Stop whining about Google’s “Penguin” update, especially if your ranks dropped. You got caught cheating on a test, failed the class, and your GPA tanked. Now you want to pretend it never happened? Sorry, anyone who’s ever gone to high school knows it takes years of strong grades to bring that GPA back up (if it can be brought up at all).
How to “recover” from Penguin? “Don’t be evil”
Search Engine Land wrote about this last week. Good article, but some of it smacks of “here’s how to get out jail free.” Sorry, I don’t see it happening any time soon. But they do offer some sound (common sense?) advice:
- Clean up on-page spam you know you’ve done
- Clean up bad links you know you’re been involved with, as best you can
- Wait for news of a future Penguin Update and see if you recover after it happens
- If it doesn’t, try further cleaning or consider starting over with a fresh site
- If you really believe you were a false positive, file a report as explained here
Doesn’t some of that sound like restitution? As well it should. You cheated. You got caught. Now say you’re sorry and report to detention.
Finally, some vindication for the good guys
Those of us who have never bought a link, never spammed Google or tried to game the system have finally been rewarded for our honesty and patience. Of course, spam isn’t dead. But it did take a big hit and lots of black hats are crying foul. Suckers.
Now, of course, there are some authors out there who were unfairly penalized by Penguin. And for them, it’s a raw deal. One would hope that Google would bail them out, but I’m glad I don’t have to wait in that line. It’s sure to be a long and painful one.
So far, none of my sites have been Penguin-slapped. I’m keeping my fingers crossed, but I feel confident since I’ve never done any shady SEO. Have you? Know anyone who has? I’d love to hear about some Penguin-pain stories.