When Backlinking Hurts more than it Helps – Avoid Penalties
Aggressive Link Building can Hurt Your Short Term Exposure
I have recently become aware of the importance of non-aggressive linking practices to avoid being penalized by the Google gods. Since so much of your website’s exposure relies on the organic traffic that Google generates it is a good idea to avoid any practices that would flag your site for penalty or review.
I am actually in pretty good shape. Pseudorant is a new site, that doesn’t really focus on one thing, and acts more as a tech journal than an online business. My site recently got penalized for (what I assume was looked at as) aggressive or spammy link building practices.
I wanted to share my mistakes with others to help them avoid the pitfalls I created for myself when building up my website.
While this may be common sense to some, others may be completely unaware of these issues. Following the practices many people recommend, while being unaware of the specifics, can lead to potential problems for aspiring webmasters.
Below is a list of “recommended” practices and the specific details behind them. Most resources will recommend a method, without discussing the details behind the methods that can lead to penalties with Google.
5 main examples of these types of recommendations are:
- List your site in directories
- Use keyword rich anchor text in backlinks
- Make use of social bookmarking sites
- Use link bait to generate back links
- Linkbuilding is the most important thing to focus on
Now these things may sound like good advice, and they are if you understand the details behind them.
For a new webmaster it would be a bad idea to focus on this list in its current form. So let’s take a look at each suggestion on the list and elaborate on the details needed to make them work successfully.
01. List your site in directories.
This is an ok idea. It gets you back links, and is a linking practice that you can control. There are several details to be aware of when building directory links.
Quality over quantity – Crap links will do more harm then good. The more crap links you have coming into your site the more you raise red flags with Google because of “Link Trust” issues that your site starts creating.
“Link Trust” is when Google weighs the number of spammy inbound links to your site against the number of quality in bound links to your site. If the majority of your links are not “quality” links, link trust flags start going up with Google.
When looking at a directory there is a lot of criteria you want to weigh to decide if it is worth listing there. What other websites are listed in the directory? Are the valuable resources or pure spam?
There is a great video that outlines considerations to make when listing in directories. It is available at Aaron Wall’s SEO Book website entitled “Directories & Link Building”.
There are many other issues that affect the quality of directory listings. But as a webmaster the quality of your links should be the most important factor to you over the sheer number.
02. Use keyword rich anchor text in backlinks
This is another great suggestion. You want to use keyword rich anchor text so your website can start ranking well for keywords that are important to your niche. Once again there are several important details that are left out of this general recommendation.
Do Not Use the Same Keywords or Link Format – Search engines are merely algorithms designed to dig through text on websites and make comparisons to determine how the data relates to the site.
One pattern that is very easy for a search engine to pickup is links with the same anchor text used over and over. Let’s say you are listing your site in directories and you create a text file with your site title, description and keywords to copy and paste in order to speed up the submission process
This will actually hurt you more than it helps in the long run by creating patterns that the search engines recognize as “Unnatural Linking Patterns”. A natural linking pattern is what occurs when people actually link to your site. Because we all think differently and describe things using different words, your site will naturally get referenced using many different keywords and anchor text.
If all your anchor text is the same because you have used the copy / paste for all your backlinks, this is another thing that will raise a red flag with Google and can lead to a penalty or site review.
03. Make use of social bookmarking sites
Social book marking sites are great. They allow for a sense of community and enable users to suggest valuable sources of information to others. This does not mean that any source of information is welcomed.
Do not join these communities in order to force crap information onto people. Take the time to learn how the community works before posting self promotional articles that people could care less about.
If you need to promote something, decide what is important and let people know. If the community thinks it’s important they will tell others without the need for you to constantly “reinforce” that the information is important.
Remarkable information is usually worth remarking on. If you do not get the desired outcome it is a sign that you need to spend more time working on your content and less time promoting yourself.
04. Use link bait to generate back links
This method has been recommended by a lot of people. Even Google’s Matt Cutts has discussed how this can be a good link building practice. The thing to keep in mind here is that successful link bait can inadvertently bring attention to other issues on your site that may have raised some red flags in the past.
I had an excellent learning experience with this recently when I posted an article that sent a portion of the Open Source community into an uproar. The ironic thing was that the article was not geared to be link bait. It was simply me following the advice of other guides that said “be yourself”.
Unfortunately when I am “myself” I can get very candid to the point where I can paint an almost black or white picture about any given topic. This is not the case with how things really are in life, but because of my OCD tendencies this comes very naturally to me. It becomes very easy to hone in on what will set people off without even realizing it.
The article I wrote generated quiet a bit of interest and a lot of negative comments. Since my intention was never to make Pseudorant a political platform I felt it was best to remove the article. If I was going to get front page exposure on Linux.com I would prefer it be for something more valuable than a sporadic rant.
I am not sure if the numerous backlinks that were created from the article in a short period of time threw up another red flag, or the fact that I took down the article which may have appeared to be a bait and switch technique. Either way, the post generated enough traffic and exposure that Google put a lock down on the back links coming into my site.
I assume I am currently in the 30-60 day penalty phase associated with “spammy” link building practices. Since Pseudorant only receives several hundred hits a day (half through referring sites) this has not affected my overall traffic much. It has decreased by about a third. The most noticeable thing is the back links I was tracking through my blog are now gone.
05. Linkbuilding is the most important thing to focus on
This is very true, but also the most important concept to understand the details behind.
As I mentioned before, focus on “natural link building” methods. While having traffic in the short term is great, depending on how you generate it, it can raise a lot of unwanted attention from Google.
In the ultra competitive area of blogging it is unrealistic to tell someone not to worry about traffic or page rank. This is something people who have established sites can say because they don’t need to worry about it. For those who don’t receive any daily traffic, tell me where the motivation is to keep writing articles if no one is reading them.
You need to reach a happy middle ground to generate traffic and avoid red flag linking practices.
Some of the best suggestions I have read talk about creating link worthy content and it’s true. Creating content that is worth linking to is the best practice you can follow for long term success because it creates a natural linking pattern throughout the internet.
If you pursue a link building campaign make sure to research all the details behind the methods you are using before jumping into a hay day of directory submissions. A good place to start would be doing some solid SEO research, and avoid making the mistakes I have made by learning all these great things after the fact.
Hindsight is 20/20 - Reflecting on What I Have Learned
Some people may read this guide thinking these points are obvious and others may discover some of the practices they have used are worth reevaluating. I am by no means an authority on SEO, and if you really get serious about this kind of stuff you should definitely start researching different SEO topics in detail.
I am just relating the things I have learned (and continue to learn) by trail and error, to help others who are in the same boat. With so many blogs being created each day I can see how many people may mistakenly think that the 5 point link building guides out there are the holy grail of getting exposure for your site.
The best idea is to always try to blend in with the competition. If your competitors have 100 back links you don’t need 25,000. Remember the best links are naturally occurring, quality links because they last longer, provide more benefit to your site, and help you avoid the potential pitfalls I have outlined in the article.
I hope you have found this article useful for researching link building practices that are recommend on different websites, and to help you plan any approach you may take for driving traffic to your site in the future.
The Google PageRank Does Not Change on My Blog?
My PR has not Increased even though I have a lot of Backlinks? What can I do?
This is a question a couple my friends have asked me about sites they have been working hard on over the past couple months. Several of them have told me they spend several hours each week backlinking and they still do not see a visible change in their Google PageRank.
This is completely normal. Google Page Rank can be hard to understand, because of the many functions of the Google search engine or “Googlebot”. The reason Google likes to keep this information “secret” is think of all the ways people could exploit the Google search algorithm if they knew exactly how it worked.
Page Rank Factors to Consider
There are several things you need to know about the way that Google PageRank is calculated to get the most out of the work you put into your site.
For a detailed guide covering all aspects of Google page rank and how it works, check out:
Google PageRank: What Do We Know About It?
(The terms “Actual” and “Visible” that I will be using are terms I created and are not official Google names.)
Actual PageRank
The first thing you need to be aware of is that Google Page Rank is calculated all the time, every minute of everyday. It is such a big task that it needs to be constantly evaluated to give sites an accurate ranking.
This type calculation should be considered the “actual pagerank”. It is the type of PR that actually affects the amount of organic traffic you get to your site each day. Most people mistake this number for the “visible pagerank” they can see in the Google toolbar.
Visible PageRank
Visible pagerank does not have an impact on anything other than bragging rights and a gauge for pricing when selling advertising space on your website.
Because true page rank is calculated all the time, any changes you make to your site that will eventually increase the PR number displayed in the Google toolbar, will have a positive daily affect on your site and the amount of organic traffic that flows to it.
Visible PageRank is only updated every couple months by Google, because they spend the majority of their time calculating the actual pageranks of sites. If Google spent all it’s time updating the information you see on the Google toolbar they wouldn’t get anything else done.
For a good idea of when the next Google PageRank update will occur (and the times between past updates) check out the following site for a great guide with detailed information:
“Well then I should be able to judge this based on my number of backlinks right?”
Yes and no. Backlinks are constantly being tallied and spidered, much in the same way page rank is constantly being evaluated. Estimates state that is can take up to 2 full months of Google spidering the web to get an accurate idea of the amount of backlinks pointing towards your site.
Once again, you need to be patient to see these numbers displayed in SEO toolbars and results.
Your best bet for gauging the effectiveness of SEO improvements that you make to your site is by using Alexa. (imho)
Alexa - The Web Information Company
Alexa? I have heard that Alexa rank is useless?
Alexa Rank is about as useful as Google “Toolbar” PageRank (visible pagerank) in that the only thing it affects is bragging rights or potential value for ads sold on your website.
The reason Alexa Rank is useful is because the Alexa Toolbar functions similar to the way Google Toolbar does.
Users install a Toolbar that gathers statistics on websites and creates an overall picture of how valuable that site is on the internet. The benefit of Alexa is that they update their visible numbers on a weekly basis rather than Google that can take months to display this information.
Because there is a quicker turn around on the information being displayed you can use Alexa to judge the effectiveness of various SEO tactics you are using on your website. As your Alexa rank improves you can tell the changes you are implementing are having a positive effect on your overall site ranking.
This can help you judge what methods are most helping your site, and which ones are not worth your time.
Overview
This guide is a general rant than anything else. I am by no means an expert on SEO or Google PageRank. These are just things I have picked up from researching different topics online, and tracking changes I have made to Pseudorant.
The key is to be patient and stay the course. The more you work on your site the more it will payoff in the long run.
I hope you enjoyed this article and thanks for checking out Pseudorant. We appreciate the support!
Why Google Alerts are So Useful!
Why are “Google Alerts” so Valuable?
Many of you may already be aware that Google offers a service called “Google Alerts”. For those who were not, Google Alerts is a service that you can setup through Google to receive updates via email whenever a search criteria, that you specify is met.
This may sound pretty basic but it can be a very powerful tool for many reasons. The internet has gotten to a point where it is considered tacky to waste ones time browsing sites on a high speed connection. In the world we live in, where people feel they need instant access to specific information at all times, the RSS feed is king.
On this same note, services like Google Alerts can meet a very specific need. If you do not have the time to find the information you need on the internet, tell Google to find it for you and to email you when it’s finished.
In a way the alerts are somewhat like an RSS feed in that they provide constant updates throughout the day (depending on how you have them configured.) so you can spend your time doing other things until the information you need arrives.
The best way to understand why they are so convenient is to go to the Google Alerts homepage and set one up to see just what they are all about. You can reach the homepage from the following link:
On the Google alerts page you will notice two things, a welcome message that gives you a brief description of what Google Alerts are, and a form with drop down menus labeled “Create a Google Alert”.
We want to start by creating an alert. Now you will notice the four information fields that are required to create the alert. They are “Search Terms”, “Type”, “How Often”, and “Your Email”.
Let’s start by putting in our search terms. For our example let’s use:
“Pseudorant”
This way we can receive an alert whenever the site gets mentioned online. Notice I have left out the “www” and “com” part of the address. I have done this because I would like to be informed of any general mention of Pseudorant. If you were interested in knowing when the site address gets mentioned you would put in www.pseudorant.com.
Keep in mind that you are not limited to just words or titles. You can setup alerts for advanced search queries to find very specific information. Google Alerts will let you setup search terms using all the common Google operators.
For more information on Google Operators and how to use them, refer to my Google Guide which is located at the following links:
Google Guide 01 - Introduction & Search Operators
Google Guide 02 - Definitions, Maps, Driving Directions
Google Guide 03 - Services, Features, Advanced Operators
Google Guide 04 - Web History, Bookmarks, Labs & Easter Eggs
Once you have setup the search term to your liking, you need to complete the rest of the form to make sure you receive your alerts.
The next option we need to set is the “Type” of alert. There are six options here to choose from, News, Blogs, Web, Comprehensive, Video and Groups. These options will determine where Google should look for the information you are searching for.
When I setup Google Alerts I tend to use the “Comprehensive” option because I like to know if the information is coming up in multiple areas. Though sometimes selecting one area may provide better results if you are looking for something like a news story.
In this case because you are looking for confirmed news, you will probably want rule out other sources like “Videos” “Groups” and “Blogs” which may contain information that is based on opinion and not necessarily on fact. Although sometimes bloggers do tend to have the inside scoop like my article on “Google Office in Madison Confirmed by The Capital Times Newspaper“.
After you have determined what type of alert is going to get you the most relevant information you need to set the frequency of the alert. This can be done by using the drop down menu on the “How Often” field. Here you have three options, “Once a day“, “As-it-happens“, and “Once a week“.
How often you receive the alert can be an important decision based on how interested you are in the material you are asking Google to send you. In the case of a blogger you may setup multiple news alerts that you want to receive immediately so you can be one of the first to post links to any breaking news. Although if you are just setting up alerts to keep an eye out for a new game you are waiting to play, you may only want to receive updates once a day. If you set them too often it may feel as though you are being spammed because depending on the topic you can receive several updates per hour.
On the other hand if you do not set them to come often enough you may miss out on an interesting story or topic that you would like to have been in on from the start. These are just a couple things to keep in mind when you decide how often you would like to receive updates.
The last thing you need to do to complete the Google Alert submissions is to enter the email address you would like the alerts to go to. As I mentioned before updates that come to often can feel like spam, so you may want to consider setting up a secondary email address that your Google alerts go to.
I actually have this setup on my iPhone so that my normal mail goes to one email address and my Google alerts go to another. This way when an alert comes in and my phone dings, I can decide if I want to look at it now, or save a couple for later and go through them all at once.
You can set this up however it best meets your needs but it can be a nice alternative to sorting through your email every couple hours if you’re getting alerts “As-it-happens”.
Once you have submitted the email address to send the alerts to, you can click the “Create Alert” button which will finalize the Google Alert submission process.
It will now take you to a webpage that says there has been a confirmation email sent to the address you specified. You will want to log into that email account and click on the link in the email to confirm that you would actually like to receive the alerts.
Once you have done this you will start to receive alerts based on the criteria you specified. You can now sit back and relax as the latest updates on Warhammer online come right to your email, or the latest scoop on any news in your city.
As with most Google services this provides yet another very useful feature to help people get the most out of their online experience. If you are a blogger I highly recommend setting up Google Alerts for your interests because it will help you come up with interesting topics for posts on a daily basis.
Google Office in Madison Confirmed by The Capital Times Newspaper
Official Details on the Google Office in Madison
The Capital Times newspaper has released an article today confirming the news that Google will be opening an office in Madison, Wisconsin.
It is an interesting article that provides details on the new office, and what its role in Madison may be. It also answers an important question that readers were asking in regards to my April 16th post “Google to Open Midwest Office in Madison, Wisconsin“, about where the new office will be located.
According to the article the office will be located at “301 S. Blount, just off Williamson Street”. This confirms the information I posted in my follow-up article where I stated “I have heard the office will most likely be very close to were John Nolan Drive and Williamson Street intersect, or within 2 blocks of this location.” For those who are unfamiliar with Madison, Blount Street is located just one block from this intersection.
For details from my follow-up article please check the following post “Google Office in Madison - Additional Details”
For those who are new to my blog I hope you continue to check back for all the latest tech news and happenings in Madison and around the world. I will try to bring you reliable news as I hear it in addition to guides on computers and technology!
For the complete article from The Capital Times newspaper, please check the link below:
http://www.madison.com/tct/news//index.php?ntid=283649
Here is additional information on the story that can be found at WTN News (Wisconsin Technology Network)
http://wistechnology.com/articles/4715/
As always thanks for checking out Pseudorant! I appreciate the support!
News - Google Office in Madison - Additional Details
Follow-up Details on the Google Office in Madison
I am posting a follow-up article on the Google Office in Madison because I have received a lot of questions from people asking about the specifics of that article.
Let me say first, that at the moment the details are very limited. There have been a number of live journal users who have confirmed the information I originally posted. There are several parties involved in the project so far so some people may have additional details that I don’t know. If you do have additional information, please feel free to post it to my comments so we can gather all the specifics and get a thread going with the details.
The questions I have been asked from people are as follows:
How did you find out about this?
As I mentioned in my original post “Google to Open Midwest Office in Madison, Wisconsin” I received this information from a friend who told me this in passing. They were not trying to pump up a story or get me excited. It was more along the lines of “this is what happened at work today”.
There had been a few brief mentions of this prior to this conversation because of paperwork that was currently in the works. This also involved a meeting with representatives from Google to hammer out details regarding the office space.
How do you know that it’s confirmed?
I also stated in my article about “Blog Mission Statement and News Accuracy” that I would only present information on my blog when it has been almost 100% confirmed. The confirmation that I decided to go by when posting this article was signed contracts regarding the office space Google will be using for their Madison location.
How do you know the location?
This is one spot I should have been clearer on when I posted the article. I mentioned in my original post that it would be in the Willy Street “Area”. This means the office may be “on” Willy Street or might be off a side street near Willy. Either way you should be able to see the building from WIlly Street. I do not know the confirmed address of the building. From what I have heard the office will most likely be very close to were John Nolan Drive and Williamson Street intersect, or within 2 blocks of this location.
Why would Google move to Willy Street?
The area that the office will most likely be in is actually closer to the Capital Square than what people would usually envision when they hear the name “Willy Street”. Do not expect to see a Google office mixed in between hippy clothing stores, world food markets and Mother Fools coffee house. Although based on Google’s company mantras I can see why they might like this area of Madison.
The secondary reason being, that Google apparently found a building in this area with a visual esthetic that matched their tastes. If you have seen the Google offices in California (inside and out) you can get an idea for what I am talking about.
What will this offices role be in Madison, Wisconsin?
The short answer is… no idea.
Sorry, I know you probably don’t want to hear that but it’s true. No one I have talked to that has information on this knows what the office will be used for.
There was a suggestion from Lacherig in a live journal comment that said “Aren’t they currently working on scanning all of the books in the UW’s libraries?” This could be the purpose of the office. In my original article I could only offer speculation as to what the new office might mean for Madison.
The only thing I find strange about the office is that the visual esthetic was an important factor about the building for one reason or another. If I was opening a business that would mainly be used for achieving data I wouldn’t spend the extra time or money on a building that looked “neat”.
This may just be they way Google does things with their company or it might mean that the office may have multiple purposes.
As far as how permanent the office will be, that is also up for speculation. I know that they are going to be renting the office space and they have not purchased any commercial property in Madison at the moment. If they had, I would give the confirmation details right from the AccessDane website regarding the purchase.
Because of this it is impossible to really guess what future plans Google may have for this office.
I personally feel that they should look into making Madison a second home because of how technology oriented the city already is. This could turn out to be something really cool, or it may just be that they are here to catalog books. Either way, it is Google, and that in itself is really cool.
Madison has the potential to be a great location for many successful computer related business. With companies like Raven Software and Human Head Studios that have been operating here for years, it would only be a bonus to have other technology related companies like Google move in next door.
I hope this answers some of the questions that have been floating around since my first post. As I said before I will post more details as they become available to me. This article lays out everything I have heard, so now you know as much as I do about it. (Ok maybe a few choice details were left out at the request of my friend)
I guess that might add a little incentive to check back on Pseudorant to see when those details come to light. Until then thanks for stopping by my blog, and please feel free to post any comments or questions in follow-up to this article.
The first person to post a comment will win a spot right below this article to type stuff! 
(and so on, so forth, I’m sure you see where I’m going with this.)
Thanks for checking out Pseudorant!!!
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