With Penguin 4.0 rolling out, there has been a widespread panic across the web regarding whether or not business owners should engage to link building because of the threat of being penalized. Here’s what you can do to audit your backlink profile and prevent getting a Penguin 4.0 penalty.
How to prevent Penguin 4.0 penalties
- Make a Complete Backlink Report
– Use as many sources as possible (Ahrefs, Majestic SEO, GWT, etc.) when gathering backlinks - Identify Footprints
– Anchor text: Identify which backlink uses money keywords as anchor text, and which have densities over 5 percent. Either nofollow these links, modify the anchor texts or disavow them.
– Discovery gate: Search for dates when there was a spike in backlink acquisition, and check these backlinks.
– URLs with patterns: Group links from directories or forums for easier backlink analysis.
– IP addess: Identify potential patterns by grouping links with the same IP addresses.
– Email address pattern: Check your backlinks and remove, nofollow, or disavow those that come from sites with the same email address.
– Page titles: If you see backlinks with similar page titles, it could mean that your content got scraped. Disavow any link with no value. - Initiate a Link Removal or Disavow Campaign on Toxic Links
– Don’t be afraid to send out as much link removal emails as possible. It is better to remove low quality links before your site gets penalized - Check Your Link Profile Each Month
– Check your links on a monthly basis to make sure that your site is not being attacked by negative SEO.