Instructed by Kent Lewis.

1. SEO in a Post-Penguin World
How Google's Panda & Penguin are Affecting Your
Site's Rankings
Kent Lewis (@KentjLewis)
President & Founder
Anvil Media, Inc. (@AnvilMedia)

2. About Me

3. Agenda
Agenda
Search Engine Algorithm History
What is Penguin?
Diagnosing Penguin Penalty
Placating Penguin
Post-Penguin Best Practices
Resources

4. 3C’s of SEO
Content
Code
Credibility

5. SEO: Efficacy of Strategies

6. SEO: 3D Tactical View

7. Search Engine Ranking Factors

8. Future Ranking Factors

9. Panda vs. Penguin: At-a-Glance
Panda targets low quality content, thin
content, duplicate content, etc.
Penguin targets spam (and at this point
it’s heavily targeting unnatural inbound
links).

10. Algorithm Update Timeline

11. Algorithm Update Timeline

12. Penguin Impact
“The change will decrease rankings for sites that
we believe are violating Google’s existing
quality guidelines”
Targeting spam, not over-optimization
Typically 500 smaller updates annually
Penguin has impacted about 3.1% of queries
(compared to 2.23.11 Panda 1.0’s 12%)
Lives outside of main search index (like Panda)

13. Page Quality: Man vs. Machine
Human quality raters evaluate content
Machine-learning = identifying patterns
May also reward properly optimized sites

14. What is Penguin?
Domains (exact keyword match, parked)
Page titles & navigation (keyword-stuffing)
Cloaking, redirects & doorway pages

15. Algorithm Update Timeline
Change history illustrates a variety of changes
Exact Match Domain (EMD) update separate

16. What to Avoid…
Content (duplicate, recycled, useless)

17. What to Avoid…
User experience (bounce rates, social sharing)
Advertising (above the fold)
Affiliates (thin sites)

18. What to Avoid…
Links (anchor text, farms, paid, blog spam)

19. Penguin Impact by Industry

20. Penguin Winners & Losers

21. Diagnosing Penguin Penalty
Did you get this warning message via Webmaster Tools?
If so, you may have been hit by Penguin…

22. Diagnosing Penguin Penalty
Look at your sales receipts
Check analytics (on key dates)

23. Diagnosing Penguin Penalty
Audit your website:
Content
Code
Credibility

24. Diagnosing Penguin Penalty

25. Diagnosing Penguin Penalty

26. Diagnosing Penguin Penalty

27. Placating Penguin
Consolidate similar pages
404 offending pages or move to a new domain
Be thoughtful with advertising placement
Delete, Destroy or Dilute offending links

28. Placating Penguin
Google Link Disavow Tool
If you received an Unnatural Link Warning notice

29. Placating Penguin
Remove unrelated or very low quality links
Get more high quality and relevant links
Vary your anchor text
Take it easy on the internal “SEO” linking
If you are doing sponsored links, be careful!
Cancel or remove unnecessary footer links

30. Placating Penguin
Understand Google Webmaster Guidelines
Fix the obvious problems
Resubmit to Google once 100% repaired
If form doesn’t work, post to Webmaster Forum

31. Post-Penguin Best Practices
Good design & experience = rankings
Multimedia experience = images & video
Don’t forget social media: trust & authority
Matt Cutts, Google
Search Quality
engineer & industry
hero
“…the reputable sites tend
to spell better and the
sites that are lower
PageRank, or very low
PageRank, tend not to
spell as well."

32. Move The Needle

33. Move The Needle Exercise
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Audit your website to assess penalties
If confirmed, develop optimization plan
Revisit SEO content strategy
Revisit SEO linking strategy
Implement and monitor for 90 days
Adjust strategies based on results
Move The Needle

34. Key Takeaways
Diagnose impact of Penguin & Panda
Clean up your act
Design for end users, not search engines
Create unique & engaging content
Optimize, syndicate & promote your content
Focus on engagement metrics

35. Resources
Brick: Marketing Google Panda Updates
Google Webmaster Guidelines
SEL: Webspam Targeted in Update
SEL: Google Panda Update
SEL: Penguin Recovery Tips
SEOmoz: Google Algorithm Change
SEOmoz: Panda & Penguin Panic
SEOR: Google Penguin Warning
B2C: How to Fight Penguin-Panda Updates
Mashable: Google Penguin Recovery

36. Read articles & white papers in the Anvil Resources section
Sign up for our monthly email newsletter & webinars
Read our blog or follow us on Twitter (@AnvilMedia)
Ask questions about search, social media or mobile marketing
@KentjLewis
President & Founder
Anvil Media, Inc.
503-260-6700
Kent@AnvilMediaInc.com

37. Thank You
www.onlinemarketinginstitute.org
www.anvilmediainc.com