After the last Google Penguin update, Google has announced it’s yet another update scheduled to roll out in the end of year 2015. This can probably be a great chance of recovery for those who were hit by the last Penguin update (in 2014).
Webmaster Trends Analyst at Google, Gary Illyes confirmed on Twitter that businesses will be graced with a new Penguin update before the end of 2015.
Google’s new Penguin algorithm, update 4.0 is expected to be a real-time version. This means that as soon as the Search Engine discovers that a link is rejected or removed, the real time Penguin algorithm will process it instantly, and the site owners would be able to recover from a Penguin penalty quickly. However, you could also end up with a Penguin penalty quickly.
Although, this new update will offer easy recovery, one should not forget that with every new algorithm update comes lot of winners and losers, and thus the new update would be no different.
One good thing about Google is that it’s our ‘Well Wisher’ and desires our best! Each time it announces a new algorithm or update, it enlist the resources and effective measures for the website owners so that they don’t get hit by the update.
Hence, here we have outlined a few ways you can do to prepare prior the final release.
Anchor Text Distribution
Your external links should vary by brand, URL, non-descriptive and long-tail keywords. Plus, the most branded anchor text must be included as that’s likely how most people would find you.
Enhance Your Internal Links
Rightfully, the external links get the most attention, but you shouldn’t overlook the signs you’re giving Google with your internal links. Although, internal links do not have much influence on the rankings, but they do greatly impact how search engines crawl your website.
Keep a clean internal link profile with these important points:
- Vary your anchor text not just with exact-matches keywords, but with non-descriptive text.
- Link related pages together.
- Maintain as much hierarchy as possible.
- Match your consumer-targeted links to your canonicals and your XML sitemap.
Ordinary Backlink Profile and Checking for Negative SEO
Analyze your website’s backlinks to identify any potential spammy links and get rid of them without any regret. Focus on building your future link in line. This means the links should be from high-quality, theme-relevant sources. Also, make sure to keep your anchor-texts diverse and natural.
Sudden Spikes & Excessive Referring Pages
It is important that you look for something out of the usual when it comes to analyzing your backlinks at the maximum level. This will typically show itself as unexpected spikes in your line graphs.
Take a look at the below give backlink profiles for two different sites.
A steady rise in the Total Referring Domains of Site B can be seen for the past 12 months. In addition, the decrease in their Total Referring Pages indicates that they’ve also been cleaning up some of their backlinks.
On the other hand, Site A has also been increasing their Total Referring Domains steadily, but that sudden spike of Total Referring Pages between June and July is noticeable. Anything that brings a sharp increase over a short span of time will likely to catch Google’s attention for the worse.
The graph indicates that getting sudden site-wide links on a few of your referring domains is a clear signal for spammy practices. Avoid this!
Avoid low-Quality and Duplicate Content
This is important that you concentrate more on producing unique, high-quality and fresh content. Plus, all of your pages must have unique titles and Meta descriptions. Use robots.txt file to hide any types of duplicate pages from the Google’s eyes (such as your www and non-www page variants, paginated pages etc.). Whatever your article is about, keep it long and detailed. It should be created in a way intended to be valuable for the audience. In addition, even the interaction-aimed pages should not be left content-less. Create rich media content such as videos, images, etc., and make sure your non-textual content is formatted in a way Google can see it.
Keyword Stuffing
Simply, avoid keyword stuffing problems and stick to sensible keyword density. Avoid stuffing a list of keywords in the title. Do not jam the keywords into the Meta Description. Use a descriptive alt tag or none at all.
Hope the aforementioned tips will help you benefit from the upcoming Penguin update.
Related Links:
A) http://searchengineland.com/preparing-penguin-make-sure-youre-penalty-free-2016-235834
B) http://searchengineland.com/googles-next-penguin-update-should-be-within-the-next-two-months-234672
C) http://searchengineland.com/google-confirms-the-real-time-penguin-algorithm-is-coming-soon-232093