremely over the top in the way they promoted themselves and what membership of these networks would achieve.
After all consider the following. Why would Google continually allow such networks to prosper when their main aim is to undermine what Google is about?
Consider the way that most have continued to go about their activities:
“Join us and with our help we’ll make sure that you get No 1 slots guaranteed in Google despite their updates!” etc etc.
Answer from Google? “No you’re not and we’re going to de index you and punish all the folks who have had anything to do with you”
Going back to my gorilla analogy, it’s like sitting next to the aforementioned big hairy fella, continually poking him with a stick and then wondering why he has just picked up an even bigger stick and hit you with it?
So what is there to do and what advice can be given?
Well strangely the first thing to do is sit tight. Do nothing, don’t reply to any so called Google Messages as I have a sneaky feeling these are auto generated (well really Steve? That’s a surprise) and that they are just “shaking the tree” as we say over here in Northern Ireland and waiting to see who runs for cover and who falls out?
Don’t give them the pleasure but sit tight, watch and wait.
If you have a site that has been de-indexed or downgraded then go back and re-evaluate what you’ve been doing and what your involvement in any of the above High Page Rank Networks was.
Take this information and effectively reverse engineer it i.e. if you’ve only been targeting certain terms or anchor topics then widen your target base “as of yesterday”
Also consider your Anchor Link Density ratio and then expand upon that.
“Throw some dust up” and get some activity and signs of life surrounding your site and Google will have to re visit the site. Get fresh links but from different sources and don’t get beaten out of shape over Page Rank. It’s a busted flush, gone and not worth worrying over.
Nice if you have it but don’t lose any sleep if you haven’t.
Google are slowly pulling out of Page Rank anyway so why bother with it in the long term (the subject of another webinar basically but we’ll cover it in some detail in our next one).
Remember, Google wants to see a Back Links Landscape that as closely approximates a human powered one as possible. So if all Google sees on its occasional check is about 600 links all of which are coming from only PR4 sites and above, all on the same anchor subject and all from a limited number of IP’s then it is going to look very gerrymandered and false.
That’s why we’ve been “banging on about” these Wikis for the past few weeks. They are the perfect tool in your armoury for generating large numbers of any sort of links you want from 16,000 different IP’s. For literally a pittance you can create large numbers of sacrificial links that otherwise would be too expensive to procure or set up and then you can widen your back links base to as large a spread as you need.
For diluting a heavy links concentration they are perfect. They are also extremely useful in other areas and anecdotally we are in receipt of a number of case studies where they have been shown to have positively impacted upon increases in SERPS.
Now in case folks think that we’re ignoring what is going on at present and trying to pretend that nothing is amiss, we’re not. We’re just as anxious as the rest over what is going on but we’re anxious perhaps in a slightly more laid back manner.
Those of you who know me fairly well with confirm that my view on Google is that I listen to everything it says, don’t believe a word of what it says and trust it about as far as I can throw it.
I intensely dislike what it does and how it conducts itself, the breath taking hypocrisy that it comes out with time after time but sadly it is a fact of life we have to deal with it and live with it.
