Backlink over optimisation Google penalties
Everyone who has heard of SEO knows that obtaining quality backlinks to your site will push your site up the rankings. The problem is that new site owners are so keen to obtain keyword backlinks, that they sometimes build the backlinks too quickly or over optimise the keywords in their backlink campaign. This over optimisation tactic can lead to a Google over optimisation penalty which will harm your site more than benefit it.
How do you get an over optimisation penalty? The first way of obtaining an over optimisation penalty is obtaining lots of backlinks quickly. A new site should obtain backlinks slowly to appear natural in the search results. Obtaining many backlinks over a short period of time can be easily seen by Google as a link spike, this could lead to an over optimisation penalty. The image below shows how a link spike could look with a site buying many links in June. The links spike is obvious and could result in a Google penalty
To ensure you are not given a penalty for over optimisation you should build your links naturally over the year. The image below shows how your more natural link portfolio might look
The above link building appears natural to Google as you business is building its stature up slowly on the internet.
The second way of obtain an over optimisation penalty is building too many backlinks with the same anchor text. A natural link building campaign should have varied anchor text including your company name, domain name and some of your services.
For example I built a snooker site around a year ago, and have not as yet built any links to the site, the links this site has obtained are natural. The image below show the links that this site has naturally obtained in this time.
The links this site has obtained include related snooker terms, ‘home’, and the domain name ‘foul and a miss’. This is a natural link portfolio, a link campaign which just contains keyword backlinks could appear to Google as an unnatural link buying campaign which may result in a ranking penalty.
You can check your anchor text backlinks in a few different tools. One of the best tools I have found is called ‘backlink analysis’, supplied by the guys at SEOMOZ. To use this tool simply go to backlinks analysis and enter your URL, the tool will return all your anchor text links indexed by SEOMOZ. To use this great tool you will have to pay a subscription, but it is well worth it as SEOMOZ have a great suite of SEO tools available.
Once you have the results you should be able to easily discover if your backlinks are over optimised. You can also use other free link tools to discover this data such as Google Webmaster Tools backlinks, or Yahoo site explorer.
If you find your ranking slipping and discover that your backlinks are over optimised with the same anchor text, you should counteract this by building links to other services or your domain name. A couple of great ways of doing this is building directory links, or participating in a social media campaign.
If you notice an over optimisation penalty it can take up to 2-3 months to remove the penalty. If a new domain has over optimisation penalty it might be a good idea to try a different domain, as it would take longer to remove the penalty than to start again. If you have an old trusted domain you should build some strong natural links and the penalty should be removed. Google has publicly stated that they will re-include an over optimised site as long as the problems have been resolved.
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Nice touch on your post here, thanks. Is completely true that google and yahoo are great engines for checking your backlinks / InLinks (and a little more) … also the penalties might hurt some feelings … anyway I used to do the queries manualy untill i found this free tool: http://ministatus.com which also alows one to download the results in pdf file and also generates the free badge price for each and every queried websites.
Yes Paul, You said it right.. Over optimization is strongly a matter of concern from the last Google Caffeine update. Some of our clients has gone from top 3 ranking in its niche to position 874 last week.. Its due to over optimization..
I have just started building back links for my new website (3 months old). I commented on a blog, which displays its “Recent Comments”, due to which, my backlinks grew from 50 to 490 in a week. So now, out of 490 backlinks, 440 are coming from one blog. You think this might come Under over optimization?
I would not expect you to receive an over optimisation simply due to blog comment link building, many sites include the latest comment as a footer across the site this can mean that you have hundreds of comments one day, then down to 0 the next. This is normal and not something to worry about. The main cause for concern would be building some higher quality links too quickly, this is seen as unnatural or brought links which can cause issues.
On a side note link building using blog comments will only work in a very uncompetitive market place, you need to look at other forms of link building such as article marketing and link acquisition to achieve results in more difficult markets
Interesting points guys. I’m concerned about the backlink profile for my above site. Around 70% of my backlinks point to it with the anchor text reading: “Cottages to rent”. Didn’t think this would be a problem when I conducted my link campaign because that’s the name of the site. Now I’m not so sure, especially considering that the site fell from number 1 to the 50s in Google for that and all other keywords.
Our website store 7 years old and it was penalized yesterday due to over optimization, I think to many links with same anchor…
You post provides some info that might help us. The problem is that even our name is removed from search engine, only domain name can be found…
Is that considered OVER-OPTIMIZATION, ie spam?
A “celebrity” navigation drop-down on all the pages of each of 600 independent celebrity web site. Each site has thousands of news pages, ie drop-down “links” from thousand of pages to each of the 600 web sites.
Would Google consider these drop-down “links” as “too many” links? Even though these drop-downs are meant to ease navigation from one celebrity site to the others , ie, not spam at all.
Thanks for any feedback, guidance.
Hi Arnaud,
Just so I understand your comment are you saying that all 600 celebrity sites link to eachother? You just have to be careful to ensure it is not over optimised by building links other than these 600 related sites. I would also ensure that the links to these sites are not just keyword based this could give you issues.
If you just leave the 600 links the site will gain strength but not gain much rankings as the sites are related together and therefore it will look less natural
Hello Paul, thanks for the responsiveness; fully appreciated.
“all 600 celebrity sites link to eachother?”
>> Yes, every page of each of the 600 sites link to … 600 sites
They link to each other through a navigation drop-down with the celebrity names.
For example: sobradpitt dot com …. navigation drop down in upper left
I am thinking Google might be considering this a link-farm … ??
Hi,
I would be very careful with this, it can look like grey hat seo even though it is not. You should look at building
other links to counteract this, you could even use JavaScript to manipulate the links to the sites, linking to the best one more often
Paul
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About Me
Paul Spreadbury
I am an Internet Marketing Professional with over 3 years experience in search engine optimisation and internet marketing. I work as an SEO Manager for Just Search, one of the largest SEO firms in the UK based near manchester.
I manage a large team of SEO programmers and provide bespoke internet marketing solutions for a wide range of clients. I have extensive knowledge of SEO, link building and analytics as well as a strong programming skill set. Keep looking back for my latest tips and tricks on everything SEO.
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