It is still too early to tell what the full effects of the latest Google Penguin 3.0 update are, but it is clear from conversations with SEO consultants in the UK and US that use we share information with that this update has effected the SEO companies that offer poor services that are designed to be cheap and also companies that have not taken notice of the changes being rolled out in the last 6 months.

Our Penguin 3.0 Update Information

From what we are understanding negative SEO is now clearly a problem and Matt Cutt’s has said that this roll out took longer to be released due to the negative SEO problem. It is also clear that Google are being clear that the Google Disavow Tool should be used and from what we have seen and heard the negative feelings towards this being a witch hunt are now being cleared up and the actual result is Google are providing a solution to negative SEO.

Using the Google Disavow Tool

If your website has dropped in the last 12 months and you have not known what to do, contact Chameleon for a backlink report and to understand how to use the Google Disavow Tool to inform Google that the bad backlinks that are pointing to your website are not as a result of actual SEO and rather a competitor doing this negative SEO activity to harm your rankings.

Once you have your list of bad links then go here:- https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/disavow-links-main

For more information about this tool there is a Google help page:- https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2648487?hl=en

If you get stuck please ask a Chameleon SEO Consultant who can help.

Penguin 3.0 Information

One of the first things we have noticed is that competitors sites we monitor that have dropped since the update have a high number of exact match anchor text and we believe that this makes the domain profile to now be in what is called an “Exact Match Optimisation Penalty”.

On further investigation it is clear that anchor text percentages are playing an important role in the new algorithm and duplicate linking content may now be being picked up causing a ranking penalty.

Forum profiles are a clear negative and this is something that is clear in the majority of updates over the last two years.

Building links from social media sites is not seeming to be adding any benefits and sites that are hitting YouTube as a way to gain links are being effected by the latest update. The same can be said for social bookmarks and constantly posting on social sites to link back to the money site.

Also sites that are creating new content everyday that is simply padding a site in size and not adding any real value to the Internet or user is also now a worthless exercise.

What Should We Be Doing Post Penguin 3.0

If your website has dropped since the Penguin 3.0 update then simply trying to add lots of new links and content will not help your website to rank again. You need to STOP and look at what it is you are doing online and why Google do not like it.

Ask yourself a question “does this content add value to a user” and if it doesn’t then do not do it. The Internet was growing a ridiculous rate before Google changed the goal posts and now a lot of SEO companies have had to revaluate their processes. Millions of website’s were being registered and worthless content being added to pages using automated systems making Google’s job much more difficult and this simply had to stop and it is for this very reason that Google did so many changes over the last couple of years and as result this unneeded growth has slowed down.

So going forward your SEO techniques should be adding value to the Internet:-

• Make sure your website is Google Friendly
• Ensure you have everything laid out correctly following the coding guidelines Google recommend
• Block search engine spiders from trawling everything on your site – make the Google spiders job easier and quicker
• Ensure your content is being delivered on your site in a way that the target audience needs it to be and search engine spiders can identify what is it correctly
• Create video’s explaining what it is your website is doing and why
• Use Social media to inform people about your website and the products and services making it easier to find things
• Ensure you are mobile ready and think about the information you are using, is this mobile friendly?
• Check your hosting, is it quick enough for your website requirements?
• Does your website need the code optimising to ensure it loads fast
• Use the available tools to cache your website
• Clean up your link profile using the Google DISAVOW tool
• If you have over optimised anchor text using keywords pointing to your domain change them to be the domain name or brand name
• Look at the number of words on your pages, if you have a very small amount then your keywords are probably far too heavy and thus over optimised

To summarise, we are not going to pretend that if you do all the above your website will rank in the latest Google Algorithm and go to number one but it is a very good starting point.

If you need help then get in touch with a Chameleon SEO Consultant.