SEO BrainTrust Discusses Google Penalties & SEO Strategies.

This post details what was revealed in “Bouncing Back When Google Knocks You Down” — the live SEO training webinar put on by Dan Thies and Leslie Rohde from SEO BrainTrust.

Last week I made a post on Web Business Research where I discussed the live SEO training that Dan Thies and Leslie Rohde of SEO BrainTrust were putting on.  In this post I mentioned that if you were unable to attend or if you did not want to sit in front of your computer for two hours watching the webinar, I would be posting my notes from this live SEO training.  This post is a compilation of the notes I took from Dan and Leslie’s webinar.

Before I get into the details of the webinar, I want to repeat a point I made in the first post in regard to Dan Thies and Leslie Rohde.  If you have the time to watch the webinar, I highly recommend that you invest the time to do so.  Dan and Leslie are “Professionals” when it comes to SEO.  They know their stuff and I always find their training very educational.  At the end of their training I am always a more informed and educated search marketer than I was before the training started.

If you would like to watch the complete webinar, here is the link to “Bouncing Back When Google Knocks You Down.”

The main focus of this webinar is . . . “How to get back on your feet after getting penalized by Google.”

It’s no secret that the world of search engine optimization has changed dramatically during the past 18 months.  The manipulative SEO strategies that worked two years ago are no longer working today.  Despite this common knowledge, there are still a plethora of search marketers who are insistent on trying these “Blackhat SEO strategies” in an effort to game Google and achieve a page one ranking.

Well, in the past 18 months Google has fired back and they have used both barrels.  The Big Daddy of search has dropped the hammer and banned literally hundreds of thousands of websites that have been trying to trick Google into giving them a page one ranking.  This live SEO training from Dan Thies and Leslie Rohde discusses how to recover after receiving a penalty from Google.

Dan and Leslie assess three different sites that have received an array of penalties from Google, and then they go through a list of steps that each site can take to get on the road to recovery.

The three banned sites discussed in the webinar are:

1. LinkBuilding.org (review begins at the 3 minute mark)
2. TigerStrike.com (review begins at the 33 minute mark)
3. Copywriting.com (review begins at the 59 minute mark)

The follow is a list of notes that I took while listening to Dan and Leslie go through each of the above sites that were penalized by Google:

• LinkBuilding.org is selling “link building services” — which Google does not like in the first place.  They are using spammy methods to get their site ranked, and these spammy methods are what they are going to use to get their client sites ranked.  That’s a big problem.  These manipulative SEO techniques worked two years ago.  But today we operate in a different environment because Google has closed the loopholes.  The methods they are using will not only get their site banned, they will also get their client sites banned.
• Dan ran a backlink report using Majestic SEO and it was quite revealing.  It showed that LinkBuilding.org was using a bunch of spam blogs to build anchor text backlinks.  For example, one blog had a title “Weightloss Herbal Remedies.”  But the content on the site is about “Link Building Services.”  Obviously, this is a spam blog.  In the real world a weightloss herbal remedy blog would not be advertising a link building service.  This is unnatural and it is the stuff that Google hates.
• Excellent advice from Dan Thies:  “One good piece of content marketed well can get you over 1,000 links to your site . . . which is more than you can get by doing this spammy stuff.”  (My thought:  This is will give you “natural links” — which is what you should want because it is what Google wants.)
• Slide #12:  another example of a blog with spam content.  It’s a viagra blog title and in the side bar there are links to posts that have to do with link building and women’s fashion.  Now these guys are spinning content — another tactic that can get you penalized by Google.
• Leslie Rohde’s definition of a natural link:  “A natural link is a link that is a surprise to you.  It’s a link you don’t expect.” (This is discussed in the 32 minute mark of the webinar.)
• Both Dan and Leslie believe that TigerStrike.com is a great name for a martial arts site.  Leslie stated:  “I’d go knock on Google’s door if that’s what it takes to get this site back into the good graces of Google.”
• Slide #17:  your optin box should have a link to your privacy policy.  TigerStrike does not have this.  Make sure you have this in all of your sites where you are collecting leads.
• Slide #19:  TigerStrike is an ecommerce store.  This slide shows that there is thin content on some of their product pages.  Dan said one of the things that you can do to differ yourself from Amazon and other ecommerce stores is to put more original content on your product pages.
• Dan states that it does not take much natural linking to get ahead of your competition and that is because so many of the sites with unnatural links have been abandoned by Google.  Also, Dan states that one of their SEO BrainTrust students recently eliminated  some bad backlinks and then added some social signals to his site (i.e. he got a few social sites to talk about his content) — and within a few weeks he was on page one for a primary keyword.  The takeaway is that it does not take much to get ahead if you are doing SEO the way Google wants you to do SEO.

My Thoughts:  This is exactly why I believe today represents a great opportunity for online marketers who want to focus on SEO and get into search engine marketing (SEM).  There are a plethora of marketers who have given up on SEO because they can no longer manipulate their way to page one of Google.  As a result, the level of competition in SEM has decreased dramatically the past six months.  While a lot of people are getting out of SEO, I am focusing more of my energy in this area.  And the reason is simple.  The playing field has been leveled and Google is now rewarding marketers who are playing by the rules and giving Google what it wants. 

If you are passionate about a given market and if you want to build an authority site in that market, I firmly believe that now is a great time to pursue this business model.  That is why I have re-committed myself to building Web Business Research and that is why I have plans to build an authority site in the Health & Fitness market in 2013.

• Google Reconsideration Request discussion.  One of the things that Google looks for in a reconsideration request is that you are not going back to your old link spamming ways.  For example, if you were using a SEO company to do your link building and this SEO company was building backlinks using strategies like profile links, blog networks and other spammy linking strategies, Google wants to make sure that you are no longer using this company to do your SEO.  If you would like more information on what Google looks for when doing a reconsideration request, I want to encourage you to watch this video from Matt Cutts, the Google engineer who heads their Webspam department.  Here is the link:  “What Should be Included in a Proper Reconsideration Request?”
• Don’t engage in link exchanges!!  They are dangerous.  Slide #23 has an example where TigerStrike.com has a link from a gaming site.  The question should be . . . “Why?”  There is no legitimate reason for a martial arts site to have a link to a gaming site.  Dan believes that this link is on the site probably because of a link exchange.  It looks unnatural to Google and it is just one more thing that can get you banned by Google.  Note:  Dan also stated that a link exchange with another martial arts site is acceptable because it is natural.  It’s natural for one martial arts site to link to another, but it’s not natural for a martial arts site to link to a gaming site.
• Slide #24 is a profile spamming example.  This kind of stuff needs to be cleaned up if you want your site to be reconsidered by Google.  On this slide there are multiple keywords used as anchor text links in the forum signature — and there was not a single post from this user in this particular forum.  It’s obviously profile spamming.   Again, this is another example of seo strategies that worked two years ago.  But in today’s SEO environment, this stuff simply does not work.  In fact, this is the kind of stuff that can get your site banned by Google.
• The third domain to be reviewed is Copywriting.com.  Now this is a high-value domain name that the site owner paid a lot of money for.  This domain is a great example why it is so important to give Google what it wants (i.e. unique, original content and natural links) and why it’s critical that you stay clear of blackhat SEO strategies.  This domain is worth thousands of dollars.  But if it’s sitting in the Google doghouse because of a penalty, the value of this domain is just a fraction of what he paid for it.  Obviously, Copywriting.com is worth saving and the owner needs to do whatever it takes to get Google to reconsider this domain.
• Paid Reviews.  Dan said . . . “Don’t do them.  They are not worth the $200.”
• Disavow Tool.  This tool is used by Google when they do a reconsideration request.  If you have been hit by a Google penalty, the disavow tool can help you get your penalty removed by allowing you to “disavow” certain links to your site.  Here is an educational read that I found on how to use the Google Disavow tool.   It’s from Dr. Pete at the SEOMOZ blog.

This last bullet point leads into the primary reason why Dan Thies and Leslie Rohde provided this free SEO training webinar.  They are selling their SEO consulting service.  Dan and Leslie work with approximately 20 private clients each year and right now they are focusing on helping webmasters work their way through the Google reconsideration request.

If your online business has been hit by a Google penalty and you want Dan and Leslie to help get your business out of the penalty box and back into the search rankings, they offer details on how they can help you at the 1 hour 15 minute mark of their live SEO training webinar.

Please note that the SEO consulting service offered by Dan and Leslie is not for everyone.  You need to have a viable online business that has been hit by a Google penalty.  If this describes you, I want to encourage you to reach out to Dan and Leslie.  These guys are pros and they can help you get your site back on it’s feet again.

Also, they will do a one hour consultation with you before there is any major financial investment on your part.  Dan and Leslie want to make sure they can help you before they agree to work with you.

At the end of the webinar, Dan Thies and Leslie Rohde did a “Questions & Answer” session.  I did not take many notes from this session.  But here is what I wrote down:

• Press Releases — “Do they work?”  Dan and Leslie believe that you should not use press releases to get backlinks to your site.  Use press releases to try to get traffic and use them when you have something interesting to say or when you have an event you want to tell people about.
• Dan Thies offers this thought on press releases:  “If you get a link from a press release because someone saw your press release and then they wrote an article or blog post about it and linked to your site — now that is a good, natural link from a press release.  But if you are using press releases to link build by putting a bunch of anchor text links in your release, that is not natural and there is not a lot of value in doing this.”
• Blog commenting.  Both Dan and Leslie believe that you should not worry about the link when commenting on blogs.  You should comment on other blogs because you want to join the conversation and because you have something of value to add.  If you add value in your comments, people reading the comments will visit your site.
• Don’t worry about whether the blog is do-follow or no-follow.  If all you do is post comments on do-follow blogs, this will look unnatural and this will raise a red flag to Google.

After watching this webinar by biggest takeaway is that I am more convinced than ever that now is a great time to be in search engine marketing.  Google has definitely leveled the playing field and they are making it much easier for those of us who are playing by the rules.

The bottom line is this:  “If you play the game the right way and publish original content that adds value to the market, you can win at SEO.”

There a lot of search marketers who have left the business because they can no longer manipulate their way to the top of Google’s search rankings.  This is great news because it means that it is less crowded for those who are playing by the rules.  Remember, it’s Google’s field that we are playing on.  And they get to set the rules.  But as long as you produce original content and have a linking structure on your website that is natural, you will do just fine at this game.

The other takeaway that I got from Dan and Leslie’s webinar is this:  “The people who are getting penalized by Google are, for the most part, using out-dated, blackhat SEO strategies that simply don’t work anymore.  If you are still building links with public blog networks, if you are article spinning, if you are using spammy profile link strategies along with other “unnatural” link building strategies — your site has either been banned by Google or it is about to be banned by Google.”

The three sites that Dan and Leslie review have all been penalized by Google because they were trying to trick Google into giving them a page one ranking.  Many of these SEO tactics worked 18 months ago.  But the search marketing landscape has changed and this is a different business than it was just a short time ago.

Here is a simple rule that I have adopted and I highly recommend that you do the same:  “Give Google what it wants and they will give you what you want (i.e. rankings and traffic).”

It takes work and results do not happen over night.  But it’s a much better way to build your business because you are building it for the long-term.  You are building it to last.

All the best,

Jon Poland