Ever since the Google Penguin update in 2012, hundreds of thousands of website owners have seen their search engine rankings suffer. What used to be deemed as a clever SEO tactic was suddenly turned on its head, impacting the traffic of websites across the world. Creating dozens, if not hundreds, of backlinks to our websites used to be ‘the norm’. Until Google decided that this practice was not how it wanted to do business. Ever since then, link risk management has become a vital part of many webmasters’ SEO strategies. Let’s delve into the impact this big shakeup had and how you can now stay in Google’s good books.
The Penguin Update
This big change first came about back in 2012, as part of Google’s effort to fight web spam. It was quite a paradoxical situation for them, considering they initially rewarded webmasters for the number of links they had pointing to their website. The more backlinks a website had, the higher the PageRank. But, they had created a monster. Although PageRank was supposed to also be based on quality, there were no real systems in place to measure this. It was easy to capitalize on the flaws in this algorithm by simply creating a huge backlink profile. Spammy sites began creeping up the search engine rankings, and Google decided enough was enough. When Penguin was initially released, hundreds of thousands of websites saw a drop in their rankings. Some even disappeared entirely. Those with low-quality backlinks pointing to their website were hit hardest, as Google continued to roll out Penguin updates. While many webmasters were able to clear up any dubious links pointing to their site initially, the goal posts kept moving. It has now become a constant battle for those who want to keep their link profile clean.
What is Link Risk Management?
And so enters a solution. In order to stay in Google’s good books, it’s now imperative for webmasters to use link risk management as part of their SEO strategy. This ensures that they are far less likely to be penalized in the future. Keeping a link portfolio free from spam is no easy task. However, it’s almost like an insurance policy. Instead of waiting for something terrible to happen, make sure you’re fully prepared. That way, you won’t see a huge drop in traffic when your website gets penalized. So, what exactly is link risk management? Other than being the ultimate in SEO insurance. The concept is simple: You remove any bad links and concentrate on creating good links. Of course, this is search engine optimization, and therefore never as simple as it sounds. There are dozens of ways you can put link risk management into place, so let’s take a look at some of the most popular methods.
Remove Low-Quality Links
This is the first thing you’re going to want to do. Especially if you have already been penalized by Google. Unfortunately, trying to find the spammy links isn’t as easy as it could be. You’ll need to use a range of tools, in order to see every backlink pointing to your page. Google Webmaster Tools, AHREFs, Moz OSE, and Majestic SEO are some of the best to use. Download your link profile from each of these, so that you can go through and remove any duplicates. You’ll then need to look through each of these backlinks and see which ones violate Google’s guidelines on linking. If you have too many to get through, it’s a good idea to use a link detox tool. Unless you have the time to check millions of links by hand! The last part of the process is to remove the ‘bad’ links. You can do this by contacting the webmaster of whichever site hosts that particular link, although not all will get back to you. Those that cannot be removed for whatever reason should be sent to Google to ‘disavow’. You’re basically telling them you don’t want these links associated with your website. Put all of the remaining ‘bad’ or spammy links into the disavow tool on your Google Webmaster dashboard.
Build High-Quality Links
It’s important to concentrate now on building high-quality backlinks to your website. This means creating content that people naturally want to share and link back to. In-depth guides and expert articles are a great example of this. Another option is to identify webmasters and website’s you want to work with. Then scrape their email address to get in touch with the right person.
If you are to go down the guest posting route then make sure you’re only targeting premium quality, industry specific blogs and publications. Look at their domain authority and link velocity, before creating a potentially spammy backlink. Offer up content that is engaging and thought provoking. Not just an article for the sake of getting a link. Also, analyse your competitors and see how they’re doing things. Where are their backlinks? What are their strategies?
Monitor and Protect
It is now a constant cycle of repeating the first two points if you want to ensure your link risk management is up to scratch. Keep checking back to see whether there are any low-quality links pointing to your website. Keep focusing on bringing in high-quality links. Monitor your SERPs and traffic, to see whether you’ve been impacted at all. If you want to stay one step ahead of Penguin, then you’ll need to keep your website protected. This means regularly checking your link portfolio and managing any potential risks.
Link risk management is vital in 2015 if you want your website to be seen. If Google believes you’re bending the rules, even slightly, then your search engine rankings could see a huge hit. Which means that you’ll lose traffic and potential business. That in itself is reason enough to ensure you include link risk management in your SEO strategy from here on out.
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