Bill Hartzer, US Brand Ambassador for Majestic.com, talks about the basics of linking for Search Engine Optimization, as well as link cleanups, recovering from a Google Manual Action (link penalty), disavowing links. Included are advanced linking tips, as well as an overview of the Majestic.com platform and tools.

1. Advanced Link Training
Sponsored by Majestic
State of Search
November 2016

2. 2016 State of Search - Advanced Link Training
About Me
• Senior VP, Agency Services, Advice Interactive
• Brand Ambassador, Majestic
• Personal Blog: www.BillHartzer.com
• Practicing Organic/Natural SEO since 1996
• Co-Founder, DFWSEM Association

3. 2016 State of Search - Advanced Link Training - Overview
Overview
• Linking Basics
• Using Majestic for Link Analysis
• Analyzing Your Links
• Google Manual Penalties & Cleaning Up Links
• Advanced Linking Tips

4. 2016 State of Search - Advanced Link Training - Linking Basics
Why Use Links as a Ranking Factor?
• Google has run experiments that excluded links as a factor.
• Google doesn’t have a way (yet) to exclude links

5. 2016 State of Search - Advanced Link Training– Linking Basics
Anchor Text
<a href="http://www.example.com">Example Anchor Text</a>
• Anchor text describes what a user will find when they click
• Keyword rich anchor text still helps rankings
• Too much? Algorithmic or manual penalty possible

6. 2016 State of Search - Advanced Link Training– Linking Basics
Link Placement – Maximum SEO Value
• Header and content areas most valuable
• 1st link counted if multiple links to same
URL on page

7. 2016 State of Search - Advanced Link Training– Linking Basics
Paid Vs. Natural Links
• Buying or Selling Links that Pass PageRank is bad
• Google can identify Guest Blog Posts,
Sponsored Posts, Advertorials
• Sponsored posts must include “nofollow” and
disclosure it’s paid or sponsored (FTC guidelines)
• Google knows sections of pages that are ads

8. 2016 State of Search - Advanced Link Training– Linking Basics
Link Schemes Are Bad
Google’s Guidelines: http://bit.ly/google-link-schemes
• No Paid links that pass PageRank
• No Excessive link exchanges (define excessive?)
• No Large-scale article marketing or guest posting
• No Using auto programs or services to create links
• No Optimized anchor text in articles or press releases
• No Low-quality directory or bookmark links (Web 2.0)
• No Forum comments with optimized links
• No Keyword-rich, hidden or low-quality links in widgets
• No Widely distributed links in the footers or templates

9. 2016 State of Search - Advanced Link Training– Linking Basics
Google Ignores Certain Types of Links
• “Most” links with “nofollow” link attributes on them
• Most Web 2.0 links (and other low quality web spam)
• Google ignores 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc. link to same URL on a page
• “1 | 2 | 3” links
• “Previous and Next” links

10. 2016 State of Search - Advanced Link Training– Linking Basics
Why Cloaking Links Doesn't Work
• Cloaking = serving up one link to Google, another to humans
• Google, doesn’t crawl links, they just “notate them”
Google sees link to page.html Human sees link to page2.html
• Google doesn’t crawl page to page link they did years ago…
• No longer possible to cloak (manipulate) links

11. 2016 State of Search - Advanced Link Training – Majestic
What is Majestic? www.Majestic.com
• Formerly known as Majestic SEO (majesticseo.com)
• Marketing Search Engine
• SEO Backlink Checker
• Provides Link Intelligence Tools
• Site Explorer shows inbound link & website summary data.
• One of the world’s largest link crawlers
• Link data provided back as far as 2004.

12. 2016 State of Search - Advanced Link Training – Majestic

13. 2016 State of Search - Advanced Link Training – Majestic Search
Explorer

14. 2016 State of Search - Advanced Link Training – Majestic
Linking Search Console = Free Link Data!
• Load Your Verified Sites in Google Search Console

15. 2016 State of Search – Adv. Link Training – Majestic Trust & Citation
Flow
Majestic Trust Flow and Citation Flow
• Trust Flow = Number of clicks from seed set of trusted sites to a given
URL, or Domain
• Citation Flow = Number of citations to a given URL, or Domain

16. 2016 State of Search – Adv. Link Training – Majestic – Low Quality
Links
Identifying Low Quality and Bad Links

17. 2016 State of Search – Adv. Link Training – Majestic – New and Lost Links
Identifying New and Lost Links

18. 2016 State of Search – Advanced Link Training – Majestic Link Map
Tools
Compare Tool

19. 2016 State of Search – Advanced Link Training – Majestic Link
Map Tools
Link Profile Fight

20. 2016 State of Search – Advanced Link Training – Majestic Tools
Keyword Checker
• Shows how often keywords appear in the Majestic Index

21. 2016 State of Search – Adv. Link Training – Majestic Link Tools
Bulk Backlink Checker

22. 2016 State of Search – Advanced Link Training – Majestic Link
Tools
Neighborhood Checker

23. 2016 State of Search – Advanced Link Training – Majestic Link
Tools
URL Submitter
• Using Majestic to submit URLs to their scheduled crawl.

24. 2016 State of Search – Advanced Link Training – Analyzing Your
Links
Analyzing a Site’s Link Profile
• Gather all of the links (Majestic, Google Search Console, others)
• Review Trust Flow, Citation Flow, Topical Trust Flow
• Review anchor text, compare vs. keywords ranking
• Review percentage of anchor text (brand vs. keyword text)
• Review SEMRush.com Data (site penalized by Google Penguin in past?)

25. 2016 State of Search – Advandced Link Training – Google Manual Actions
Manual Actions in Google Search Console
• Partial Match – affects certain pages
• Full Match – affects whole site
• Unnatural links – both require link cleanup, review

26. 2016 State of Search – Adv. Link Training – Google Manual Actions
Manual Actions – Unrelated to Google Penguin
• Unnatural link warnings are not related to Google Penguin (even real-time)
• Unnatural link warnings not related to any algorithmic updates
• Sites affected by Google Penguin in the past should still clean up links
• Manual actions are more severe, require a reconsideration request

27. 2016 State of Search – Adv. Link Training – Google Manual Actions
Getting Manual Actions Revoked
Unnatural Links? Clean up links, document everything.
• Identify all links to site
• Combine GSC, Majestic, Ahrefs, OSE links
• Manually review links (Link Research Tools can help)
• Identify links to remove
• Contact site owners, document emails, contact dates, etc.
• At least 3 attempts to contact site owners (rmoov.com can help!
• Disavow links not removed
Request Review: include letter, spreadsheet with data proof (link to
Google Sheets spreadsheet)

28. 2016 State of Search – Advanced Link Training – Link Cleanups
Finding/Combining All Links to Site
Find every link to your website possible, even old links.
• Google Search Console
• Majestic.com
• Ahrefs.com
• Open Site Explorer (Moz.com)
• Download all links, put into MS Excel Spreadsheet
• Remove Duplicates

29. 2016 State of Search – Advanced Link Training – Link Cleanups
Upload Links to Link Research Tools
Take combined links, put into list in .csv file, upload to Link Detox.
• LRT’s Link Detox evaluates every links to site
• Assigns level of risk for each link

30. 2016 State of Search – Adv. Link Training – Link Cleanups
Identify Links to Remove in LRT
Remove Toxic links, Review Suspicious Links to site.
• Every link assigned a reason why it’s toxic, suspicious, etc.

31. 2016 State of Search – Adv. Link Training – Link Cleanups
Identify Links to Remove in Majestic
Majestic SEO can help you identify low quality links, as well.
• Use Topic, Trust Flow, and Citation Flow to Identify Links

32. 2016 State of Search – Advanced Link Training – Google Manual Actions
Contact Site Owners
Email contact is best option, phone call works very well too.
• Use whois data for most accurate email address
https://whois.icann.org
Sending Emails:
1st Contact - short, concise email. Few words, but personalized.
2nd Contact - longer, still concise. More descriptive, still personalized.
3rd Contact - “action required” phrase in subject. Descriptive, yet personalized.
4th Contact - Very stern, “action required”. Personalized.
Link Removal Requests should come from email at domain being cleaned up.

33. 2016 State of Search – Advanced Link Training – Google Manual
Actions
Emails to Site Owners
Sample email, first contact:
Subject: Question About badsite-articles.com
Hi badsite-articles.com,
Recently when we reviewed all of the links to
clientdomain.com, we noticed that your website is
linking to clientdomain.com on this page here:
http://mail.badsite-articles.com/index.php?c=99&p=55
I'm wondering if you would remove this link on your
website to domain.com?
Thank you, Bill

34. 2016 State of Search – Advanced Link Training – Disavowing Links
Disavow Links
After at least 3 contact attempts, disavow certain links (domains).
• I assign every link a status in my spreadsheet
- Link Removal Sent, 2nd Request, 3rd Request, 4th Request
- Unable to Contact, Refused to Remove, Requested Payment
- No longer Links Back, Successfully Removed
• Spreadsheet also includes all emails and contact with site owner.
• List URLs and Domains of Unable to Contact, No Response, Refused to
Remove, and Requested Payment
• Prepare Disavow File, upload text file to Google, Bing

35. 2016 State of Search – Advanced Link Training – Reconsideration
Requests
Filing a Reconsideration Request
Google wants to know that you suffered in order to clean up links.
• Prove to Google that you went above and beyond to clean up links
• Provide spreadsheet with status of every link, and emails

36. 2016 State of Search – Advanced Link Training – Reconsideration Requests
Example Reconsideration Request

37. 2016 State of Search – Advanced Link Training – Reconsideration Requests
Sample Manual Action Revoked
• 52,252 Total Links to Site
• 217 referring root domains
• 693 Healthy Links
• 709 Inorganic Links
• 569 “live” inorganic links to remove
After three attempts over 3 weeks to contact site owners via email:
• 296 site owners responded
• 12 sites refused to remove the links
• 257 links were successfully removed based on our email requests
• 27 links – site owners requested payment to remove the links
• 2 links – we were unable to contact site owners
• 274 links – site owners were completely unresponsive after 3 contacts
• 256 links were removed as a result of our link removal efforts

38. 2016 State of Search – Advanced Link Training – Reconsideration Requests
Sample Manual Action Revoked
• Kept track of all URLs, Status of URL, Dates, and emails
• Added all data into spreadsheet
• Uploaded spreadsheet to Google Docs
• Wrote letter explaining process, linked to Google Docs spreadsheet

39. 2016 State of Search – Advanced Link Training– Getting Google
Trust
Getting Google to Trust Your Site
• Majestic’s TrustFlow highly correlates to rankings
• Trust bulletproofs site from Google slaps and Algo Updates
• On-Page Trust Optimization
• Trustworthy Domain Info
• Trusted Links

40. 2016 State of Search – Adv.anced Link Training – Getting Google Trust
On-Page Trust Optimization
• Link out to Authority Sites when appropriate
• Privacy Policy, Terms of Service, Disclosure pages on site
• Bounce Rate, prevent pogosticking
• Blocked Sites (users can block your site via Chrome browser)
• References and Sources (at end of articles)
• Schema Markup (local sites’ contact matches local citations)

41. 2016 State of Search – Adv. Link Training – Getting Google Trust
Trustworthy Domain Info Could Help
• Register your domain for 2+ Years
• Make it public (don't hide with privacy whois)
• Put whois info on your contact page

42. 2016 State of Search – Adv. Link Training – Getting Google Trust
Get Links From Trusted Links, Seed Sites
• The closest you can get to having a link from a trusted seed site the better

43. 2016 State of Search – Advanced Linking Tips
Untapped Link Sources
• Donate to Charity
• Find Content w/links, Better Content
• HARO Help a Reporter Out
• PodcastGuests.com
• Expired Domains
• Blog Aggregators (Alltop)
• Broken Link Building
• Perform Research, Socialize Results

44. 2016 State of Search – Advanced Linking Tips
Less Than 10 links: Manual Penalty

45. 2016 State of Search – Advanced Linking Training - Contact
THANK YOU Contact Me
Bill Hartzer
Senior VP, Agency Service, Advice Interactive
Email: bhartzer@adviceinteractive.com
Mobile: +1 (214) 236-4378
Web: adviceinteractive.com
Blog: billhartzer.com
Twitter: @bhartzer
Facebook: facebook.com/bhartzer