Paul Madden_SearchLove London 2013

Goodbye Spam

Hello Data !

Who is this guy?Paul Madden

Used to be naughty

Now Nice ish

What do I do now?I sell links

I sell the removal of links

I sell data

I sell glue

What we will talk about today• My journey • The realisation of a need to change• The lessons from that journey • Learn from my problems

My History

“Paul is easily influenced by his peers”

Modus operandi • Competitive SEO• Enjoyed the grey areas• Small projects & high volumes

Made for Adsense• 500-2000 scraper sites a week• 2 cheques from Google a month• Learned the churn and burn game

Affiliate and link building• Small affiliate sites• More links required than scrapers• Learned how to get links

Link building• Too many damn links• Sell some to clients• Increase the diversity of what I sold

Volume

• Suppliers• Brokers• Inventory• Infrastructure

So..• Used to have millions of pages• Now have millions of links

Spammers adapt

Pre 2012 Google stance

• Links either counted• Or they didn’t

Post 2012 Google stance

• asdas

A Major Change• Increasing pressure• Directly aimed at SEO

The game has changed• Link penalties

A realisation

“I needed to know the risk of everything I had ever placed and everything I was going

to place”

Start gathering data

3500+ Profiles run

100+ servers crawling and crunching

92,961,923 urls analysed

NB: The average site has 26,000 links

1,650,192 domains with more than one tweet

2,948,872 domains with more than one Facebook like

969,543 domains with more than 1 G+

519,569 domains with Adsense

2,439,073 domains with tags extracted

100+ SIGNALS GO INTO THE ALGORITHM

Google 2013 has a long

long memory

Think you’re clean?• I’ve always been whitehat• I’d never dream of link

manipulation

Someone….• Will have had a weak moment• Will have made a bad decision• Will have….

Met me at a conference

They don’t go away…

• Links hang around…

• Shit ones doubly so…..

From otherwise responsible sites

webdirectory11.comsubmitontheweb.comseo-friendly-directory.co.uknaturaldirectorylinks.comlinkextras.comfreeseoarticlesubmission.comfreelink-directory.netlincdirectory.info1235directory.com

An Idiots Guide

Credentials• Over 100 penalty removals jobs done

• Power of LinkRisk behind us

• Been doing removals since 2012

Link Penalties• Confirm you have a penalty

Partial penalty / Site wide• Its almost always partial• It doesn’t make that much difference

• Google DON’T CARE

DIY or Full service?• It takes a LOT of time• Never go with someone who guarantees a

result• Sign off and approve every stage

DIY or Full service?• Honesty and transparency • You need a guide not a salesman• It’s a fluid process• There are lots of ambulance chasers now

Reinclusion < Read this

http://bit.ly/linkschemes

Link Schemes• Buying or selling links that pass PageRank. This includes

exchanging money for links, or posts that contain links; exchanging goods or services for links; or sending someone a “free” product in exchange for them writing about it and including a link

• Excessive link exchanges ("Link to me and I'll link to you") or partner pages exclusively for the sake of cross-linking

• Large-scale article marketing or guest posting campaigns with keyword-rich anchor text links

• Using automated programs or services to create links to your site

Link Schemes• Text advertisements that pass PageRank

• Advertorials or native advertising where payment is received for articles that include links that pass PageRank

• Links with optimized anchor text in articles or press releases distributed on other sites. For example:– There are many wedding rings on the market. If you want to have a

wedding, you will have to pick the best ring. You will also need to buy flowers and a wedding dress.

• Low-quality directory or bookmark site links

Link Schemes• Links embedded in widgets that are distributed across various sites, for

example:

– Visitors to this page: 1,472– car insurance

• Widely distributed links in the footers of various sites

• Forum comments with optimized links in the post or signature, for example:

– Thanks, that’s great info!– - Paul– paul’s pizza san diego pizza best pizza san diego

The anatomy of a penalty• Gather all the data you can • Spend longer analysing it than you

planned

No… longer than that

The anatomy of a penalty• Plan for multiple attempts from the start• Remove and record• Disavow• Ask for reinclusion• Expect to be told NO!

Repeat the processUntil they say YES

Gathering data

Gathering data

Analyse the data• XLS, MySQL or a Tool• Its more efficient to do it at root domain

level• Pivot or GroupBy

Divide into categories• Remove • Disavow• Investigate

Deciding what to remove• Domains• Metrics• TLD’s• Anchors• Number of links per domain

Look at every site in investigate• Record details as you go• Contact email / contact form• Category• Risk / Natural

Contact for removal

Contacting• Contact as a real person• Contact from the domain with the penalty• Use a webmail account• Contact forms get better response but

follow up with an email from the webmail• Two attempts is enough usually

Conclusions• Record a conclusion for every domain /

link• Removed (verify)• Disavow (inc paid and non responders)• Keep

Correct format• domain:example.com• http://www.example.com/page.html

• # comments always start with a hashtag

• UTF-8 .txt file!

The disavow• Annotate the file• It’s a live document• Technically you can remove lines….

The disavow• Submit your disavow… check its been

taken

• Then…..

WAIT !!!

The reinclusion

Reinclusion• Polite but brief• Explain you’ve changed• Prove it

• Prepare for fake people to respond

Avg 4-5 attempts

If you get deniedWhen

Principles• Make sure you know whats still live• Make sure you have all the data • Make sure EVERYONE has stopped link

building

Building whilst under penalty“Is like brushing your teeth whilst

eating a KitKat #searchlove”

Example links

Are NOT doing a good job

Article sites

Directory sites

192.ComYell.com

Forums

Guest blogs

Obvious scrapers

Sites not in any dataset

Sites already disavowed

Nofollowed Links!

302’s FFS

No longer existing

Penalty removal

1. Get rid of the obvious sh*t

2. Get rid of the commercial terms

3. Be more severe

4. Correct any missed issues

<conclusions>

My Journey…</conclusions>

• As a spammer I was aware of what signals I needed to make my sites rank

• As a link builder I was aware of what signals I needed to sell to make my clients rank

• As a link cleanup company we are aware of what links you need to remove to clear up any penalty and rank again

• I was in the signals business

• I am STILL in the signals business

• And I’ve realised….

• I haven’t really changed

• I was a spammer• I am now a data miner

• Which means I remain…

Proudly

An SEO

Penalty removal

1. 5%

2. 10%

3. 20%

4. 35%

5. Or more… 30%