Penguin Rescue! A lead has been hit and I need to save them!

[SimpsonGareth]

I had a meeting today with a prospective client who has been hit by Penguin. Their previous SEO company has obviously used some questionable techniques which is great for me, bad for the client. Their leads have dropped from 10 per day to 1 or 2. Their analytics shows a drop after the 25th, a back link check shows a lot of low quality links. Domain metrics are pretty good and they are still ranking ok for some keywords. I have 1 month to turn it around for them. How do you wise people think it can be done? First of all I will check the on-site optimisation. I will ensure that the site isn't over optimised. Secondly, do I try and remove the bad links? Or just hit the site with good content and good links to outweigh the bad ones. Also, do you think G is actually dropping rankings for the over optimisation / bad links or are the links are just being discredited rsulting in the drop in rankings. 2 very different things. Any advice is appreciated. Thanks

[Mark_Ginsberg]

Well, from what everyone is writing about Penguin, it's an algorithmic update. Meaning you need to fix whatever issues are there, wait for the algorithm to process again, and then if you've solved the issues, you should theoretically restore the rankings. That's much easier said than done. You don't know exactly what the issues are, and we don't know when the algo will process again.

I think the timeline you have set is highly unrealistic and you should aim to set expectations with the client that this process can very well take much longer. If this previous SEO company built problematic links, I think you'll have to deal with them. I don't think pointing good links into the site will get rid of the issue with the problematic links and clear you of the algo. I think you're going to have to go through the tedious work of cleaning things up. The good news is that a bunch of people have written about what to look for. Check in WMT tools for sitewide links, check your anchor text pointing into the site. Export your external links from OSE and then upload them to Linkl Detective- http://linkdetective.com/- let it do the hard work for you, classify a lot of the links, and then you need to go through the process of trying to clean things up, doing as much as you can, and then submit a reinclusion request (may help, may not), hoping Google will discard the other links.

Good luck - really try to demonstrate to your client the complexity of the process and extend the timeframe of the project - that's my ultimate recommendation

[EGOL]

"you need to fix whatever issues are there, wait for the algorithm to process again, and then if you've solved the issues, you should theoretically restore the rankings. That's much easier said than done. You don't know exactly what the issues are, and we don't know when the algo will process again."

I agree with this 100%.

These types of problems can be fixed and then must wait until google reevaluates and then republishes back into the SERPs.  Sites that are hit with these types of problems escape in batches - not when things are fixed.

So, you could do great work, get it fixed on 25th day and then google does not reprocess and republish for 60 more days and some other SEO gets credit for your hard work.

I don't think pointing good links into the site will get rid of the issue with the problematic links and clear you of the algo.

Exactly... What are good links?  Your "added" links will not be natural.

[mytouchoftech]

I second the time frame issue.  1 month won't be enough time and your work will just benefit the next person this client gets to work on it, while you'll be left with an upset client because of bad expectations.

[SimpsonGareth]

Thanks for all the responses guys. I have taken them on-board. 1 thing I have noticed...

I have ran backlink checks and they have a site wide footer links from 2 of their other businesses. This has created thousands of backlinks with the exact same anchor text. Do you think this could cause a problem?

I'm thinking of reducing it to just 2 links each from the 2 sites.

Other than that the backlink make up looks pretty normal except for the repeated anchor texts.

Thanks

[SimpsonGareth]

Does anyone care to share their view on my last?

I have ran backlink checks and they have a site wide footer links from 2 of their other businesses. This has created thousands of backlinks with the exact same anchor text. Do you think this could cause a problem?

I'm thinking of reducing it to just 2 links each from the 2 sites.

Other than that the backlink make up looks pretty normal except for the repeated anchor texts.

[Mark_Ginsberg]

This sounds like a plan. Give it a shot and test the results