Paul Madden - Goodbye Spam, Hello Data

Transcript

1. Goodbye Spam Hello Data !
2. Who is this guy? Paul Madden Used to be naughty Now Nice
3. What do I do now? I sell links I sell the removal of links I sell data I sell glue
7. What we will talk about today • My journey • The realisation of a need to change • The lessons from that journey • Learn from my problems
8. My History
9. “Paul is easily influenced by his peers”
10. Modus operandi • Competitive SEO • Enjoyed the grey areas • Small projects & high volumes
11. Made for Adsense • 500-2000 scraper sites a week • 2 cheques from Google a month • Learned the churn and burn game
13. Affiliate and link building • Small affiliate sites • More links required than scrapers • Learned how to get links
15. Link building • Too many damn links • Sell some to clients • Increase the diversity of what I sold
16. Volume • Suppliers • Brokers • Inventory • Infrastructure
19. So.. • Used to have millions of pages • Now have millions of links
20. Spammers adapt
22. Pre 2012 Google stance
23. • Links either counted • Or they didn’t
24. Post 2012 Google stance
25. • asdas
26. A Major Change • Increasing pressure • Directly aimed at SEO
28. The game has changed • Link penalties
29. A realisation “I needed to know the risk of everything I had ever placed and everything I was going to place”
30. Start gathering data
31. 3500+ Profiles run
32. 100+ servers crawling and crunching
33. 92,961,923 urls analysed NB: The average site has 26,000 links
34. 1,650,192 domains with more than one tweet 2,948,872 domains with more than one Facebook like 969,543 domains with more than 1 G+ 519,569 domains with Adsense 2,439,073 domains with tags extracted
35. 100+ SIGNALS GO INTO THE ALGORITHM
37. Google 2013 has a long long memory
38. Think you’re clean? • I’ve always been whitehat • I’d never dream of link manipulation
39. Someone…. • Will have had a weak moment • Will have made a bad decision • Will have….
40. Met me at a conference
41. They don’t go away… • Links hang around… • Shit ones doubly so…..
42. From otherwise responsible sites
43. webdirectory11.com submitontheweb.com seo-friendly-directory.co.uk naturaldirectorylinks.com linkextras.com freeseoarticlesubmission.com freelink-directory.net lincdirectory.info 1235directory.com
44. An Idiots Guide
45. Credentials • Over 100 penalty removals jobs done • Power of LinkRisk behind us • Been doing removals since 2012
46. Link Penalties • Confirm you have a penalty
49. Partial penalty / Site wide • Its almost always partial • It doesn’t make that much difference • Google DON’T CARE
50. DIY or Full service? • It takes a LOT of time • Never go with someone who guarantees a result • Sign off and approve every stage
51. DIY or Full service? • Honesty and transparency • You need a guide not a salesman • It’s a fluid process • There are lots of ambulance chasers now
52. Reinclusion < Read this http://bit.ly/linkschemes
53. Link Schemes • Buying or selling links that pass PageRank. • Excessive link exchanges • Large-scale article marketing or guest posting
54. Link Schemes • Text advertisements • Advertorials or native advertising where payment is received • Links with optimized anchor text in articles or press releases distributed on other sites. • Low-quality directory or bookmark site links
55. Link Schemes • Links embedded in widgets that are distributed across various sites, for example: • Widely distributed links in the footers of various sites • Forum comments with optimized links in the post or signature, for example:
56. The anatomy of a penalty • Gather all the data you can • Spend longer analysing it than you planned
57. No… longer than that
58. The anatomy of a penalty • Plan for multiple attempts from the start • Remove and record • Disavow • Ask for reinclusion • Expect to be told NO!
59. Repeat the process Until they say YES
60. Gathering data
61. Gathering data
62. Analyse the data • XLS, MySQL or a Tool • Its more efficient to do it at root domain level • Pivot or GroupBy
63. Divide into categories • Remove • Disavow • Investigate
64. Deciding what to remove • Domains • Metrics • TLD’s • Anchors • Number of links per domain
65. Look at every site in investigate • Record details as you go • Contact email / contact form • Category • Risk / Natural
66. Contact for removal
67. Contacting • Contact as a real person • Contact from the domain with the penalty • Use a webmail account • Contact forms get better response but follow up with an email from the webmail • Two attempts is enough usually
68. Conclusions • Record a conclusion for every domain / link • Removed (verify) • Disavow (inc paid and non responders) • Keep
70. Correct format • domain:example.com • http://www.example.com/page.html • # comments always start with a hashtag • UTF-8 .txt file!
71. The disavow • Annotate the file • It’s a live document • Technically you can remove lines….
72. The disavow • Submit your disavow… check its been taken • Then…..
73. WAIT !!!
74. The reinclusion
75. Reinclusion • Polite but brief • Explain you’ve changed • Prove it • Prepare for fake people to respond
76. Avg 4-5 attempts
77. If you get denied
78. Principles • Make sure you know whats still live • Make sure you have all the data • Make sure EVERYONE has stopped link building
79. Building whilst under penalty “Is like brushing your teeth whilst eating a KitKat #searchlove”
80. Example links Are NOT doing a good job
81. Article sites
82. Directory sites
83. 192.Com Yell.com
84. Forums
85. Guest blogs
86. Obvious scrapers
87. Sites not in any dataset
88. Sites already disavowed
89. Nofollowed Links!
90. 302’s FFS
91. No longer existing
92. Penalty removal 1. Get rid of the obvious sh*t 2. Get rid of the commercial terms 3. Be more severe 4. Correct any missed issues
93. <conclusions> My Journey… </conclusions>
94. • As a spammer I was aware of what signals I needed to make my sites rank
95. • As a link builder I was aware of what signals I needed to sell to make my clients rank
96. • As a link cleanup company we are aware of what links you need to remove to clear up any penalty and rank again
97. • I was in the signals business
98. • I am STILL in the signals business
99. • And I’ve realised….
100. • I haven’t really changed
101. • I was a spammer • I am now a data miner
102. • Which means I remain…
103. Proudly
104. An SEO
107. Penalty removal 1. 5% 2. 10% 3. 20% 4. 35% 5. Or more… 30%