How to Protect your Site and Recover from Google Penguin Penalties

A Step by Step Guide to
Protecting Your Site From
Penguin: A Case Study on
Elearners.com
Introduction
Penguin 2.0 hit hard for those who didn’t know how to protect their site from penalties.
Elearners.com was one of those sites.
According to SEOlytics, in the aftermath of Penguin 2.0, Elearners lost close to 60% of
their traffic.
For all intents and purposes, Eleaners.com should have NOT been hit by a penalty
when Google updated to Penguin 2.0. Taking a superficial look at their metrics, they
had all the right elements: high PR/authority links with a large number of unique C class
links, including .edu and .gov sites. So why did they suffer a Penguin penalty? And
what can you learn from their mistakes to protect your own site?
Penguin penalties are preventable—if you know what you’re looking for and how to
protect yourself.

By using LinkResearchTools.com, I’ve undertaken a deep, step-by-step analysis into
various backlink metrics, revealing numerous red flags that—seen from Google’s
perspective—created unnatural ratios resulting in a harsh penalty.
In this case study, I will lay out a step by step strategy that you can follow to analyze
your backlink profile, identify potential landmines, and change your ratios to normalize
your profile with that of your competitors.
Don’t follow in Elearners footsteps. By paying attention to the metrics analyzed below,
you can know what behaviors to avoid to keep your site safe from the next dreaded
Penguin update.
Step 1: Identify your Competitors (SEMrush)
Start by identifying the main competitors in the space
Step 2: Quick Comparison
Backlinks Overview (BLP)
How many total backlinks, and how many from unique C classes?

Elearner has 44,271 links found, out of which 7538 are from unique C classes. This
means they have a total of 17% of their links from unique C classes.
Quick Domain Compare (QDC)
How does your site compare to your competitors?
When the total backlinks, including links to subdomains, are analyzed, you can see that
there are over 2 million backlinks, much higher than the other domains in the
space. This is an instant red flag.

Quick Competitive Overview (CLA)
How does your site compare to your competitors in terms of Power and Trust?
Elearners has the highest Cemper Power Trust, yet it doesn’t have the highest number
of root domains, indicating there are too many links from domains with high power or
high trust.

Link Stats Comparison (Juice Tool)
How do various link factors compare?
Elearners is ranked #4 in terms of the number of unique C class links. Power and Trust
is similar for all of their competitors (minus Walden.edu, which wasn't analyzed further).
Elearners has a normal distribution of Power and Trust.

Elearners also has over 14k keywords ranking in the top 20 according to SEMrush,
making it #3 in this list. This should be an indicator of trust, yet you can see the steep
decline in traffic.
You see in the chart below that Elearners has a very high ratio of sitewide links. This is
another definite red flag.
How do various link factors compare?

In terms of Age, ACrank, PR, and Indexed pages, Elearners has a strong profile, similar
to it’s competitors. Although the TitleRank isn’t that low, the fact that it isn’t #1 is a
definite sign of a Google Penalty.
In all of these stats, Elearners is comparable, in fact it’s even stronger than most of the
other sites.
Could a lack of social signals have been a factor in Elearners penalty? Even though
Elearners has fewer than average Facebook likes, shares and comments, this isn't
enough to prove significant. Strong social signals didn't prevent the site from contracting
a penalty.

Summary
Summary of Findings from Quick Comparisons
At a quick glance, looking at these various factors yielded no significant findings.
Elearners might have been a little off-balance in a couple of metrics, but there was
nothing immediately visible to give us a concrete indication of why it suffered a Penguin
2.0 penalty.
Step 3: Detailed Competitive Analysis
Link Status (CLA)
Are most links followed, nofollowed, or redirected?
Elearners has the highest percentage of follow links, which is often—especially from Google’s
point of view—evidence of contrived links.

Link Status (CLA)
How are the links coded?
Looking at the Link Type metrics you can quickly see that Elearners has a major
percentage of links from iframes. Why are there so many links in frames? More
importantly, why is this number so high compared to their competitors?
This is something that definitely needs to be investigated as part of this link audit.
Deep Links Ratio (CLA)
How many of the links point to home vs internal pages?
Elearners has a higher deep links ratio than it’s competitors. Even though 5% is hardly
significant, it stands out enough to call to question why this site is above average as
compared to others in the niche.
Sitewide Links Ratio (CLA)

What is the sitewide links ratio of the inbound links?
Overall Elearners has a similar sitewide links ratio profile as other competitors, with the
exception of a slightly elevated number of linking sites with 1-10 inbound links. This
doesn't give us any conclusive information, however.
Referring Class C (CLA)
What is the distribution of the link popularity of the inbound links?
Here we see that Elearners has an unnatural ratio of links with more than 100K inbound
links. While the average is 4%, Elearners has double that with an average of 8% of
their links on sites with over 100K links.
Moz Domain Authority (CLA)
What is the distribution of the Domain Authority of the backlinks?
Elearners has a similar profile as other sites in the niche for Domain Authority.

Google Page Rank (CLA)
What is the PageRank distribution of the backlinks?
Elearners has an average PR distribution. They have 520 N/A links, one of the lowest
of the group, as well as only 70 PR0 backlinks. On the high PR spectrum, they have 2
PR8 links, and 1 PR7 link, which is on the higher end of the average.
Link Velocity Trends (CLA)
How quickly are the sites building backlinks?
Elearners’ backlinks have a similar LVT as other competitors in the space.

By Retweets (CLA)
How active are the sites on Twitter?
Elearners seems to have a similar social profile to other competitors. No unnatural
activity is apparent.
By Google +1's (CLA)
How active are the sites on Google Plus?
Again, Elearners seems to have a similar social profile to other competitors, and no
unnatural activity is apparent.

TitleRank Home Page (CLA)
How are backlink sites ranking for their home page title?
Elearners has the lowest number of backlinks ranking #1. AT 669, they are only at 52%,
compared to the total average of 63%. Elearners also has the highest number of sites
that are not ranking in the top 30 results (31% where the average is 19%). This is
another red flag.
LP By PR & AC Rank (BLP)
What is the PR and AC rank of the inbound links?
Elearners has too many inbound links from sites that are not indexed in Google or have
a PR or AC rank of 0. This is disproportionate to other backlinks as well as to other
competitors.

Summary
Did Detailed Comparisons yield Red Flags?
We found significant findings in the following areas:
● Too many links in iframes
● Deep links ratio is higher than competitors
● Many of their inbound links have more than 100K inbound links
● High number of high PR links. Both of these indicate high Power in their backlink
profile as compared to other domains.
● They have the lowest number of sites ranking #1 for their home page title
● Social Signals don't give us any conclusive information
● They have a very high number of inbound links from sites that are not indexed in
Google, but the number isn't significant when compared to competitors

Step 4: Anchor Text Analysis
Keyword (CLA)
What is the breakdown between Money terms vs others?
To begin, we have to categorize the keywords into Brand, Compound, Money, and
Other. This step can be time consuming but it is essential to the process.
Keyword (CLA)
What is the percentage of Money Terms in the Anchor Text Profile?
Elearners.com has the highest % for money, and lowest for Brand. This is a major red
flag, for reasons we can identify when we look at the anchor text distribution of
Elearners as well as some of its biggest competitors.

Anchor Text: Elearners (BLP)
What is the Anchor Text Distribution?
Looking at Elearners.com anchor text distribution we can quickly see that they has too
many money keywords in anchor text—the top 4, 5, and 6 keywords are money
terms. This is an instant red flag that this is a contrived link profile with active anchor
text manipulation. None of the densities are too high, but the overall density for
"Money" terms is too high.

Anchor Text: Devry (QBL)
What is the Anchor Text Distribution of their competitors?
In comparison we have Devry.edu. Notice their word map and how varied it is, focusing
mostly on brand terms. None of the money terms show up in the top of the list for
anchor density. This appears to be a very natural profile.
Anchor Text: Kaplan (QBL)

Kaplan, on the other hand, also has money terms at the top of their anchor text profile.
In fact, Kaplan is probably worse because the actual densities are higher. If this was
thye only major issue for Elearners, then Kaplan would've gone down too. However,
Kaplan is stronger than ever after Penguin 2.0.
Why didn't Kaplan get hit by Penguin 2.0?
Anchor Text: Kaplan (BLP)
Why is Kaplan not penalized by Penguin?
I started by categorizing Kaplan's backlinks and performing a detailed link analysis.
Although Kaplan has money terms in the anchor distribution and the anchor density is
high, the distribution between brand and money terms is greatly normalized—unlike
Elearners.com. 64% of Kaplan’s backlinks are Brand links, as opposed to 34% for
Elearners. By having a greater variety and variations of Brand terms in their backlink
profile, they are protected from algorithmic penalties. A quick analysis into their
backlinks also shows a great number of natural, unpaid links.

Anchor Text: Phoenix (BLP)
Phoenix has the most natural looking profile, with lots of brand, click here, and organic
terms. It's obvious that there's been little done to contrive this backlink profile.
Anchor Text: Capella (QBL)

As with Phoenix, Capella has a natural and diverse backlink profile.
Summary
What did Anchor Text Data Reveal?
● Too many Money terms in the Anchor Text profile
● Competitors that have high anchor text density were not penalized, possibly
because of high Brand term density
● Anchor text word map looks very contrived for Elearners, with the smallest
percentage of Brand Terms
Step 5: Link Detox & Detailed Link Analysis
Link Detox Overview (LD)
What is the Average Link Detox Risk?

According to the system, Elearners has a very low risk of penalty or bad links. This
means that the bad links have been very well disguised in order to avoid detection. Yet,
since we already know the site has been penalized, how did Google pick up on these
links? What are these links hiding that could give us insights into this penalty?
Do any of the links stand out?
Even though only 1% of the links are perceived to be “toxic,” we still have 36% of the
links that are considered suspicious. These suspicious links may be where the problem
is hidden. Now we'll take a look at some of these links individually for further
information.
Scan Combined Backlinks (CLA)
Does anything jump out when you sort and scan through the backlinks of the group?
Download the CLA spreadsheet to Excel, and start scanning the backlinks.

I found a PR 8 to Elearners from StudyAbroad, and noticed that it's a"Partners link" at
the footer. This is a footer link that's sitewide and available on every page of those 4
sites.
This is an indication of a potential network, leading to negative interlinkage.
Looking at other competitor backlinks, many look natural. However, Elearners has
many educational sites with keywords in the URL, which look unnatural.
Network alert! Network alert!
When further analyzing these links in the detailed link report, we can instantly see that
many of these domains are owned by the same person, creating a link network. This is
a HUGE red flag.

Identical sites on different domains
We also noticed that many of the sites are almost exactly the same, with identical
templates and content, but with different domains and color schemes. There are other
sites that are not quite as obvious but are still part of the same network.

Elearners.com Backlinks (BLP)
If you spot test the links, do they seem clean/natural, or are they
acquired/contrived?
First I sorted by PR, deleted all of the N/A's (of which there are a lot!!), and started spot-
testing the high quality links. Here are a few examples of my findings:
Download the CLA spreadsheet to Excel, and start scanning the backlinks.
I found a PR 8 to Elearners from StudyAbroad, and noticed that it's a"Partners link" at
the footer. This is a footer link that's sitewide and available on every page of those 4
sites.
This is an indication of a potential network, leading to negative interlinkage.
This appears to be a paid contextual link.
http://www.mastersinhistory.net/

All of the links end up at Elearners, which is obviously another site that is part of this link
network.
So far, all of the high PR backlinks that I've spot tested are either purchased or part of
their own network!
Paid Links on USAToday?!
Even a link on USAtoday, which might've been editorial, is purchased! You can see at
the top of the page, the link to elearners.com

Summary
Why did the Link Profile look healthy?
Elearners hid their toxic links very well behind high profile / high quality paid links and
link networks.
How can Link Detox identify very healthy, high quality sites as toxic links
algorithmically? This is, and has been, Google’s biggest conundrum when it comes to
algorithmically fighting spam manipulation. Healthy links that affect pagerank and
rankings are hard to identify without manual intervention.
So the question is, what can they do algorithmically to identify manipulated links? Look
for unnatural ratios!
These unnatural ratios can trigger red flags and, when enough of the red flags are
triggered, then an algorithmic penalty or a manual review can follow.
So what gave Elearners away, and caused the Penguin 2.0 penalty?
Take a look at this summary of my findings:

The X's are the number of strikes. Could it be that after a certain amount of strikes a
site automatically incurs a penalty? Or could it trigger a manual evaluation, resulting in a
slap?
If this hypothesis is correct, all you have to do is watch your ratios and keep them within
the same range of your competitors in order to stay undetected.
Conclusions
So why did Elearners.com get a Penguin 2.0 penalty?
Too Many Unnatural Ratios
After analyzing about 20 factors, we found red flags in about 10 of the different items.
Too many links with Money Terms in their Anchor Text
Their anchor text profile shows a large number of money terms, higher than other
competitors in the space. Simultaneously, the number of Brand terms is lower than
other competitors in the niche. Looking at their anchor density word map also shows
that there are few "noise" keywords, thus showing a contrived backlink profile.
Too Many Paid Links

Given that many of their high PR links are paid links, these may have been identified by
the algorithm or a manual review, resulting in the penalty. By penalizing Text Link Ads
and their network, Google is making it clear that they have no tolerance for people
buying or selling links. Spot testing their backlinks shows many paid links, with just a
few examples below:
www.pandc.ca
www.romingerlegal.com

www.superscholar.org/blog
Elearners is part of a Link Network
Many of their inbound links are part of the same network, many registered by the same
person, others hidden behind different registrars, even more hidden behind private
registrars. Upon inspection it's fairly obvious that they're owned by the same
company.
It's likely the network started years ago with them buying high PR links, which earned
them visibility. This visibility led to some natural links, including links from some .gov
and .edu sites. From this authority and pagerank, they continued to create more sites to
create a large link network of sites, all interlinked or randomly linked.
This network includes hundreds of niche sites, each focusing on specific degrees. By
linking within the network using footer links or iframes, all of those sites gained high
pagerank.
By looking at the BLP backlinks and investigating each of these network links, many of
them retain pagerank, titlerank, and SEMrush keywords, therefore the entire network
hasn't yet been popped. Many of the sites continue to thrive and feed the main site,
Elearners.com
Protect your site Against Penguin!
So what does this Penalty tell us about Penguin 2.0?

Watch your Ratios!
As evidenced by this study, it is vital to keep an eye on all of your ratios. If too many
of your ratios look unnatural as compared to others in your niche, these red flags may
result in a manual review or automatic penalty.
Watch the number of Money Terms in your Anchor Text
It's not enough to just watch your anchor density—you also have to watch the
percentage of money terms in your anchor text. Study other competitors that have
healthy, natural link profiles and emulate them. Or, better yet, follow their same tactics
to acquire natural links with natural anchor text.
Use Brand and Noise Terms in your Anchor Text
Try working on link building without contriving your anchor text. Allow people to
link to you however they want, to result in natural looking links.
Don't Buy Links!
Buying links worked for years, but Google knows this is a weakness in their algorithm.
By using Penguin with a combination of manual reviews, they are now able to penalize
sites that are buying links.
You may buy links and get away with it for a time, but eventually it's possible that your
link buying may trigger a penalty, causing your site to tank in the rankings. And, as
many people know by now, once you have a Penguin penalty it's very difficult, almost
impossible, to recover.
Avoid Link Networks
It's very tempting to buy into a link network, or to create your own network of niche sites.
Many people do it by buying expired domains, or by finding established networks and
joining. This may work for a time, but eventually some of these ratios will be triggered,
and the network will be found. Once you catch the tail of a network, exposing the rest is
fairly easy.
Network builders try hard, but there are always footprints left to find, and with the
sophistication of Google's algorithms, you better believe the network will be identified
and penalized.

Don’t Procrastinate! Do your Link Research!
To algorithmically monitor for spam, Google looks at your site as compared to your
competitors. If your site sticks out with many metrics outside of the norm, it may be a
call out towards a penalty. One trigger is not enough—as we saw with the comparison
to Kaplan and its high density of anchor texts. One signal didn’t lead to a penalty;
having many unnatural ratios can. Ratios are increasingly important as Google looks
deeper into unnatural link building and controlling spam.
What does this mean for your site? If you’ve already been penalized, run an audit with
Link Research Tools and look at your link ratios to see what you can normalize. Watch
your rankings and traffic from Google to see if it normalizing helps your site recover and
perform better.
If you haven’t yet been penalized, protect your site by continuously running these
reports to keep your ratios safe. Be extra-vigilant in your optimization efforts to make
sure that you are not triggering red flags. If you are prepared and avoiding triggering
linking behaviors, you won’t have to worry when the next Google Penguin update
comes around.

How to Protect your Site and Recover from Google Penguin Penalties

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