Hi, I noticed today that two websites I own, which are linked to article directories, as i used to submit articles there, dropped rankings. My friend said it is caused by the Penguin update. Can anyone confirm me if this is true?
Have the sites that they were above dropped in rankings as well or are they now above your friend's sites? How recent is the content on the sites above your friend's sites?
Some article directories can drag you down, if they were penalized from the latest G updates. Just check your backlinks and remove the ones with too low flow.
Article Directories have passed VERY little juice or benefits relating to SEO for many years, diversify how you're gaining your links! WebDev
Hi Almyty, I just checked my backlinks and have a lot of directories that are really, really bad. i dont even know those directories. it must be someone i hired from India before who did it.
If you think they're likely to adversely affect your rankings, you might want to consider disavowing this links within Google. WebDev
Contact those article directories and show them the URLs where they are linking to you - ask them to remove your links. Article directories are now a think of the past, look for new methods of link building through high quality content.
How new are these links that you have from article directories? The thing is that if they've been part of what originally got you site's rankings up prior to Google's latest update, the mere fact of drop in rankings doesn't prove that the links are harmful - perhaps they are still beneficial but just less so than they used to be.
I don't know to which point this is applicable in general, but got the following Google message for a site I was contracted, to recover from a manual penalization. We've reviewed the links to your site and we still believe that some of them are outside our quality guidelines. Sample URLs: http:// goarticles.com/article/Significance-of-Scalper-Robot-Why-It-Is-Important/4929140/
Hey my question is your sites is only link to article directories? i mean you have build back-links from only those article sites
Article directories are no-no. It says that in the Google's guidelines and Google began penalizing sites since about a year ago. Lots of "well-known" article directories are on the black list. You get penalized pretty quickly just by posting there.
It isn't clear to me that Google's guidelines are against quality articles being posted on some of the best article directories (and containing a backlink or two per article). If article directory submission is done in excess and poorly, then it is likely to be against Google's guidelines and it may result in penalties to site rankings.
read it again, it's all there: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66356?hl=en The main issue is the anchor text. If it looks unnatural, it will be punished. If your website is joeplumber.com and your anchor is "Plumbers in New York city" then it is likely you will get penalized. In-text anchors are big no-no. 2 or more anchors on 1 page is big no no. Same article on different directories is also no good. Spinned articles are really bad and if you get any manual actions from Google, they will find them. Article directories with anchors are DEAD. Only use it if you aren't afraid of being penalized and you WILL be penalized for using them