4 Things To Check Before the Next Google Update
Another Google update is coming? That’s like saying the sun will rise tomorrow. Specifically though I’m talking about a Penguin like one that caused so much angst back in May. There has been an update to the Google Link Schemes document as reported by Barry Schwartz at searchengineland.com and Jennifer Slegg at searchenginewatch.com. One of the most significant changes is this:
“Links with optimized anchor text in articles or press releases distributed on other sites”
1. Stop Using Anchor Text In Press Releases.
A technique used by a lot of SEO firms is to push out regular press releases and then link keyphrases in those press releases back to their client’s site. Press releases that are distributed by the likes of PR Web and PR Newswire keep these backlinks in them and a lot of “news” sites seem to publish them simply because the extra piece of content could mean another page view which may mean more ad revenue. If you are using press releases, use them for publicity not backlinks and don’t have anchor text in them.
2. Clean Your Backlink Profile
Use a tool like Majestic SEO to find backlinks with the same anchor text. If you created them, get rid of them or change the anchor text if they are a link from a good page. If you didn’t create them, then use the disavow tool to do so.
3. Stop Creating Backlinks
What? Stop creating backlinks? What on earth do I mean? Google has made it abundantly clear with the update to this document that more big changes are on the way to weed out backlink spam. If you are using some automated tool to churn out articles with anchor text or paying some bloke to spam forums with backlinks or maybe doing some of the things in today’s video, you will come back to earth with a thud.
4. Setup your Google Authorship
I’ve been banging on about this for a couple of years now. Giving the changes to the Link Schemes document this is more important than ever. Start thinking about editorial strategies for your own site as well as other sites on which you can make a contribution that have authorship implemented.
What is your backlink strategy now? WIll this updated link scheme document change what you are doing?
Jim’s been here for a while, you know who he is.
