SMX East: Tackling Content Duplication and Penguin Penalties

Had a great Day 1 at SMX East and learned a lot from the experts on SEO Performance Metrics that I am excited to share with the team.

Now onto new the beautiful Penguin world we live in, and this is straight from the horse’s mouth….

Content Audit: Pull data

• GWT
• Screaming Frog
• Excel Google
• Analytics

Duplicate Content Problems

• URLs are not case sensitive. Common in .net sites. Can be resolved by the developer.
• Multiple versions of the home page. Can be resolved by canonicalization, no index and robot.txt.
• Pagination problems. Common in ecommerce sites. Can be resolved by the developer.
• URL parameters. Solution: Ignore in GWT; do canonicalization.

Okay, so basically make friends with your web developer.

Did you know that you should not do a re-inclusion request" Apparently that puts you in the Google scanner.

Here's what to do if you are still affected by Penguin:

• Get rid of spammy links
• Do not submit a re-inclusion request (only use as a last resort)
• Get all your links and consolidate them together
• Put stuff in huge excel file; some fields for analysis should be page authority, domain authority, page rank, anchor text, placement, link age, eyeball quality (manual)

Then act. Dump shady networks and reach out to those websites via email, phone, Whois, duplicate content, Copyscape and track results. Then wait until frustration sets in and ask for re-inclusion. Ooohhhh snap I just went there!

But remember, you need to submit this information in a format that contains complete documentation of lists of links, methods of contact, dates of outreach and successful removal.

Anyone's brain spinning as much as mine right now? Off to another exciting seminar at SMX East!