Penguin hit + Domain Migration

[seonubblet]

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[FedeEinhorn]

Hey,

Let's go step by step:

1. If you haven't received any manual penalty notification then it could be a algorithmic penalty, those are softer but harder to recognize (as there isn't any notification about what just happened: penguin? panda?) If you or your customer have engaged in bad link building (purchasing) then it's probably a penguin hit. It seems from the question title that you were already expecting that was the issue. To clean up your backlink profile, you have a lot of work to do. But don't outsource it, it just won't help. Use Google WT and download all the links, get all others from other sources like OSE, etc., merge all those links and use another tool (to avoid doing it manually) like link detox (paid) to analyze all your links. Then go over the ones that have any kind of risk and (yes, a PAIN) manually ask webmasters to remove the link or set it as nofollow, keep track of their responses and actions on the links (you can outsource that part). Once done, you will end up with a list of links that were not removed as per your requests, use the disavow tool on them. DONE on this part.
2. Couldn't understand it completely. Did you move the content to another domain? Was the old domain the hit one or the new one? If is was the new one, then set up all canonicals following Google's advice: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/139394?hl=en . If the hit was on the old domain, just avoid passing any harm to the new domain and don't use any canonical or redirect (that's at least what I would do). There were however, some people claiming that a domain change and redirect everything solved their penguin penalty, but those are just personal allegations no one can confirm: http://www.seroundtable.com/redirect-google-penalty-17113.html
3. That's not good. You are redirecting search results clicks to the homepage? Not a good idea. Consider throwing a 404 on those pages if they are no longer there, or in the case you have another version of the page that actually shows the info the user was searching, then redirect the user there.

Wow, this one was my longest answer!

Hope it helps! (tell me it did lol)

[BlueprintMarketing]

If you really are hit by a penalty you should NOT 301, 302 or forward your old domain. You will lose if you do.

If you HAVE NOT been hit by Penalty from Google first count your blessings second make sure you only 301 redirect sites of quality and relevance

Everyone has their own opinion on the best method to go about removing penalties if you are penalized. I personally believe if you outsource it to a high-quality firm you will have no issues
Mean people like distilled.net, Internet marketing ninjas, evolving SEO, SEER interactivePortent Hey excellent choice as well that is linked to hear has a great article on what you should ask a SEO company prior to hiring them for such work. http://www.portent.com/blog/seo/how-to-hire-an-seo-company-2012-edition.htmOr use this tool with Either with the company's help or on your own to make sure you document all links removed and requested to be removedhttp://www.removeem.com/This tool is the only one endorsed by MozMade by a top seo company That is endorsed by Moz called http://www.virante.org/There are numerous reasons to use a tool number one to find out which back links are actually harmful I believe some tools to a better job than Google Webmaster ToolsChances are you going to have a very very thorough log when you go to request a review from Google and if you do not you will be denied.Google want you to put in work and do the best you can. To fix this if it includes hiring a company that they trust to fix it they don't have a problem with that. If you're on the WordPress platform I strongly suggest using high-quality post one way to assure that is using management process to WP engine, Zippy kid, web Synthesis , Pagely  and now get flywheel all do stellar jobs of keeping harmful malware away and speeding your site upI hope I have been of help sincerely, Thomas

[seonubblet]

Yes it helped! Thank you very much I really appreciate the time and effort you put into responding. I just have a few additional questions.

1. I expected some sort of penalty because a sample of the backlinks I analyzed (which their previous SEO firm built) were of the spammy blog comment variety or 404's (I reckon it's best to just disavow these ones?). Is there a template or something I can use as a guide for emailing webmasters a backlink removal request (With the proper instructions of how to within it). Also thank you for recommending Link Detox. What do you thin k of http://www.removeem.com/self-serve.php as Thomas suggested? It seems to be vetted by Moz and they have an automatic service for contacting webmasters. It must be insane trying to contact 4000+ webmasters. How do you even organize something like that?

2. I'm afraid I was not being clear. My issue is not domain migration after all. I think the issue is just a canonical issue. Basically they were using a very bulky CMS and I used wordpress to redesign their website. I also moved them to a faster dedicated server. The nameserver has not yet been pointed to the new server yet. The problem is some of their old URLs look something like oldpage/old-section1.html and on the new wordpress site everything is neater /more-descriptive-new-page/ So this is just a canonical issue correct? I just have to sort through all their pages and find the corresponding one on the new site?

3. I put up a temporary redirect just to do some quick A/B URL split testing on the entire website. I thought it might be a bad idea but I wanted to get some preliminary results in as visual website optimizer did not do the job for me that I wanted.

[shaniabrendon]

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