joi, 15 decembrie 2011

6 Ways to Recover from Bad Links

Posted: 14 Dec 2011 11:11 AM PST

It’s a story we hear too often: someone hires a bad SEO, that SEO builds a bunch of spammy links, he/she cashes their check, and then bam – penalty! Whether you got bad advice, “your friend” built those links, or you’ve got the guts to admit you did it yourself, undoing the damage isn’t easy. If you’ve sincerely repented, I’d like to offer you 6 ways to recover and hopefully get back on Google’s Nice list in time for the holidays.

This is a diagram of a theoretical situation that I’ll use throughout the post. Here’s a page that has tipped the balance and has too many bad (B) links - of course, each (B) and (G) could represent 100s or 1000s of links, and the 50/50 split is just for the visual:

Hypothetical link graph

Be Sure It’s Links

Before you do anything radical (one of these solutions is last-ditch), make sure it’s bad links that got you into trouble. Separating out a link-based penalty from a devaluation, technical issue, Panda “penalty”, etc. isn’t easy. I created a 10 minute audit a while back, but that’s only the tip of the iceberg. In most cases, Google will only devalue bad links, essentially turning down the volume knob on their ability to pass link-juice. Here are some other potential culprits:

You’ve got severe down-time or latency issues.
You’re blocking your site (Robots.txt, Meta Robots, etc.).
You’ve set up bad canonicals or redirects.
Your site has massive duplicate content.
You’ve been hacked or hit with malware.

Diagnosing these issues is beyond the scope of this post, but just make sure the links are the problem before you start taking a machete to your site. Let’s assume you’ve done your homework, though, and you know you’ve got link problems…

1. Wait It Out

In some cases, you could just wait it out. Let’s say, for example, that someone launched an SQL injection attack on multiple sites, pointing 1000s of spammy links at you. In many cases, those links will be quickly removed by webmasters, and/or Google will spot the problem. If it’s obvious the links aren’t your fault, Google will often resolve it (if not, see #5).

Even if the links are your responsibility (whether you built them or hired someone who did), links tend to devalue over time. If the problem isn’t too severe and if the penalty is algorithmic, a small percentage of bad links falling off the link graph could tip the balance back in your favor:

Link graph with bad links removed

That’s not to say that old links have no power, but just that low-value links naturally fall off the link-graph over time. For example, if someone builds a ton of spammy blog comment links to your site, those blog posts will eventually be archived and may even drop out of the index. That cuts both ways – if those links are harming you, their ability to harm will fade over time, too.

2. Cut the Links

Unfortunately, you can’t usually afford to wait. So, why not just remove the bad links?

Link graph with all bad links cut

Well, that’s the obvious solution, but there are two major, practical issues:

(a) What if you can’t?

This is the usual problem. In many cases, you won’t have control over the sites in question or won’t have login credentials (because your SEO didn’t give them to you). You could contact the webmasters, but if you’re talking about 100s of bad links, that’s just not practical. The kind of site that’s easy to spam isn’t typically the kind of site that’s going to hand remove a link, either.

(b) Which links do you cut?

If you thought (a) was annoying, there’s an even bigger problem. What if some of those bad links are actually helping you? Google penalizes links based on patterns, in most cases, and it’s the behavior as a whole that got you into trouble. That doesn’t mean that every spammy link is hurting you. Unfortunately, separating the bad from the merely suspicious is incredibly tough.

For the rest of this post, let’s assume that you’re primarily dealing with (a) – you have a pretty good idea which links are the worst offenders, but you just can’t get access to remove them. Sadly, there’s no way to surgically remove the link from the receiving end (this is actually a bit of an obsession of mine), but you do have a couple of options.

3. Cut the Page

If the links are all (or mostly) targeted at deep, low-value pages, you could pull a disappearing act:

Link graph with page removed

In most cases, you’ll need to remove the page completely (and return a 404). This can neuter the links at the target. In some cases, if the penalty isn’t too severe, you may be able to 301-redirect the page to another, relevant page and shake the bad links loose.

If all of your bad links are hitting a deep page, count yourself lucky. In most cases, the majority of bad links are targeted at a site's home-page (like the majority of any links), so the situation gets a bit uglier.

4. Build Good Links

In some sense, this is the active version of #2. Instead of waiting for bad links to fade, build up more good links to tip the balance back in your favor:

Link graph with good links added

By “good”, I mean relevant, high-authority links – if your link profile is borderline, focus on quality over quantity for a while. Rand has a great post on link valuation that I highly recommend - it’s not nearly as simple as we sometimes try to make it.

This approach is for cases where you may be on the border of a penalty or the penalty isn’t very severe. Fair warning: it will take time. If you can’t afford that time, have been hit hard, or suspect a manual penalty, you may have to resort to one of the next two options…

5. Appeal to Google

If you’ve done your best to address the bad links, but either hit a wall or don’t see your rankings improve, you may have to appeal to Google directly. Specifically, this means filing a reconsideration request through Google Webmaster Tools. Rhea at Outspoken had an excellent post recently on how to file for reconsideration, but a couple of key points:

Be honest, specific and detailed.
Show that you’ve made an effort.
Act like you mean it (better yet: mean it).

If Google determines that your situation is relevant for reconsideration (a process which is probably semi-automated), then it’s going to fall into the hands of a Google employee. They have to review 1000s of these requests, so if you rant, provide no details, or don’t do your homework, they’ll toss your request and move on. No matter how wronged you may feel, suck it up and play nice.

6. Find a New Home

If all else fails, and you’ve really burned your home to the ground and salted the earth around it, you may have to move:

Link graph with site moved

Of course, you could just buy a new domain, move the site, and start over, but then you’ll lose all of your inbound links and off-page ranking factors, at least until you can rebuild some of them. The other option is to 301-redirect to a new domain. It’s not risk-free, but in many cases a site-to-site redirect does seem to neuter bad links. Of course, it will very likely also devalue some of your good links.

I’d recommend the 301-redirect if the bad links are old and spammy. In other words, if you engaged in low-value tactics in the past but have moved on, a 301 to a new domain may very well lift the penalty. If you’ve got a ton of paid links or you’ve obviously built an active link farm (that’s still in play), you may find the penalty comes back and all your efforts were pointless.

A Modest Proposal

I’d like to end this by making a suggestion to Google. Sometimes, people inherit a bad situation (like a former SEO’s black-hat tactics) or are targeted with bad links maliciously. Currently, there is no mechanism to remove a link from the target side. If you point a link at me, I can’t say: “No, I don’t want it.” Search engines understand this and adjust for it to a point, but I really believe that there should be an equivalent of nofollow for the receiving end of a link.

Of course, a link-based attribute is impossible from the receiving end, and a page-based directive (like Meta Robots) is probably impractical. My proposal is to create a new Robots.txt directive called “Disconnect”. I imagine it looking something like this:

Disconnect: www.badsite.com

Essentially, this would tell search engines to block any links to the target site coming from “www.badsite.com” and not consider them as part of the link-graph. I’d also recommend a wild-card version to cover all sub-domains:

Disconnect: *.badsite.com

Is this computationally possible, given the way Google and Bing process the link-graph? I honestly don’t know. I believe, though, that the Robots.txt level would probably be the easiest to implement and would cover most cases I’ve encountered.

While I recognize that Google and Bing treat bad links with wide latitude and recognize that site owners can’t fully control incoming links, I’ve seen too many cases at this point of people who have been harmed by links they don’t have control over (sometimes, through no fault of their own). If links are going to continue to be the primary currency of ranking (and that is debatable), then I think it’s time the search engines gave us a way to cut links from both ends.

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Introducing SEOmoz Custom, Automated PDF Reports!

Posted: 14 Dec 2011 03:57 AM PST

Posted by Miranda.Rensch

What’s more tasty than hot buttered nog, more cheery than an elf’s wide smile, and more efficient than hiring a tipsy, giggling elf to do your reporting? Custom, automated PDF reports, of course!

The Moz team is excited to announce our newest addition to PRO. This is one of our most requested features, and we’ve been working tremendously hard for several months to deliver what you need for reporting. This has proved to be a complicated task since it integrates many of our different data sources and has quite a few customization options. We can’t wait for you to try out this new reporting section!

How to use custom PDF reports

The new custom PDF reporting feature allows you to create a customized PDF report using SEOmoz PRO data. These reports can be set up to send to you and other people you specify each week, month, or quarter. You can also add notes and create different versions of the report with different sets of data, allowing you to customize the information for the right audience.

Let me walk you through the new feature.

Create a Custom PDF Report

To access custom reports, log in to your PRO account, select a campaign, and click 'Reports' next to 'Social.'

where to find reports

In the ‘Add New Report’ section, you can give your report a title, which is added to the report. You can also give it a description, which is just for you to keep track of your report and won’t be displayed on the report itself. Next, choose how frequently you want your reports to run. Weekly reports will show changes from week to week, while the other options will show changes month over month and quarter over quarter. You can have reports sent to your account email and can also choose to have them sent to alternate email addresses.

custom reporting options

Next you can begin to build your report. There are five types of information you can add to the report: rankings, crawl diagnostics, on-page, link analysis, and traffic data. We’re working to add social to the report options in the next few months.

custom SEO reporting sections

When you expand a section (like rankings), you can check the sub-sections in order to include them in your report. When you check a sub-section, you’ll have the ability to change the title and description of that section to be printed on the report, add notes, and choose from a few other options. For example, you can choose how many keyword rankings improved to show and for which engine.

add rankings section to custom report

You can also view an example of how that subsection would look inside the report so you can decide if you’d like to include it or not. The information shown in the example is just sample data and doesn’t reflect your actual campaign information.

View example of report section

Once you’ve chosen which sections and subsections to add, click ‘Create Report.'

create custom PDF report

Yay! You created a report! When the report is completed, it will be emailed to you (if you kept that option selected). Weekly reports are sent the day after your rankings are collected each week. Monthly reports are sent by the 2nd of each calendar month. Quarterly reports are sent the first week of each quarter in January, April, July, and October.

Manage Reports

You can see all the reports you’ve created in the ‘Manage Reports’ section.

Manage custom reports

Here you can also edit or delete a report; find and download reports from previous weeks, months, and quarters; and download the latest version.

We love feedback!

We hope you enjoy these new custom reports! Please let us know if you have any feedback, feature requests, or experience anything unexpected. You can leave feedback in a comment to this post, or email help@seomoz.org. Also, the feature request forum is a great place to see what other people are requesting, and let people vote on a feature you suggest.

Happy reporting!!

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The final march out of Iraq

Good afternoon,

After nearly nine years, our war in Iraq is ending.

In recent days, many of our troops have come home and been reunited with their families for the holidays. Over the next few days, a small group of American soldiers will begin the final march out of Iraq.

This moment of success is because of their sacrifice. More than 1.5 million Americans have served in Iraq. More than 30,000 of these brave men and women were wounded. Nearly 4,500 gave their lives. America’s military families have borne a heavy burden.

As we mark the end of this war, we need to show our veterans and their families that they have the thanks of a grateful nation.

Take a minute to look back at the moments that brought us to this point, then share a personal message of gratitude with those who have served.

Part of ending a war responsibly is standing by those who have fought it. It's not enough to honor our heroes with words; we must do so with deeds.

That's why we've worked to send 600,000 veterans and family members back to school on the Post-9/11 GI Bill. That's why one of Michelle's top priorities as First Lady has been to support military families and why she's worked with the private sector to get commitments to create 100,000 jobs for those who've served and their spouses. That's why we worked with Congress to pass a tax credit so that companies have an incentive to hire vets and have taken steps to help veterans translate military experience to the private sector job market.

In America, our commitment to those who fight for our freedom and our ideals doesn't end when our troops take off the uniform.

You can be a part of this effort to honor our heroes.

Help mark this moment. Write a quick note that troops and veterans all over the world will be able to see:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/iraq

Thank you,

President Barack Obama

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The White House • 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW • Washington, DC 20500 • 202-456-1111

Meet the Home Healthcare Worker Who Inspired the President

Your Daily Snapshot for
Thursday, Dec. 15, 2011

Meet the Home Healthcare Worker Who Inspired the President

In 2007, then-Senator Obama spent a day "in the shoes" of Pauline Beck, a home healthcare worker. Today Pauline will be at the White House to watch as President Obama announces proposed changes to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) that will level the playing field so workers like Pauline are fairly compensated.

Watch Pauline's story:

SEOptimise

3 Tips & Tools To Help You Become a Better SEO Project Manager

Posted: 14 Dec 2011 07:18 AM PST

Good project management is the backbone of any successful SEO campaign. With the right planning and execution, good management can keep the project profitable, lower stress and maintain client satisfaction. This blog post will identify three key tips to help you become a better project manager and highlight three tools which can help you along the way.

1. Communication
Communication is central to any good working relationship. It's important at the project kick off stage to establish this relationship so that you can move forward together. Developing a friendship with your client allows you to manage their expectations. Working in the industry, it's often easy to forget how alien the topic of SEO can be to some people. Therefore as a project manager it is your job to educate your client on SEO and to explain the nature of SEO as a marketing tool. By improving your client's understanding of SEO and developing a communicative relationship, you will be able to create realistic goals and will be better equipped to deal with any unexpected problems.

A great tool for managing projects is Basecamp, an online tool which encourages collaboration and communication between you and your client. Set up projects by creating to-do lists; assign them to colleagues, set deadlines and track hours spent on each task. Messaging clients is easy, as all communication is kept in the one place – which saves you from chaotic email ping-pong. You can leave comments on almost anything and can easily track the development of the project as those to-dos get checked off.

2. Set Goals
Setting goals is really important for personal and project development. One of the best pieces of advice my first manager ever gave me was 'if it's not measurable then it's not worth doing'. Steer the direction of your team by making your goals explicit and measurable, with clear deadlines on when they ought to be completed. Remember to evaluate your performance by reviewing goals regularly.

Before deciding what you want to achieve in the future, you have to understand your present situation. A great tool to help with this is Raven Tools for SEO. Keep tabs on rankings and traffic with this tool, which provides keyword, competitor and link intelligence. With the enhanced data it delivers, you can identify areas of weakness to be strengthened. Raven can also help you manage your project, as it allows you to assign tasks and create reports for clients.

3. Visibility
Planning your campaign is crucial in order to make best use of your time and resources. Making sure you do what you've outlined in your campaign is essential. Use your leadership skills, delegate tasks and always know where you are with things getting delivered to the client. In my opinion it's important that the client knows what activities you are doing. Giving the client visibility is not always easy especially considering the nature of SEO where an action you implement may take several weeks to have an effect on rankings.

Give clients visibility with Linkdex, the online task and project manager, which has many attractive features for SEO Consultants. The most interesting feature is being able to track completed tasks against rank changes. Track your client's website progress against their competitors in terms of links. Find out who's linking to whom and how influential that link is, and manage and record details of your own link building campaign with dates and costs. Like Raven, you can create reports for clients and give them user access to the software for them to see for themselves.

Picture: New York Public Library on Flickr