McLaren’s Lando Norris said a five second penalty in Sunday’s Canadian Grand Prix for ‘unsportsmanlike behaviour’ made no sense.
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Real Madrid’s LaLiga title challenge suffered a blow as they were outfought and beaten 1-0 in Mallorca as Marco Asensio missed a penalty.
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Carlos Sainz will drop five places on the grid at the Brazilian Grand Prix after Ferrari incurred a penalty by fitting his car with a new engine.
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Yuki Tsunoda has been given a ten-place grid penalty at the Italian Grand Prix after accumulating too many reprimands across the season.
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Eintracht Frankfurt took home their first Europa League trophy
Max Verstappen has lost his position on the front row of the grid at the Qatar Grand Prix as a punishment for not slowing for double-waved yellow flags in qualifying.
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Private Blog Networks (PBNs) claim to work because they generate backlinks – and that much is true.
What about their other claims, though?
We know backlinks work to improve SEO and therefore visibility in the SERPs, but do PBNs work?
And if so, do they work well?
How do they even work?
Well, let’s answer those questions.
Luckily, private blog networks are actually quite simple to understand.
At some point in the era of SEO, someone figured out how to build a massive amount of backlinks from high-domain authority websites without much effort.
They did it by purchasing expired domain names that had already established domain authority.
Then, after collecting quite a large portion of these domains, they posted basic content to each website and included a backlink to their primary website in all of the content.
And voilá! They immediately generated loads of backlinks from high-domain authority websites.
At that moment, private blog networks were born.
Think of PBNs like a database of websites that, when you pay, all give your website backlinks.
It ends up looking something like this.
And with all of those backlinks your website’s domain authority, SEO, and rankings all benefit.
It sounds great, right?
Why wouldn’t you want to pay a little bit of money to increase your rankings and generate passive traffic to your website?
That’s the dream of most SEO experts, after all.
Well, not so fast.
To help you determine whether you should leverage PBNs, we’re going to first talk about the benefits that they have to offer. Then, we’ll discuss why they are a bit risky.
With that knowledge, you’ll be better prepared to make an informed decision for yourself.
While you might have heard that PBNs are scams that won’t help your SEO, that claim is only partly true.
PBNs offer legitimate benefits.
But before I get much further, let me mention a quick disclaimer:
I’ve never used a PBN for my own website and I don’t recommend using them for your website either.
I’ll explain why a little bit later, but I wanted to get that out in the open, so you know where I stand.
For now, though, let’s discuss why PBNs entice many marketers.
As I already mentioned, backlinks fuel the success of private blog networks.
And what exactly is a backlink?
A backlink is a hyperlink that leads from an external website to your own website. And these little beauties massively help your SEO.
Backlinks communicate to search engines that the linking website trusts your website enough to associate itself with your domain.
That means that the search engines will trust your website as well.
It’s kind of the same thing as playing with the cool kids on the playground.
When you’re hanging with the cool kids, that makes you cool.
Similarly, to figure out which websites are worth trusting, search engines look at which websites are linking to each other.
For that reason, link building is the top factor contributing to the rankings of a website.
PBNs can be so effective at building these backlinks that one company experienced this difference in its rankings after working with a private blog network.
So, can PBNs increase your SEO?
Yes, of course, they can.
That’s why so many marketers use them at some point. It’s why they have stuck around for so long, and it’s the reason that certain SEO firms make loads of money.
But what’s the dark side?
After all, everything that goes up must come down. Everything that sounds too good to be true is too good to be true.
Here are the cons you need to be aware of.
PBNs sound great.
That is until you find out about the risks involved with using them.
Yes, they can increase your SEO and help generate passive traffic and leads to your website.
However, that entire marketing strategy can quickly become a disaster if Google catches you.
So, in case you’re wondering, yes: Google hates PBNs and intentionally tries to penalize people who use them.
However, I understand the appeal.
I get it. SEO takes a long time to start impacting your blog rankings.
The quick fix that PBNs offer is just too enticing for some marketers. You get fast rankings, brand awareness, and, hopefully, revenue.
At least, that’s what the PBNs promise.
But if all of that benefit can fade in a single moment of vulnerability, is it really worth it?
PBNs aren’t technically a blackhat SEO strategy.
But they aren’t white hat either.
They’re a hack. They amount to a get-rich-quick scheme. And as with most similar tactics, they involve some serious risks.
If Google finds out, then they will penalize your website, and you’ll struggle to gain any significant ground in SEO.
But how? How does Google penalize websites that use PBNs to boost their SEO?
How would they know what you’re doing?
Well, if all of the websites that you’ve received backlinks from are websites with very little activity, few updates, and almost no internal linking, then Google gets suspicious.
Unfortunately, PBN websites usually have all of those specific qualities.
That makes it easy for most search engines to spot them.
In the end, if you decide to use PBNs, know that you run the risk of hurting your website’s SEO.
Legitimate pros exist, but only under a cloud of potential penalization by search engines.
You might generate some quick domain authority with PBNs. While traditional strategies take longer, they aren’t nearly as risky.
But if you want to rise through the rankings the right way, then here are five risk-proof strategies you can use instead.
Guest blogging gives you an opportunity to provide value for someone else’s website while also getting a backlink.
If you do it right, this strategy will be a win for the website you write for and a win for your own website as well.
For that reason, SEO agencies and experts alike use guest blogging as one of their link-building strategies.
You can do the same thing.
Just find blogs within your industry and pitch the editors an article over email. If they accept your pitch, you can run off to write and include a backlink to your own website.
But before you do, make sure that you ask the editor what their policy is regarding backlinks.
They might not want you to include a backlink to your website within the article itself, but they’ll let you put it in your bio.
Either way, you win a backlink, and they win a valuable piece of content for their audience.
Now, you might be nervous that editors won’t respond to your emails.
But we’ve created this handy guide for guest blogging proposals to help you get started.
Remember: don’t quit early just because you don’t get a response.
Pitch enough places with high-quality ideas, and you’re sure to receive a reply.
Just give it some time.
And keep this in mind as well. The ideal word count for ranking articles sits right around 2,400 words.
Ultimately, follow the guidelines of the blog you’re writing for. But when it doubt, try to write an article that will rank well on Google.
Then, the website will be more likely to accept your pitch, outline, and final draft.
While guest blogging is one of the most popular strategies for generating backlinks, you might not have the time.
If you don’t, then writing testimonials for other websites might be a more appealing approach.
Even if you do write a guest blog post, writing testimonials with a backlink to your website is a strategy worth your time.
It’s simple and powerful.
All you have to do is provide a testimonial for websites that you partner with.
Then, most of the websites will include a friendly backlink to your URL.
Just make sure that your testimonial provides genuine value. Write something like this, for instance.
Or give them something like this.
And here’s one more example.
Always include these two specific things in your testimonial.
With that start, you’ll be off and writing testimonials for your partners in no time, generating backlinks with every reference.
If you don’t create content worth sharing, then you can probably guess what will happen: No one will share it.
Your goal when you write that blog post or film that video or design that infographic is to generate attention for your brand.
You want to increase brand awareness, drive traffic to your website, and use the content to generate leads.
You even want to generate social backlinks to your website.
But, of course, you can’t do that if you create bad content.
If you’re going to create the content anyway, then take the time to make it great. Make it share-worthy.
But how do you do that?
Well, you need to make people who share your content look good.
People share things on social media and through email because they want to look good to their friends.
That might sound egotistical, but it’s the human condition.
Ask yourself: What reason do people have to share this with their friends? Will it make them seem funny, smart, kind, cool, or rich?
To get shares, you need to target at least one of those motivations.
After all, those are among the top reasons why people share content in the first place.
And when it comes to which type of content to produce, infographics and lists win.
Another strategy that works is spying on your competitors to understand what’s performing best on social media. Here’s an easy way to do so:
Step #1: Visit Ubersuggest, Type Your Keyword and Click “Search”
Step #2: Click “Content Ideas” in the Left Sidebar
Step #3: Analyze the Results
What you end up with is a long list of top-performing content related to your keyword.
For example, the top listing, “Marketing Legend Seth Godin on the Future of Branded Content,” has been shared 16,805 times on Facebook and nearly 100 times on Pinterest. That gives you a pretty good idea that the content is share-worthy. Now, you can craft your content in a similar manner, with the goal of achieving the same results.
However you do it, take the time to create amazing, share-worthy content. You’ll generate far more social backlinks, drive more traffic, and build better brand awareness.
You’re creating the content, so do the best that you can with it.
Social signals play a massive part in SEO.
Websites that stay active on their social media accounts, update their information, and generate more content shares tend to rank better than websites that don’t.
In fact, just on Facebook, that correlation is apparent.
But why is that the case?
Why does Google rank websites that have an active and updated social media presence better than those that don’t?
The short answer is that search engines want to know your website is active and relevant.
If you’re generating lots of shares and social signals, then that tells Google to rank you better.
This means that just staying active on your social media accounts can help your SEO. It really is that simple.
And the more engagement you get on your social media pages, the better.
A 2016 experiment tried to discover the impact that social media can have on your website’s SEO.
In the study, one website with an increase in social shares experienced a 14.64% increase in rankings, and another website received a 6.9% SEO boost.
But if that’s not enough motivation for you to stay active on your social media accounts, just consider the additional traffic you’ll drive to your website with each post.
You won’t only win social backlinks. You’ll also generate traffic, leads, and even conversions.
You’ve stuck with me this far.
But now you’re wondering, “How does building a loyal audience help your SEO?”
And that’s a great question.
Unfortunately, the answer isn’t as direct as you might like.
But it does exist.
Just consider, for example, that active blogs draw 6.9 times more organic search traffic.
This means that just posting on your website’s blog regularly will benefit your SEO.
After all, the more people who search for your website and the more popular you become, the higher your domain authority will surge.
In other words, with a loyal audience comes a better ranking.
And, in turn, that’s good for growing your audience.
You see, it’s kind of like a self-sustaining, perpetual cycle.
With a larger audience comes better SEO, and with better SEO comes a larger audience. And with a larger audience comes better SEO, and on it goes. You get the point.
Plus, the bigger your audience, the more shares you’ll generate on social media, further helping your link-building strategy.
Of course, Rome wasn’t built in a day, and you won’t build your audience overnight.
Building a loyal group of followers is a process of posting consistent content over a long period of time.
You’ll cross times of discouragement and tribulation.
Sometimes, you’ll want to give up.
When you do, though, just keep in mind that acquiring new customers is five to seven times more expensive than retaining old ones.
In other words, all of that time and energy you dedicate to pleasing your existing audience will pay off when you’re trying to market to them.
Plus, you’ll generate more attention and better SEO from a loyal customer base than you will from new and fleeting customers.
Yes, you can be penalized for doing this.
Google considers them scammy.
Look for sites with high authority and links that you can buy – but this strategy is not recommended.
They aren’t considered black hat, but they are penalized by Google.
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So, should you use private blog networks?
As I explained, they can help your SEO, and they can do it fast. But the entire time you use them, you run the unfortunate risk of destroying your website’s ranking potential in one fell swoop.
Is the risk worth it?
I hope that you’ll answer that question with a “no.”
SEO is good. But SEO spoiled by spammy tactics is not.
The better option is to build your backlinks over time by guest blogging, writing testimonials, creating share-worthy content, leveraging your social platforms, and building a loyal audience.
Even though it might feel like it takes a long time to rise through the rankings using those strategies, that’s time well spent.
You’ll have peace of mind knowing that no one can penalize you for shady methods.
Private blog networks aren’t black hat. But they certainly aren’t white hat, either.
They are gray hat. And that’s a hat you shouldn’t be willing to wear.
Do you think private blog networks are a penalty waiting to happen or a great SEO hack?
SEO is a complex game full of surprises. Even with best intentions, it’s possible to invest in your SEO only to have your site penalized by a Google algorithm update or manual action.
If you notice your website traffic suddenly drop or your position in the SERP ranking falling, your site may have been a victim of a Google penalty.
Fixing these penalties should be a top priority, as a drop in your search engine ranking can result in lost customers and lost sales.
Luckily, appealing and rectifying these penalties is possible, but you need to understand the cause before you can fix the problem.
In this article, we’ll show you how to figure out if your site has been penalized and explain exactly what to do to fix your score.
A Google penalty is a punishment that Google delivers to sites that fail to follow their Webmaster Guidelines.
Penalties can be given automatically by Google’s algorithms or manually, by any of Google’s human auditors.
Some penalties are the result of Google algorithm updates, such as in the case of the Panda and Penguin updates.
Think of Google penalties like a red card in soccer. The referee (Google) says you did something wrong and you are forced to sit out the rest of the game.
When you receive a penalty, your website, much like the soccer player, is forced to sit out until a solution is found. This usually means you may no longer be listed in search results or your ranking for targeted keywords drops.
While Google penalties are designed to stop black-hat SEO tactics and other online rule-breakers, they can also happen to sites that made an honest mistake or did nothing wrong at all. Sometimes, it’s simply an error on Google’s end that will need to be fixed.
The following triggers often cause Google penalties:
There are many ways to get a Google penalty, but they are often triggered by black-hat techniques or tactics intended to fool search engine bots.
There are two main types of Google penalties:
You can check if you have received a manual penalty in the Google Search Console.
For manual actions, go to Security & Manual Actions, then Manual Actions. If you see a green checkmark that says “No issue detected” you’re in the clear.
To determine if your site was hit with an algorithmic penalty, you’ll need to check your ranking, which we’ll cover in the next section.
Remember that not every decline in search traffic is the result of a Google penalty. For example, seasonal businesses often see a sharp decline in their off-seasons. As well, the increased online competition can force your business further down the SERP page.
Google has always maintained that high-quality, relevant content is prioritized above irrelevant content meant to boost SEO.
Essentially, Google wants businesses to create content that is best for the user, not just for search engines. When you try to trick the algorithm, you may get slapped with a penalty.
That said, it is possible to get a Google penalty even if you aren’t trying to trick the algorithm.
Errors in manual entry and algorithm changes may result in a penalty even for innocent marketers.
Because of this, it’s important to be aware of what can cause a Google penalty, and what to do if it happens.
Below, we’ll outline the steps needed to recover from a Google penalty.
Your site will recover from a Google penalty once all of the errors are corrected.
This can be anywhere from 10-30 days for manual penalties, depending on how quickly you fix the problem, submit a reconsideration request, and have your request accepted.
The recovery time can be significantly longer for algorithm penalties, with some companies reporting damage up to two years later. Most sites can expect a six-month recovery period.
Google penalties can result in lost traffic and revenue for businesses, so it’s important to find and fix issues as soon as possible.
While most penalties result from bad SEO techniques, some penalties are the result of Google errors and may require communication with the Google team.
If your site is penalized because of content errors or mistakes, you can often clear the issue up by modifying your site content.
Here are a few simple steps you can follow to recover from a Google penalty.
The first step in recovering from a Google penalty is to make sure a penalty is the cause of your issues.
You can use the Website Penalty Indicator to see exactly where and how your site may be being affected.
You can also use tools such as Ubersuggest to get a full report on SEO errors that need attention. Issues such as unhealthy backlinks, duplicate content, indexing errors, or algorithm updates can all be found with these tools.
To find out if you are a victim of an algorithm penalty, log in to your Google Analytics dashboard, and compare drops in traffic to any known Google algorithm changes.
If you see your traffic drop at the same time as a known algorithm update, it’s likely the culprit of your Google penalty.
To investigate further, select your website on the Google Analytics dashboard, then click Acquisition > All Traffic > Source/Medium.
From there, choose Google/Organic. This will show you a report of the number of visits your site receives from Google search.
Next, select the reporting period at the top right and go back a year or more. Compare any major traffic drop dates to Google algorithm update dates.
Use this Google Algorithm cheat sheet to guide your process. Or, check the Moz guide that shows all of the Google algorithm updates in the last 16 years.
Once you’ve identified which update is resulting in your penalty, research the update to understand how to fix the issue.
For example, if the Penguin update is penalizing your site, you need to focus on improving your backlinks and anchor text distribution.
If the Panda update is penalizing you, it may be a question of content quality.
A page experience penalty may require UX/UI updates to improve user experiences on your site.
SEO audits should be part of your regular marketing strategy. It can also be useful to diagnose any drops in traffic.
If you are worried your site is suffering from a Google penalty, a technical SEO audit can help uncover any SEO errors impacting your site.
When performing a technical SEO audit, you should focus on these three things:
-back-end hosting and indexing
-front-end factors like content, metadata, and keywords
-outside references and link quality
SEO audits should use a link tool such as our Backlink Checker, to scan for any spam links.
This SEO Audit Checklist can also help you perform a detailed SEO audit to recover from a Google penalty.
Some common SEO errors include:
-bad or spammy backlinks
-keyword stuffing
-sitemap errors
-loading speed
-pop-ups
If you fix your SEO errors and still find your website is under-performing, your penalty may be the result of a content error or other issue.
A content audit reviews all your current content performance and can help uncover the cause of your Google penalty if it’s related to content issues.
Remember, your online content needs to be regularly updated and optimized to stay high-performing. Google looks for updated, detailed content; so content that was great two years ago won’t perform the same today without updates.
Use Ubersuggest to see your overall site performance and find content update opportunities. Simply click Search > Site Audit.
Content inventory tools such as Blaze or DynoMappe can also help you uncover content issues.
Check for duplicate content as well. Duplicate content can be a big issue in your search performance. Businesses that allow user-generated content, such as comments on blogs, should be especially aware of this.
During your content audit, look for:
-outdated content
-content gaps
-evergreen content that needs to be refreshed
-metadata
-image data
-word counts
Depending on the tool you use, you may receive content recommendations that will help you improve your site.
On Ubersuggest, issues are rated from Low to High.
Tackle high-impact issues first to minimize Google penalty issues, then make a plan to update content regularly to keep you in Google’s good graces.
Healthy link-building campaigns are crucial to SEO, but bad backlinks can have the opposite effect.
Bad backlinks can result in both manual and algorithmic Google penalties.
Google’s Penguin algorithm is designed to uncover bad backlinks and penalize sites that were thought to be manipulating SERPs.
While managing your links can be a daunting task, many tools available to simplify this process.
–Majestic SEO is an intelligence tool that helps perform link audits to help you understand how and where your links are working.
–Google’s Disavow Tool can help you remove spammy backlinks from your site. Note that you should only do this if direct communication has been unsuccessful at removing the bad backlinks.
–WebMeUp backlink checker will break your backlink domains and IPs along with the percentage of dofollow links and showcase your data in easy-to-read pie charts.
–Ahrefs backlink checker provides a link analysis tool with a regularly updated link database to guide your efforts.
–Link Detox is a subscription-based tool that can automatically clean up your link profile. Be careful using automatic tools as they can sometimes disavow your best backlinks. Always manually check results to ensure no good links are lost.
Once you find negative or under-performing backlinks, you can try to remove them.
This can be done by emailing the webmaster of the underperforming sites to request removal.
Look for the webmaster’s contact details on a Contact Us or About Us page. If this is unsuccessful, try entering their domain into Whois.com.
Your request email should look something like this.
If the webmaster does not respond or refuses your request, you can then use Google Disavow to remove the links yourself.
Keep in mind that a handful of bad backlinks isn’t going to tank your rankings. Google will ignore many of those weird links if you had nothing to do with them. However, if you used a shady SEO agency or engaged in black-hat link building, take the time to clean up those links.
Use tools such as Website Penalty Indicator and Ubersuggest to uncover any manual or algorithm penalties affecting your website traffic.
Perform an SEO audit to find and fix any SEO errors that may result in a Google penalty.
Online tools such as Majestic SEO and WebMeUp can uncover bad backlinks. From there, you need to contact the webmaster directly to delete them or disavow them yourself.
Your site should recover in around 30 thirty days for manual penalties and six months for algorithm penalties
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A Google penalty can be a big issue for sites that rely on web traffic for revenue.
Luckily, you can take steps to find out how, when, and why your site is being penalized.
Remember, there are many ways to improve your Google ranking without getting penalized. Be sure to adhere to Google’s best practices at all times to minimize penalty issues.
Although we hope you feel confident enough to identify and fix Google penalties yourself after reading this guide, our agency is here if you can’t or don’t want to. Our experienced team can guide you through the SEO audit/fixing/growing process with whatever level of involvement you want.
How have you fixed your Google penalties in the past? What steps did you take?
A memo sent to NFL teams Friday said officials have been authorized to penalize teams for unsportsmanlike conduct if a coach or someone else on the sideline approaches them while not wearing a mask or other appropriate face covering.
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Ryan Blaney was penalized 10 points and sent to the back of the field before NASCAR’s first playoff race on Sunday.
The post Penalty moves Blaney to back of Darlington field appeared first on Buy It At A Bargain – Deals And Reviews.