If you’ve been hit by the Penguin algorithm just like I have then you’ll be trying to look for a method to recover, but not just any method – a method to recover as quickly as you can.
Recovering from Penguin is all about removing bad backlinks to your website. Providing you fully remove the links and don’t just rely on a disavow then you can potentially see an increase in rankings before the next Penguin refresh. The problem is that some links just seem impossible to remove. When the sites have no contact links or the webmasters are simply uncooperative what can you do, what option do you have other than to simply disavow?
Unfortunately if these links point directly to your homepage then there isn’t a huge amount you can do other than to add them to your disavow file or launch a new website in the hope that you can rank that one quicker than the next Penguin refresh. However, if the links point to inner pages on your site then there is something you can do…
Introducing the cheeky 301 redirect…
Webmasters have tried different things when it comes to Penguin recoveries. They have even tried blocking links via htaccess, but this of course only blocks the visitor from following the link – the linkjuice will continue to be passed as normal. The only proven way you can manipulate a backlink is by using a 301 redirect, this is a redirect that physically tells Google that page has moved somewhere else and moves the linkjuice along with it.
If any of you have any experience with 301 redirects you’ll notice that when you do one the “Links to site” in your WMT move from the old domain to the new one. This is because the link is no longer pointing to your content, it’s pointing to where you’ve told Google it’s permanently moved.
This means that if you specific pages on your site that you feel are problematic then you can essentially “move” these links. In order to do this you’ll need to purchase another domain & move that particular content onto that domain, then of course 301 the page where the content previously was on your website to the new domain where it now resides. These problematic backlinks that were previously pointing to your website will now be pointing to the content on your new domain & you don’t need to worry about them (though they should still go in your disavow file!). For proof simply add the new domain to your Google WMT account & watch those domains appear in “Links to site”.
Understandably this is a bit of a carry on, but as we know if you were to 301 redirect the full site to a new domain then the penalty could also be passed with it. If you receive traffic from elsewhere and don’t want to move website without 301 redirecting visitors then this is an alternative way to potentially increase the speed of recovery from a Penguin penalty.
Remember though that when you move the content from your website to the new domain it must be deleted from your original site as you don’t want to then suffer from a duplicate content penalty. Furthermore it’s also wise to make sure that the new domain you create doesn’t link back in any way shape or form to the original website where the content came from.
Sign up here with your email
ConversionConversion EmoticonEmoticon