how to manage link risk in-house by michael nguyen
TRANSCRIPT
#SMX #14A @dyn4mik3
Recovering from a Link Penalty and Preventing Future Issues
How To Manage Link Risk In-House
#SMX #14A @dyn4mik3
Vice President, Search and Site
10+ Years in the Industry
Technical SEO
Large Sites
About Me
#SMX #14A @dyn4mik3
Understanding Risks
Clean Up Process
Building a Link Management Platform
Link Risk Management
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Manual
Algorithmic
Traffic Loss
Opportunity Cost
Penalties
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PENALTIES SUCK
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Link Penalty Case Study
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But I Don’t Buy Links!
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Halloween 2007
Manual Penalty
Weeks of Clean Up
Shutdown Paid Link Operation
I’ve Been Down This Road Before
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Identify that links are the problem
Rule out everything else
So What Now?
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Crawl entire site
Source every backlink possible
Compare pre/post periods
Rank monitoring to understand market shifts
Audits
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Megan gave us the game plan
Audit Details
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Crawling Tools
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Malware / Spam
Outbound Links
Crawl Blocks
Look for Huge Red Flags
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What Was That?
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Hey We “Earned” More Links Than Pinterest!
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Webmaster Tools (Google / Bing)
3rd Party (Majestic / Moz / Ahrefs / Link Research Tools / Search Metrics / Link Dex)
Referral Logs
Backlink Data Sources
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Don’t Forget Latest Links
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Audit Every Domain
Segment into Groups Legit
Unsure
Spam
Find Those Links
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Types of Links
Legit
• Retailers
• Sponsorships
• PR
• Biz Dev
• Badge Program
• Unsolicited
• Reviews
• Content Marketing
Unsure
• Syndication
• API Integration
• Scrapers / Aggregators
• Snippets
• Outreach
Spam
• Affiliates
• Paid Links
• Blog Posts
• Mass Deep Links
• Shady Redirects
#SMX #14A @dyn4mik3
Thousands of domains deep linking into our content with targeted anchor text
One single affiliate account
What We Found
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SERIOUSLY?
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Source all links
Identify problematic links
Source contact information
Contact websites for link removal
Give them a reason
Clean Up
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Modify Outreach for Audience Affiliates – Update Program TOS
Spammers – DMCA / Legal
Friendly – Phone
Controlled Domains – Urgent Dev Request
Outreach and Remove
#SMX #14A @dyn4mik3
Manual penalty requires a show of good faith in order to be revoked.
You Need to Remove Links
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You Will Run Into Resistance
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Legal Can Be Zealous
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301 Redirect to New Domain Tracking Parameters New Domain
Robots.txt / No Index
IP Level Redirection / Content Manipulation
Technical Solutions
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Tracking Parameters
Subdomains
URL Shorteners
Build Safeguards Into Links
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Outline all types of links – good and bad
Point the blame at your best guess
Detail show of good faith
Link to examples / external data
Judge yourself realistically
Better to be aggressive in cutting
Confess
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Resolution
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NOW THE REAL WORK
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Lower Baseline
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Cut domains that had value
Manual penalty is applied outside of the link values being passed
Anchor text value gone
Reasons
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Build the type of links that provide value
Listen to what Ruth has to say
Rebuild
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Rebuild Leads to Recovery
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I NEVER WANT TO DO THAT AGAIN
#SMX #14A @dyn4mik3
Unique Tracking Parameters for Link Types
Silo Link Domains
Automated Link Monitoring
Classify Links into Groups
Email Outreach for Link Removals
Disavow for New Spam
Proactive Link Management
#SMX #14A @dyn4mik3
Place tracking parameters on good links you influence:
Widgets
Biz Dev
Legal
Partnerships
Allows for quick:
Blocking
Redirecting
Tracking Parameters - First Line of Defense
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Tracking Parameter Options
Link
Badge Tracking Parameter
301 Redirect to Silo Domain
301 Redirect to Landing Page
Biz Dev Tracking
Parameter
301 Redirect to Landing Page
#SMX #14A @dyn4mik3
For link efforts with unknown quality, consider using a domain middleman:
New marketing agencies
Mini sites
Silo domain, redirect users to landing page through a blocked redirect URL
Allows for quick:
Domain protection
Redirect after quality is vetted
Silo Unknown Links First
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Silo Domain Options
Link
Affiliate Silo Domain
Leave on Silo Domain
New Marketing Effort Silo Domain
Accrue Link Value
301 Redirect to Landing Page
New Marketing Effort Silo Domain
Accrue Link Value
#SMX #14A @dyn4mik3
Multiple sources
Aggregate data
Build rules from entire data set
Automation – Sourcing Links
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Crawl Links
Judge Relevancy and Value
Flag Domains w/ Too Many Bad Signals
Automation – Classifying Links
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Make it part of the process
Regularly supported product
Automation – Link Monitoring
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Understand changes in link graph
Data for improving operations
Automation – Historical Data
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Process
Source LinksAutomated
ClassificationWHOIS / ISP
Lookup
Email / DMCA / C&D
Automate Take Down Monitoring
Automate Disavow Creation
SEO Operations
Upload Disavow
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Automated Disavow – 3 Day Penalty
#SMX #14A @dyn4mik3
THANK YOU!
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NEW YORK CITY
Sept. 29th – Oct. 1st 2015