The Google Penguin stealthy made its entrance into the cyberspace on the 24th of April 2012. From there, it was a rapid plummet for webmasters who were using ‘unnatural’ link building strategies to rank their websites. This badass algorithm had one thing in mind. To depreciate the rank of websites that were breaking and bending Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.
The entry of Google Penguin 2.0 caused more scares among webmasters who were overdoing their on-page optimization and employing the infamous blackhat SEO strategies to deceive Google.
For the webmasters who were caught between the cross-hairs of these two algorithm updates, there were only two plausible solutions to get back their desirable spots on top of the Google SERPS. Either remove and disavow all the low quality and spammy links pointing back to their domains or start building a new website on a new domain.
Recovering from the Google Penguin Penalty involves a fair share of altering or removing the bad links and waiting for Google to re-review your website. If you are lucky (and patient), you might get back your position at the top of the SERPS. If you are not, then starting a new website domain seems so much like the only choice you have. If you would like to start a domain on the cheap, sign up for ipage hosting. They will give you a free domain name with the purchase of any of their hosting plans.
Getting Acquitted With the Google Link Disavow Tool
If you decide to go the way of the cross, confess and repent your SEO transgressions, then you must be willing to make acquaintance with the Google Disavow Tool. This great tool will probably be your only friend towards your endeavor, which will be long, frustrating and painstaking. The journey to recovery will make you wish you had never heard of Blackhat SEO in the first place. But with the Google Disavow Tool by your side, what you probably need is a lot of patience and faith.
I Am Not Even Sure Whether My Website Is A Victim Of The Penguins
There are many webmasters who are still in denial, ignorant, doubtful or all of the above. They simply don’t want to believe that their precious money sites have contracted the Penguin Fever. For these doubting Thomases, there is only one single bit of advice. Head over to fruition.net and check out the tools their Google Penalty Checker Tool. This great tool will either give you a green light meaning the Penguins have not gotten to your website or a red light that could only indicate one thing…
After you have confirmed your fate, you need to head over to majesticseo.com to check the type of anchor text that is being used on backlinks to your blog. Anchor text of course is the main indicator to the Penguins that you are over optimizing or using unnatural linking strategies on your website. Other tools that will accomplice the same feat include the ahrefs tool and a gazillion other startup Penguin Recovery Tools. Most of these tools will show the low quality backlinks that you need to get rid of.
After identifying the links, you need to find details of the webmasters that are linking back to your website, file link removal requests and patiently wait for them to do the necessary. If after all these efforts there are still some suspicious backlinks hovering around, hit the Google Disavow tool and disassociate those links with your website.
This however does not mark the end of your recovery journey. You still need to contact the Good Guys at Google and request them to reevaluate your website. If your claim is turned down, repeat this process all over again.
Patrick Mahinge is a prolific digital marketer and "serial webpreneur". He runs multiple profitable niche websites and blogs monetized through affiliate marketing and advertising. Patrick generously shares his expertise in affiliate marketing, blogging, and online business through his Facebook group of over 5,000 aspiring entrepreneurs.
