With the latest Penguin Update Google has caused some unrest among SEOs und web site owners. With the updates by Panda and Penguin the evaluation of backlinks was introduced and tightened and the criteria for incoming links seems to be composed much more strictly.

Off-Page SEO

For a long time it appeared that the number of backlinks was crucial for the Off-Page Optimization. The impact of this was a veritable market for back links. Some service providers offered, and still offer, providing back links which bring forward its page ranking in Google. Some SEO services diligently build so-called satellite built pages whose only function was to provide links to the main page of the customer. Google’s action against this tactic in May, 2006, caused a sensation as BMW was placed on a blacklist and the page rank set to 0 by Google. BMW had previously tried with so-called doorway pages, which were packed with keywords, to steer traffic to its website in the search results for used cars. (See:BMW given Google ‘death penalty’)

Abuse through Spam-Links

In the most recent updates, Google values inbound links more strongly. Thus, links from well ranked sites in a relevant context lead to a better assessment by Google. What is new, however, is that bad back links lead to a downgrade. This approach is not totally unproblematic, as the operator of the linked site does not normally has control over incoming links. There are already reports of extortion, in which this mechanism is exploited. In a notable case, a wooden toy discounter was the target of such extortion and was heavily damaged by spam links. (See: Ranking: Wie ein Erpresser einem Onlineshop schadete)

The Google Disavow Tool

Google offers a tool to remove backlinks, but indicates that this should only be used as a last resort. With Google’s Disavow Tool, operators can identify individual links as spam links and remove them. This can be useful to remove malicious links. On the other hand there is indeed also the danger of abuse with the denunciation of pages.

What does Penguin Accept?

Whether with Panda or Penguin, The theme of back links should be addressed with caution and moderation. A natural link building over qualitative high value contents and social networking offers a solid basis for a good ranking and a sustainable search engine optimization. An individual analysis of your website and sound advice is a good approach and can help further. Regarding the recent Google update we recommend keeping the page parameter in Google in mind: is the page rank of your site decreasing? Has the number of back links registered by Google changed significantly and without specific reason?
What do you think of the latest Google update? Does it help to improve the quality of the search results or does it only help large pages with a good reputation? Write us!