At the MnSearch Snippet #13 event held at Spyder Trap in Minneapolis, MN on April 30, 2014, Jake McCormick and Peter Quale presented his slidedeck "Google Penalties: The Diagnosis & The Cure."

1. NINAHALE.COM C O N F I D E N T I A L & P R O P R I E T A R YNINAHALE.COM C O N F I D E N T I A L & P R O P R I E T A R Y
GOOGLE PENALTIES:
THE DIAGNOSIS & THE
CURE
April 30, 2014

2. NINAHALE.COM C O N F I D E N T I A L & P R O P R I E T A R Y 2
Jake McCormick
• Search Marketing
Manager
• Certified in Google
Analytics & BrightEdge
• Experience includes
B2B, B2C, eCommerce,
lead generation, small
business, big business,
local SEO & journalism

3. NINAHALE.COM C O N F I D E N T I A L & P R O P R I E T A R Y 3
Peter Quale
• SEO Master Practitioner
• Aquarius
• Likes:
Horses, movies, Japane
se food
• Dislikes: Musicals, tight
shoes, counterfeit
money
• Should message me: If
you have any weird
stories or
questions/thoughts
about SEO.

4. NINAHALE.COM C O N F I D E N T I A L & P R O P R I E T A R Y
SO, (MAYBE) YOU’VE BEEN
PENALIZED!
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5. NINAHALE.COM C O N F I D E N T I A L & P R O P R I E T A R Y
Organic Traffic Plummets.
Rankings Disappear.
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6. NINAHALE.COM C O N F I D E N T I A L & P R O P R I E T A R Y 6
Number 1 Rule

7. NINAHALE.COM C O N F I D E N T I A L & P R O P R I E T A R Y
Pre-Investigation Caveats
• Bad SEO ≠ Penalty
– Natural selection through algorithm updates
• Search results construction
– 7-Pack, Knowledge Graph, One-Box, PLAs, etc.
• All penalties are not created equal
• Document, document, document everything
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8. NINAHALE.COM C O N F I D E N T I A L & P R O P R I E T A R Y 8
Tom Critchlow’s
Penalty Diagnosis
Flow Chart
http://nhale.co/mnsearch1

9. NINAHALE.COM C O N F I D E N T I A L & P R O P R I E T A R Y
Where to Start: Google Analytics
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• How much traffic lost? When?
• Timeline of known algorithm updates vs.
traffic drops
– Mozcast, Algoroo

10. NINAHALE.COM C O N F I D E N T I A L & P R O P R I E T A R Y
Where to Start: Webmaster Tools
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11. NINAHALE.COM C O N F I D E N T I A L & P R O P R I E T A R Y
When is it NOT a Penalty?
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12. NINAHALE.COM C O N F I D E N T I A L & P R O P R I E T A R Y
OFF-SITE PENALTIES
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13. NINAHALE.COM C O N F I D E N T I A L & P R O P R I E T A R Y
No Messages, No Problem?
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• Good, but…
– A diagnostic dead
end
– Manual notifications
give you a starting
point, direct contact
with Google

14. NINAHALE.COM C O N F I D E N T I A L & P R O P R I E T A R Y
BACKLINK AUDITS:
Your Penalty Accountabilabuddy
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15. NINAHALE.COM C O N F I D E N T I A L & P R O P R I E T A R Y
Step 1: Backlink Audit Foundation
• Historical transparency is crucial
– Question 1: Did you pay for links?
– Question 2: Are you lying?
• Dredge up all link building documents
– Outsourced contracts, strategic plans,
outreach lists, payment receipts, former
employees
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16. NINAHALE.COM C O N F I D E N T I A L & P R O P R I E T A R Y
Step 2: Backlink Compilation
• Use multiple indexes, filter duplicate
domains/pages
– Google Webmaster Tools
– Majestic SEO
– Link Research Tools
– Moz Open Site Explorer
– Ahrefs
– Xenu Link Sleuth
• The more links, the better
– A handful of bad links don‟t trigger a penalty
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17. NINAHALE.COM C O N F I D E N T I A L & P R O P R I E T A R Y
Step 3: Evaluate Backlinks
• Trends in site type
– Industry-related, general directories, Phillipino
mommy blogs
• Linking patterns
– If possible, crawl links (highlights patterns)
– Pages being linked
– Link networks
– Site-wide links
– Reciprocal links
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18. NINAHALE.COM C O N F I D E N T I A L & P R O P R I E T A R Y
COMMON VIOLATIONS
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19. NINAHALE.COM C O N F I D E N T I A L & P R O P R I E T A R Y
Off-Page Violation 1:
Exact Match Anchor Text
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• Ratio of homepage vs. internal pages

20. NINAHALE.COM C O N F I D E N T I A L & P R O P R I E T A R Y
Off-Page Violation 2:
Links-to-Domain Ratio
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35-to-1 link to
domain ratio

21. NINAHALE.COM C O N F I D E N T I A L & P R O P R I E T A R Y
Off-Page Violation 3:
Irrelevant Content
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22. NINAHALE.COM C O N F I D E N T I A L & P R O P R I E T A R Y
Off-Page Violation 4:
‘Low Authority’ Sites
• Thin word count, exact match anchor text
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Only content
on homepage
All external links to same
website

23. NINAHALE.COM C O N F I D E N T I A L & P R O P R I E T A R Y
More Link Patterns
• Cloaked links
• Paid links
• Comment, forum links
• Who do sites linking to you link to? Who
links to them? (What kind of neighbors do
you have?)
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24. NINAHALE.COM C O N F I D E N T I A L & P R O P R I E T A R Y
Step 4: Link Segmentation
• What “defines” a spam link?
– May seem obvious, but not all links are
discoverable via crawler tools
– When in doubt, treat as spam
• Organize into spreadsheet
– Linking URL
– Linked URL
– Anchor text
– Contact information
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25. NINAHALE.COM C O N F I D E N T I A L & P R O P R I E T A R Y
Step 5: Request Link Removal
• Website contact form
• Network Solutions Whois Tool
• LinkedIn
• Facebook
• Tweet at them – #publicshaming
Again, document everything.
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26. NINAHALE.COM C O N F I D E N T I A L & P R O P R I E T A R Y
Step 6: Disavow Links Tool

27. NINAHALE.COM C O N F I D E N T I A L & P R O P R I E T A R Y
ON-SITE PENALTIES
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28. NINAHALE.COM C O N F I D E N T I A L & P R O P R I E T A R Y
Google Webmaster Tools
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• Helps identify:
– Duplicate titles/meta descriptions (content)
– Keyword patterns
– Index problems
– Internal link popularity

29. NINAHALE.COM C O N F I D E N T I A L & P R O P R I E T A R Y
Screaming Frog Is Your Best Friend
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30. NINAHALE.COM C O N F I D E N T I A L & P R O P R I E T A R Y
Site Crawl
• Identifies:
– Duplicate content
– Keyword stuffing
– Broken pages/links
– Duplicate meta tags
– Click depth
– Crawl directives (index, nofollow)
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31. NINAHALE.COM C O N F I D E N T I A L & P R O P R I E T A R Y
Review Every Page on the Site
• Even one page of spam, poor quality or
thin content can hurt an entire site.

32. NINAHALE.COM C O N F I D E N T I A L & P R O P R I E T A R Y
COMMON VIOLATIONS
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33. NINAHALE.COM C O N F I D E N T I A L & P R O P R I E T A R Y
On-Page Violation 1:
‘Thin’ Content
• Generally < 500
words
• No value to users
beyond keyword
validation
• What‟s the „intent‟ of
this page?
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Used to be a
link

34. NINAHALE.COM C O N F I D E N T I A L & P R O P R I E T A R Y
On-Page Violation 2:
Keyword Stuffing
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35. NINAHALE.COM C O N F I D E N T I A L & P R O P R I E T A R Y
On-Page Violation 3:
Exact Match Internal Anchor Text
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“Index, follow” footer links + Hard to read text = Fail
Exact match link on
homepage…pointing
to homepage
Exact match link on
homepage…pointing
to homepage

36. NINAHALE.COM C O N F I D E N T I A L & P R O P R I E T A R Y
On-Page Violation 3:
Exact Match Internal Anchor Text
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• What to do with exact match internal
anchor text?
Get rid of them. All of them. Especially
site-wide footer links.
– If removal is not an option, then
rel=“nofollow”.

37. NINAHALE.COM C O N F I D E N T I A L & P R O P R I E T A R Y
More On-Page Violations
• Hidden content
• Hidden links
• Site-wide footer links
• Duplicate content
• Anything resembling this:
– “Thanks for еvery othеr informative site.
Ԝheгe еlse mɑy јust I ɑm gеtting tҺat type of
informаtion written іn ѕuch a perfect mеans?”
• Sales Training videos in Hindi
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38. NINAHALE.COM C O N F I D E N T I A L & P R O P R I E T A R Y
PENALTY-PROOFING YOUR SITE
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39. NINAHALE.COM C O N F I D E N T I A L & P R O P R I E T A R Y
Know Your Exact Site Size
• Crawl your site
regularly
– Screaming Frog
– Microsoft IIS SEO
Toolkit
• Compare the results
to Google and Bing
Indexes

40. NINAHALE.COM C O N F I D E N T I A L & P R O P R I E T A R Y
Know Your Exact Site Size
• Maintain a highly accurate sitemap.xml file.
• Reconcile submitted URLs vs. crawled URLs.

41. NINAHALE.COM C O N F I D E N T I A L & P R O P R I E T A R Y
Best Medicine of All
• Writing better content!
• Never discount the value of a good content
strategy guiding excellent writers.
• If you need help:
– http://www.hemingwayapp.com – Really spruces up
lousy copy!
– https://readability-score.com – Analyzes text and
provides four different test scores
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42. NINAHALE.COM C O N F I D E N T I A L & P R O P R I E T A R Y
Writing for Hummingbird
• “How is the searcher asking for
something?”
• Expand FAQs and support copy to attract
inquiry based searches:
– Who, what, why, where and how
– Conversational search
– Siri, Google Now, MS Cortana
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43. NINAHALE.COM C O N F I D E N T I A L & P R O P R I E T A R Y
PRECAUTIONS
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44. NINAHALE.COM C O N F I D E N T I A L & P R O P R I E T A R Y
Precautions:
Protect your IP address
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45. NINAHALE.COM C O N F I D E N T I A L & P R O P R I E T A R Y
Precautions:
Require a Host Header!
Revenge Domains
• CrabbyStewardess.com
• AssyAir.com
• Plane-Crash-Today.com
Spoofed Exact Match Domains
• Best-Detroit-Travel-4-Kids.com
• Spirit-Airlines-Air-Travel-Planes.com
• SpiritSpiritSpiritSpirit.com
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46. NINAHALE.COM C O N F I D E N T I A L & P R O P R I E T A R Y
Precautions:
Blog Spam
• If you have a blog attached to a big
brand, make sure comments are NOT
open. Comment spamming is the easiest
way to attack a site.
• If comments must remain open, moderate
them and block IPs from spam offenders.
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47. NINAHALE.COM C O N F I D E N T I A L & P R O P R I E T A R Y
Precautions:
Content Scraping
• Do occasional exact match searches on your
content to make sure it has not been scraped.
• Especially important for employment
listings, directories and blogs.
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48. NINAHALE.COM C O N F I D E N T I A L & P R O P R I E T A R Y
Takeaways
• The penalty investigation process is time-
consuming, critical, and simple
• Document, document, document everything
• Recovery has no “one size fits all” timetable
• Fix your penalties all at once and as quickly
as you can
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49. NINAHALE.COM C O N F I D E N T I A L & P R O P R I E T A R Y
NOW, RELAX.
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It‟s all going to turn out fine.

50. NINAHALE.COM C O N F I D E N T I A L & P R O P R I E T A R Y 50
QUESTIONS?
Thanks to the great people at MnSearch for having us and
thank YOU!
Jake McCormick – @Jake_BrewHoop
Peter Quale – @pbq
Art by Danial Ryan - http://danial-ryan.tumblr.com/