
How Google Authorship and Penguin have killed our traffic – follow-up - jitbit
http://www.jitbit.com/news/184-how-google-authorship-and-penguin-have-killed-our-traffic/
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xpose2000
You mentioned in the article that you have links in the headers/footers of
various websites that say: "Powered by Jitbit AspNetForum". Here is my take on
that...

These COULD potentially hurt you, but I doubt it. That would mean all forum
software links in the footers were doing more harm than good. Forum software
websites like phpBB, vBulletin etc are doing just fine. Furthermore, your
install-base and incoming links should grow slowly over time and Google will
recognize that as a natural kind of thing. Therefore, I would cross that off
your list of reasons.

Your main reason for being hit by Penguin are bad SEO practices. Never buy
links for SEO. You may benefit from these links today, but 3 years down the
road Google might catch on. (As you just realized)

If you do purchase links, make sure to nofollow them and point the user to an
actionable page. Such as purchasing your software or signing up for a
newsletter. The goal here won't be for SEO purposes, but for advertising.

~~~
michaelbuckbee
We've thought of replicating something like MixPanel's free actions for adding
their image and a link on your site program [1].

Would something like that be penalized with Penguin? Honestly, not sure if
that counts as "Gray Hat" or not.

1 - <https://mixpanel.com/free/>

~~~
xpose2000
That practice is similar to adding a "powered by X Company" link. The fact
that it is an image doesn't really change anything. Clicky.com also uses this
method.

I do not think those links would be penalized with Penguin for the same
reasons I previously mentioned.

Is it a cheesy way to get links? Probably. But you should be fine.

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programminggeek
Ok, if you want a great example of how Google is using black boxes to do
social engineering, this is 100% it.

The writer doesn't know for certain those things were hurting him, but out of
fear their whole marketing strategy changed and now they are going about the
business of getting links taken down.

Now, you could argue that they should have been more thoughtful about their
SEO efforts in the first place, but consider how deeply dysfunctional it is
that webmasters are so afraid of Google and Matt Cutts that they are begging
each other to take down links they paid for in the first place.

There is no scientific proof that any of these links had anything to do with
them ranking well or badly or changing their CTR or anything, the author is
just assuming it's these things that hurt their Google traffic.

Google's ranking policies are now the equivalent of the webmaster boogie man.

~~~
magicalist
> consider how deeply dysfunctional it is that webmasters are so afraid of
> Google and Matt Cutts that they are begging each other to take down links
> they paid for in the first place

Wait, how is that dysfunctional? "should have been more thoughtful about their
SEO efforts in the first place" implies at least a likelihood that they would
want to rescind their earlier actions, which is what they're doing. That
seems...functional.

I mean, living in fear of only somewhat specified rules likely has other
consequences that discourage good behavior in other ways, but the specifics
you describe seems like what you'd want to happen[1].

[1] <http://xkcd.com/810/>

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manacit
So, basically, scummy (and bad) SEO tactics killed them (accidental and on
purpose), but somehow it's Google's fault?

~~~
jitbit
From the 3 reasons I pointed out in the article, only one is scummy. The other
two (widget links from our software and download-site campaign) were
ACCIDENTAL. I'm sharing it so other HNers don't fall into same trap.

~~~
michaelhoffman
One scummy thing should be enough.

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ISL
_So, how to find "toxic" links to your site

1: ...

2: ...

3: Find links from non-English pages - this one is obvious_

Isn't the internet an international thing? If Slovenians like a site,
shouldn't that help, not hurt?

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gavinlynch
How good is your product if SEO tricks are at the core of sustaining your
business model?

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rhizome
_The SEO agency we hired through oDesk_

Not to mention the facepalm-chuckle this gives me, this accounts for two of
your three reasons. Why wasn't it included in the title? In fact, the title's
assertion is not supported at all by the post.

~~~
ignostic
And as it turns out, you get low-quality links when you pay $5 on Fiverr. Who
would have imagined!?

