Link Building Equity and Penguin

[gavinr]

Dear all

After talking with our company's SEO company they have advised that a link builder we employ to post artciles is posting on sites which will have negative page rankings / equity and which Penguin will penalise.

These are the sites our link builder is posting on:

wordpress.com
weebly.com
blogger.com
livejournal.com
tumblr.com
squidoo.com
blog.com

Ouir SEO company have advised we ask our link builder to stop posting articles to these sites as Penguin will penalise us because of it.

Do you agree?

Thanks

Gavin

[SEODinosaur]

Penguin is designed to penalize sites that have low credibility and the way the sites are linking in. For Example: If your site has 90% of its inbound links anchored with your exact keyword it becomes obvious that your are trying to rank for that specific keyword. The penguin update looks at where your sites are linking from and how they are linking in. If it looks unnatural to the search engines you may get penalized.

Best practices are to build good articles on any site that can help/entertain/educate users within your niche. Best structure for your anchor text is 70% to your brand name or URL, 20% long tail keywords, 10% exact keywords.

Blogging on these sites:

wordpress.com
weebly.com
blogger.com
livejournal.com
tumblr.com
squidoo.com
blog.com

Is fine if the content is somewhat helpful/educational/entertaining and if the links look natural.

[gavinr]

Hi Donnie

Thanks for your answer. That makes a lot of sense. I was thinking it might have been our SEO agency using some scare tactics!

Thanks again

Gavin

[EGOL]

Let me see if I understand....

You have an SEO company but you are also contracting a linkbuilder to post content on a bunch of public access sites?

If that is correct then my question is...... Why do you have an SEO company?

[gavinr]

Good question EGOL!

I have only just taken on the job of looking after our SEO and am leaning towards stopping our linkbuilder and adding the budget to our SEO company.

A more pragmatic answer would be that our linkbuilder is based overseas and doesnt cost as much as our SEO company would for linkbuilding.

My worry was that when our SEO company used a scare story re the linkbuilder's links they were pitching for business rather than providing solid info.

Thanks

[EGOL]

Thanks for the information.  Now I understand your situation.

Our SEO company have advised we ask our link builder to stop posting articles to these sites as Penguin will penalise us because of it

One of the most dangerous things that can be done these days is to build crap links into a valuable website.  Lots of people are seeing their rankings and customers wiped out from Penguin penalties over spammy links.

Your SEO is probably worried about this.  He / she might also worry about being blamed for damage done by an overseas linkbuilder who builds spammy links.

I have only just taken on the job of looking after our SEO and am leaning towards stopping our linkbuilder and adding the budget to our SEO company.

This is what I would do.

My worry was that when our SEO company used a scare story re the linkbuilder's links they were pitching for business rather than providing solid info.

Possibly.  But, if a linkbuilder was posting my content to the sites that you listed I would put a stop to it fast.

For my own sites I never do article marketing and never will.  I believe that it has both penguin and panda risks.  It also creates new competitors and feeds existing competitors.   I accept some unique guest articles that are very high quality... but I never, ever give my own content away.  And I would never hire a linkbuilder to post on the sites that you mention.

[gavinr]

Thanks EGOL

I think I have a better understanding of where I stand now.

Thanks again

[EGOL]

One more thing to add....

When you hire a linkbuilder his job is to go out and acquire 100 links or whatever you have contracted for.  If you don't have tight specifications on link quality then he is going to go out and get the easiest links possible so he can finish your job in a minimum amount of time.  He probably doesn't know about Penguin and doesn't give a damn about the health of your website.  He simply wants his money.

When you hire a quality SEO, you should be hiring someone who will look after the health of your website and he should know that his continued employment by your company depends upon delivering success.  He is going to be panicking if he sees activity that will put his success in jeopardy.

[BenjyH]

Those sites are fine, check the quality of the actual content they are sending out. My experience with using cheap foreign labour is very poor. I expect yours is the same sadly!

[EvolveCreative]

You 'never, ever' give your own content away? You have several posts on YouMoz... I'm confused.

[EGOL]

You 'never, ever' give your own content away? You have several posts on YouMoz... I'm confused.

Good question! 

I guess I do give SEO content away.

However, any content that I write on the topics of my websites (which have nothing to do with SEO) goes on those sites.

Maybe....  if the Pope wanted to republish one of my articles on his site I might allow it.

[SEODinosaur]

IMO its great to give content away in a boring niche. As long as it's going to a site where someone can benefit from it and guide them to your site.  How else do you plan on building external links to your site? Naturally? by creating great content and sharing it via social media (what if there is very low social for this topic)...