[GUIDE] Cracking the Penguin

[Mayne]

Hey everyone,

I have decided to share with you something I think will be very helpful if you read it all.

Cracking the Penguin

We are all fully cognizant of the adverse effects produced by the Panda and Penguin updates. Before these algorithmic additions, we would merrily blast our sites with huge link lists. Linkwheels were in fashion just like those Snapback hats. Having relevant anchor text that completely matched our keywords was stressed. This is all many SEOs did. Perhaps they diversified their anchor texts by using LSIs. They focused on establishing a keyword density of near 5-6%, maybe used a 301 redirect to emphasize home page authority, and perhaps doing some link exchanges with other websites in the same niche. They pinged and pinged, and rapid indexed their money sites. AutoApproved blogs were the shit. They sold like hotcakes. These lists were all people were looking for in addition to Edu and Gov blogs. Don't forget the d0follow craze.

These methods would produce results though. If we weren't ranking #1 or rather highly for our sites, all we would need to do would be to get more links, and better links at that. Everyday we would worriedly check our rankings in Google as our sites fluctuated up and down in the SERPs every so often only to come right back up if we did things correctly. We would call this the Google Dance, or rather some variation of the meringue :P. It basically signified that Google was reevaluating your site due to your good (or bad) link building campaigns. Everything was bright and sunny. XRumer, SENuke, and all of those other tools were the golden keys to our SEO success.

Unfortunately way too many people were completely clueless in their efforts to link build. They took no time to read, or listen. They took no time to actually do some quality work. These people pretty much did things in the following manner:

Quote: should I use the same 5 comments and the same anchor text on every blog in my 5000000 auto approved list? Oh wait, you say? By a spinner? Nah, that is too much work! Actually, I think I'll just use 10 comments. That should be good enough.

I have to write a 600 word article...d***. You know, F*** it I'll just write three 200 word articles and I will outsource them for a cheap price by some Indian content writers off of DigitalPoint. Thank God for DP, right?! And hey....instead of getting that third article, I might just copy and paste my keyword a good 30 times. That should hit 200 words, right? Good enough.

I might use Twitter too. I think I will follow as many people as I can per day. That way I can post my referral link or affiliate link in their newsfeeds. You know what? I am not getting any sales! I wonder why? Maybe it is because the 5000 people I am following are doing the same thing I am doing on my news feed! Or maybe it is because I am promoting some S***** product 25 times a day! Well then, I think I will just retry it with some direct messages instead. I can just blast it to 50000 people. I don't need any legitimate twitter posts; people love ads anyway.

I'll use Facebook too. I think I am going to make fan pages with content locks, or landing pages that lead to my affiliate site. I will buy 50000000 likes. Anybody selling 5000000 likes? Oh man...you're making $25k a day from these fan pages? d***, you're making $5000 a day? Man, everyone seems to be making money so I am sure this works! After all, they wouldn't be lying, right? *A few days later* Ah, forget this shit. I think I will just rehash some free eBooks and make a $7 WSO from it. That should sell to all these suckers on those Blackhat forums, right?

Man I think I want to start emailing. Anybody got any 5 trillion bazillion email list they can share so that way me and about 50000 other people can blast away spam to it using our hostgator accounts?
Hmm...then many wonder why nothing works anymore. JC Penny and Overstock.com kind of kickstarted Google's pissy attitude back in January of 2011. Becuase of manipulative and careless individuals, the sites and services we so often use get the same pissy attitude as well. Twitter sued all the bot companies, Facebook cracked down on those fan pages back when they were hot a year ago. Email submission is just a lost cause unless you're a boss because of spam filters, legal issues, etc. And we can't forget the link building efforts. Article sites and blogs and everyone else now use 5000 captchas that sometimes I CAN'T EVEN GET RIGHT! This is mainly because nobody is taking the time to do put in time to do some quality work. These sites and services are getting bombarded with bullshit. You get out what you put in. You put in shit? You get out shit.

Although Penguin is ultimately a leech s****** away our earnings, it will weave out all the people with the aforementioned mindsets. I think that this could actually be a good thing and it may help desaturate the SERPs from S***** sites. Good sites = sites like CNN.com that don't promote jack. So just think...you do things right and you could be the only site on the first page of that hot niche promoting a Clickbank product.

Anyway, back to the discussion.

Panda rolled out on February 23, 2011.


Who the hell does this d*** thing think he is? Why did they even name the update after an Asian bear? All they eat is bamboo...At least name it after an animal that has a diverse diet. Google wants diverse content right? Anyway...

That Panda update screwed things up. But! The link building campaigns many SEOs did weren't to no avail. All Panda affected initially was on-page SEO and content. All you needed to do to fix up your rankings was reevaluate your site and ensure that it had good quality, well-written and periodically updated content for your visitors and for Google. People did this and success was seen once more. But then updates kept rolling out month after month after month. Google got serious.

Looking back from Panda 1.0 released February 23, 2011 to April 24th, 2012, Panda gets updated on average every 5 weeks. Penguin and Panda are supplemental to the normal index engine! They get refreshed every 5 weeks! So if you are doing fine with bad practices in week 1, wait until week 5! Throughout the course of these updates, the following adjustments worthy of being noted occured:

The number of domains you owned played a factor. Think Google doesn't know? What about those 50 domains on that same analytics account?
If you had a massive amount of domains that are on the same C Block, then interlinking became a no-no. Additionally if these same domains were supplemented by foul linking practices, odds are they all would take a hit if Google had enough clues. Doorway pages and 301 redirects became a no-no as well. Keyword stuffing and all of that other BS followed suit. Then Google + was emphasized and social networking played a larger role in the SERPs. Then Google got pessimistic about too much ad-space above the fold of your website. Then, in order to build on the foundation of Panda for targeting low quality content, the spell-checking aspect of the Google Bot was enhanced. Then they adjusted autocomplete predictions based on your last few searches and they actually reworked how often autocomplete comes up to reduce predictions leading to lower quality results. So Google already knows which niches can be a bit more troublesome than others. There are now index tiers too. Higher up on the tier means how fast you get indexed based on content relevancy and freshness. Then Penguin rolled out in the effort to target webspam.

Now the efforts are symbiotic. Panda takes care of on-page SEO and Penguin takes care of off-page SEO. These are also supplements to the core index algorithm, like I stated earlier. Penguin is updated periodically just like Panda is. A few features of Penguin is that EMDs are facing more scrutiny. The effectiveness of the EMD is not irrespective of other factors anymore. In other words, you won't see EMDs with S***** SEO done ranking any longer. The power of an EMD is now based on how good the site's content is and the types of links it has. Good content and good links, okay your EMD gets weighted more. Bad content and bad links, okay you are just a spammer utilizing an advantageous domain name. Google is also way more aware of keyword stuffing as well.

Another thing to notice is that there is more domain diversity in the search results. So, don't expect a domain to have more than 2 results per page roughly.

There is also such thing as a freshness boost. Sites that have updated content will be weighted more in Google's eyes. However, if you have low-quality content, even if you update it 100 times a day, this "freshness boost" is not applied to your website.

More text from the beginning of a webpage is shown in the description in the SERPs. Thus, make your introductory paragraphs count!

So some tips for cracking the Penguin are as follows:


Do not be foolish. Do not believe everything that you hear about SEO and Penguin. A lot of people want you to believe false information so they can prosper. Also, if you are not willing to help others don't expect shit from them.
Put in the time and effort needed to produce good quality content. Ensure that your on-page SEO is top notch with a keyword density no higher than 5% or you will be making sandcastles with Matt Cunts. Use header tags, forget metas, ensure that you have at least several hundred words of content on each page and make sure you spell-check those paragraphs! If you have a blog, update content! Sites with updated content are going to be the most relevant. Thus, you will be higher up on the index tier and your site will be "first pick" for qualtiy SERP placement. If Google looks for your site because Kim Kardashian got another husband and they see that you don't have much authority due to your lack of effective link-building, you may be out of luck even though you do update your blog with good quality literature. Updated content goes hand in hand with authority! Link-building is even more important for sites that have updated content.
If you get an EMD, you better ensure that your on-page and off-page SEO efforts are top notch. If so, you will be rewarded. If not you may have just wasted your time and money on a domain that is being outranked by a Weebly site.
Do not have too many OBL on your site. Do not link exchange on the same C Block, ever! Minimize the amounts of link exchanges you do, and venture outside your niche for them. Never bother with paid links. Those guys don't know what they're doing.
Ensure that your HTML code is nice and clean. Flash is bad. Go with HTML 5 and you will be thankful you did. Ensure that you are hosted on a fast server that doesn't have S***** pr0n sites of Matt Cunts on the same C Block. Make sure your site loads fast.
Do not even bother with 301s or doorway pages. Don't bother with link networks either unless they are done properly (different C blocks, different servers, relatively different niches, etc.)
Ensure that you have a social presence. I am talking FB promotion, Twitter tweets, Pinterest pins, etc. If you use bots for these instead of doing it manually, ensure that your promotion ratio is no more than 20% of the actual content you post on these services! This will ensure your accounts look real, don't get banned, and that Google doesn't screw you over. If you get 5000 links in a year from good quality sites and don't even have 1 tweet or FB like, then forget about it. Social presence plays a large role in SEO. A lot is speculated on their effects being short-term rather than long-term, but either way I suggest a consistent and long-term social networking campaign. If you think a social presence doesn't matter, go home, quit.
Link diversity is huge. Divide your anchor text into ratios. Do 50% of it as promotional text and 50% of it as random "what would someone linking to my site have for anchor text" text. Also, balance the amount of d0follow and nofollow links you get. Don't screw nofollow over; they may not pass PR but they still give juice.
Do not bother with linkwheels. Do not bother with anything that can be traced back (circles, squares, whatever). Go after a flow-chart type of link scheme. You will need, other than social backlinks, Web 2.0s, forums, blogs, guestbooks, articles, videos, photos, pdfs, and everything else in your arsenal of links.
Go slow and steady. Newer domains need to go even slower with the linkbuilding. Consistent linkbuilding will always win. Don't even bother with indexing links sometimes, too. Every now and then just let Google find them on it's own.
Switch up your methods. Do not follow the same practices for too long.
Linkbuilding is just like weightlifting. You will hit a plateau. When you do, you change things up. Working out is nothing without the proper diet.


An example Link Campaign I would run is this:

Prepping:

Get your hands on SENuke X, BMD6 or some equivalent bookmarking software, AMR or some equivalent, XRumer if possible, Scrapebox, a Twitter bot if possible such as Tweet Adder or outsource, a YT Bot or you will do this manually, and a Pinterest bot or you can do this manually/outsource, and perhaps private proxies. I would suggest around 15-20. You will also definitely need a good VPS.

Prepare your videos with the Youtube bot. Write unique descriptions if possible. If you want to be all Blackhat about it, just rip videos.
Prepare you Pinterest/Twitter bot with a good amount of accounts and followers or just wait until you need to outsource.
Compile a large AA list 50k or higher, with Scrapebox along with some good Edu and Gov sites to manually comment on. Find some d0follow blogs for manual commenting as well.
Compile a good 20k or higher successful profiles list from XRumer. (You will split this list into a few parts)
Compile at least 1000 bookmarking sites for BMD6 or some equivalent software.
Compile at least 1000 WORKING sites for AMR.

Phase 1: (Link to the money site)
Time: 7 days

1. Use SeNuke X to make Web 2.0 accounts. Submit to about 40 sites per day. (Around 250 sites in total)
2. Write 3 articles around 350-400 words and spin with 85% uniqueness or higher. Have your keyword density no more than 4-5%! Then spin between these 3 spun, 85% uniqueness articles. Depending on the directory size, I would try to get no more than 50 successful submissions per day.
3. Sit back and relax. Do not index jack shit. Just find your successfully posted URLs and compile them all in a text file.

Phase 2: (Social Jolt)
Time: 3 days

1. Using a Pinterest bot or outsourcing (you will have already accrued a good amount of followers by now in preparation) I want you to promote your website evenly throughout these three days. Get a reasonable amount of pins/repins and likes etc. (maybe 100 each day). If you outsource, get a service on Day 1 and then a service on Day 2.
2. Using a Twitter bot, get a few dozen tweets/retweets per day.

Phase 3: (Press Release)
Time: 1 day

1. Using SeNuke X or manual labor, write a press release that is around 350-400 words and at least 70% unique (not submitting to as many sites as in AMR) and submit around 5 press release sites per day. Compile your URLs in a text file.

Phase 4: (Flex)
Time: 3 days

1. Use XRumer to profile register on a, say 20k list. Use the first 10k for backlinking your articles and Web 2.0s. I would assume that you would have around give or take 400-500 URLs. Give each URL equal opportunity of being posted on a profile. If you use a signature along with a homepage, ensure that your anchor text is no more than 50% promotional. Then the other 50% is the random (If I was a person linking to this site what would I write) anchor text. You will end up getting around 20-25 backlinks for each URL from this.
2. Use Scrapebox and a 50k successful AA list. Blast these 10k XRumer profiles on Scrapebox, giving each URL around 5 backlinks. Use random names for anchor text.
3. Do not index shit.

Phase 5: (Chill Out Penguin)
Time: 7 days

1. Get 10 manual comments successfully submitted on Edu and Gov blogs directed to your money site each day. Use LSI for anchor text and a bit of (If I was someone linking to my site) anchor text. You should get 70 URLs total in the week.
2. On Youtube, go post about 2 videos a day for your site. Make random videos and some videos related to the ones in your niche.
3. Make some PDFs, around 5 per day (docshare stuff) and include your homepage URL without anchor text.
4. We will not try to index anything and we will not be blasting any of these links in the future.

Phase 6: (Consistency)
Time: Once or twice every week from now on
1. Repeat Phase 2 consistently if you have bots. I would recommend slowing it down a bit. If you do not have bots, tell the outsourcing guy to take your shit slow. Buy 2 outsourcing packages each week, one for Twitter and one for Pinterest.

Phase 7: (Bookmarking)
Time: 2 days

1. Bookmark your Web 2.0s and your press releases with BMD6 or the equivalent program. (We will not be bookmarking the XRumer profiles for the randomization and balance aspect of things so Google will not catch on.) If you have 300 URLs to bookmark in total, for example, and 1000 URLs in BMD6. Then bookmark them to these 1000 URLs each day, randomly using a separate account for each day. That way, odds are that URL 1 will get a bookmark from BMD6 Site #1 and BMD Site #585 and URL 2 gets a bookmark from BMD site #50 and BMD site #57. See what I'm doing?

Phase 8: Final
Repeating everything/changing things up/your turn

1. Use the other 10k XRumer URLs to make profile URLs for your bookmarks.
2. Change what type of backlinks you are getting your URLs often! Don't use the same tool over and over.
3. Keep making Youtube videos.
4. Keep your social marketing efforts consistent.
5. Every once in a while take a one or two week break from everything. During this period I would focus on "oddball" promotional efforts not using your keyword anchor text at all. Pretend that this site is not even yours.
6. Keep getting new lists to blast to and sell your old ones if you want.
7. Manually comment using those D0follow blogs.

So from all of our work, we have separate lists for separate tiers. We do certain things on some days, and certain things on other days. We keep our social efforts consistent. Sometimes we take a break. We never use too much promotional anchor text, but we keep it balanced. We always build links consistently and never go into overdrive. We never share lists between URLs...etc. I mixed in a lot of tactics here.

Good luck and I hope this very informative post helped you.

[zilla]

Big write-up! I would be interested to see what kind of feedback is to follow...

[ZoneMe]

Your are great, now we could try to beat penguin...

[ProfitHacker]

This is awesome! thank you so much.

[exlibrahim]

You are genius Man.
thank's to ya.........

[bashy]

Great write up but unfortunatly it wont work and is niche dependant.

If you dont match your competitors backlink profiles and backlinks rate then you will stick out like a sore thumb and you will get penalized (this is proven and Google use this to find spammers). Googles Penguin update was for spammers, over seo's and ad filled blogs. spinning an article to 85% plus is a risky idea as the post wont be good quality and google just wont index it and you wont get a backlink. Why do you think all these sites dropped rankings, Because of over spun, crap content. Google deindexed it all and you lost ya backlinks. This is a quick fire way to end up messing your site up.

There is no magic software or blueprint to get decent rankings, it requires skill, manual work and a lot of knowlege, this guide wont do anymore and will harm your sites. Sorry mate but its true.

Xrumer is dead to the average users as forums profile help get links indexed, but if the content on the link is crap google wont index it. Xrumer used correctly will get results but requires some manual work/waiting time for best results.

And as for bookmaring, in the real world Google know that a new created page will not be bookmarked over 100 times in less than 24 hours. even the best content gets around 80 links ove the course of 3 weeks on a very popular site. what a new page on a web 2.0 blog platform gunna get. Come on guys!!!!!

People should stop using spamming methods to try and beat google, it dont work no more. play closer to the guide lines and you will never be effected by another Google update... EVER. Double the work now mean less work in the future.

[Cupid]

Thanks for such an informative post!

[getoffan4]

Thanks for taking the time to write this up

[pindot]

this is SEO full-course!!! thanks a million!

[kasparow116]

I'm practicing this kind of a tactic and I'm consistently going up in the Google. But, having so many tools, man it's nearly impossible for me. Doing it on a smaller scale. 1000 forum profiles, bookmarking 500, I never use comment places, cuz they can be filled up by many links... Wiki articles, at leash 50% unique, etc etc etc... Thanks.