Google Penguin - Target Landing Page

[ScottBaxterWW]

Hello,

One of our sites have been hit by the first penguin update back in April and ever since then we have been removing links and submitting reconsideration requests...

It only seems to have affected our home page as some of our internal landing pages are still ranking OK in the SERPS #1 / #2.

I'm just wondering if we created a landing page for this keyword and drove high quality / relevant links to this landing page could we get it to rank higher than our homepage even though our Homepage is on the 5th page.Hope the above make sense.

Has anybody had any joy with this?

[RyanKent]

You can achieve what you are asking, but I would not advise doing such.

SEO is about one factor, competition. Period.

If you decided to rank for a unique term such as "fluffy SEO eating bunnies" and no one else is attempting to rank for that term, you can easily rank #1 for it. On the other hand, if 10 other sites try to rank for the same term, then it is a pure competition and one site will win the battle.

It is hard enough to earn rankings. Trying to rank with a penalized site, or for the more sensitive readers "algorithmically disadvantaged", is not wise. You need to resolve the root issue.

To put it in financial terms, add up the sales you have lost over the past months due to lower rankings. Now examine the cost of removing the penalty. Even most small businesses will find it cheaper to have the penalty or Penguin issue dealt with properly then trying to rank with a penalized site.

Also consider Penguin is undergoing a major update. Matt Cutts shared the effects of the next Penguin update will be "jarring and jolting". There are only two ways I can interpret that statement. Either many sites which have not been impacted by Penguin in the past will be affected, sites which have been impacted will be hit a lot harder, or both. My bet is on both.

Having a penalty or Penguin issue on your site is like having your house on fire. You are standing there with a hose trying to put out the fire. It's time to call 911 and have the fire put out, then work on repairing the damage.

I applaud do-it-yourself SEO for small, highly involved business owners under normal circumstances. Manual penalties and algorithmic issues such as Penguin require expertise to deal with, otherwise you will submit 10 Reconsideration Requests and have all 10 declined. Clearly, you are not properly addressing the root issue.

[Marcus_Miller]

I have nothing to add here as Ryan has pretty much nailed it but "algorithmically disadvantaged" made me chuckle!