I was struck pretty bad by the penguin and I've been reading around a bit. Haven't found anything thats really helped me though so I was wondering which the best articles you've read on the subject is?
there is no single best article that will tell you all about penguin update and tell you how to recover from penguin. penguin update is also known as web spam update where google went after sites that were in practice of questionable link building methods. black hat methods, mass automated blog commenting, submitting to certain blog networks, link farms, link exchange, etc are some of the reasons sites got penalized. if your site was manually penalized, then you wil need to find out the reason for which it was penalized and then file a reconsideration request with google. if it was an automated algorithm based penalty, then with a proper SEO campaign you will be able to lift that penalty over time.
You probably need to stay away from anything questionable really, just ensure from now on you only build good quality links.
I figured there isnt one "best article" thats why I asked for your recommendations. I guess there is a few good ones after all. I am mainly interested in the ones with follow up tests of what the penguin really aimed for.
It depends on what you're interested in. If you want balanced and objective, then Search Engine Land's coverage of Penguin is good. To start off with: http://searchengineland.com/google-launches-update-targeting-webspam-in-search-results-119295 http://searchengineland.com/did-googles-search-results-get-better-or-worse-119469 http://searchengineland.com/the-penguin-update-googles-webspam-algorithm-gets-official-name-119623 http://searchengineland.com/penguin-update-recovery-tips-advice-119650 http://searchengineland.com/google-talks-penguin-update-recover-negative-seo-120463 http://searchengineland.com/link-building-means-earning-hard-links-not-easy-links-123767 (A bias towards Danny, but it's a good starting point as he's very objective and accurate in his writing, rather than jumping on the hate bandwagon to win the popular vote.) If you're part of "Google's out to get me", "I hate Google", etc, then you could just read what's on forums. It won't necessarily help your site, but will make you feel better.
check this other thread on DP by "lapseo" Great Penguin Resources Here. http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=2479415
A lot of helping articles are available but the main theme is almost same. Work for genuine content, update regularly and go for only good quality link.
Panda / Penguin. Which will be the next animal? Making a site survive it's getting harder every day. Now more than ever, having a backup plan (ranking with other free sites like YouTube videos etc) it's a must.
Hello, after google penguin, the only best way is give realy userful information to readers, get what's people who are realy looking for, nofollow and dofollow link is not important anymore, also the author text is not importand anymore, just makes your author looks nature and your information useful to people, you will get better serp, i am on this way now. Hope my information is useful to you and can click my signature to raise my site ranking.