With the latest major update recently launched by Google, the Penguin update, webmasters and SEO's have been desperately trying to figure out how to fix the issues caught by the algorithm. Using backlink exports from Open Site Explorer, Link Detective, and the amazing power of Excel, I break down my process for analyzing a site's backlink profile and identifying problematic areas for SEOs and webmasters to fix.

1. Mark Ginsberg
Kahenacon
May 23, 2012

2.  Announced on April 24 – official Google post
 Originally feared “Over Optimization Algorithm”
mentioned by Matt Cutts at SXSW on March
16, 2012 – audio available here -
http://www.seroundtable.com/google-over-seo-update-
14887.html
 Matt Cutts said at the conference:
“What about the people optimizing really hard
and doing a lot of SEO. … All those people
doing, for lack of a better word, over
optimization or overly SEO - versus those Posted by Rick Bucich
making great content and great site. We are on Google+
trying to make GoogleBot smarter, make our
relevance better, and we are also looking for
those who abuse it, like too many keywords on
a page, or exchange way too many links or go
well beyond what you normally expect…”

3.  Penguin launch followed on heels of
Panda refresh, parked domain classifier
bug, and previous deindexation of blog
networks
 Webmasters were already seeing major
shifts and changes in the SERPs
 Penguin followed on heels of infamous
unnatural links email in Webmaster Tools
See Andrew Shotland’s
interesting theory
 Site usually took a dive in the rankings ~2
about the origins of the
weeks after the initial email
name on his blog
 Question of Negative SEO – can you hurt
another site with offsite attacks

4. SEO Visibility data provided by Search Metrics -
http://www.searchmetrics.com/en/

5. Historical Ranking data provided by Search Metrics -
http://www.searchmetrics.com/en/

6.  What you will need:
◦ A list of your site’s backlinks
◦ Free subscription to the awesome tool Link Detective
◦ Microsoft Excel
 Steps
◦ Pull external links in OSE to root domain
◦ Upload the CSV file to Link Detective and let Eppie’s
magic tool go to work

7.  Initial Steps
◦ Save the csv file as an Excel workbook – any
formatting you do will be saved and will save lots of
aggravation later when you reopen it and it’s all
gone
◦ With one of the cells of data selected, hit CTRL + L
and turn the data into a table – much more fun to
work with – easier to sort and filter

9.  Clean Up the Data
◦ Make all anchor text lowercase
◦ Decode HTML in anchor text (SEO Tools
for Excel)
◦ Use nifty formula to clean up target page
URL
◦ Pull linking root domain to additional
column
Pivot Table
Row Labels Values (make sure you choose the right settings for each)
Target Page Count of Anchor Text
Link Type Average of PA
Anchor Text Average of DA

11.  Create a new pivot table
◦ Row Label – link type | Values – count of link type
 Create a pivot pie chart from the table
That’s a lot of
dead links!

12.  Filter out for dead links
That looks a bit
better 

14.  Create the pivot table
 Select any of the PA values
 Right click and select group
◦ Starting at 1
◦ End at 100
◦ By:10

16. After removing dead
links, we see
unnatural rise at
highest spectrum of
graph – what’s
causing this?

17. Break down each group
via target
page, LRD, specific
linking page, then
anchor text – can
always remove row
labels you don’t need!

18. Group smaller
anchor texts
together

19.  Break down backlink profiles with pivot tables
◦ Page level and domain level
 Do this for your competitors and compare
 Identify any unnatural footprints
 Look at your anchor text distribution – use branded anchor
text, “naked” anchors, more variety and synonyms
 Clean it up as best as you can, hope this helps
 Build more high quality natural links w/ smart anchor text
 Give Google a mea culpa – or better yet, blame it on a
competitor

20.  Independent SEO Consultant
 @markginsberg
 www.marksginsberg.com
 Google+
 Skype: msginsberg
Sample spreadsheet available
for download -
http://bit.ly/penguin-pivot