{"id":3146,"date":"2013-07-23T13:39:33","date_gmt":"2013-07-23T13:39:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/?p=3146"},"modified":"2013-12-12T13:41:58","modified_gmt":"2013-12-12T13:41:58","slug":"unnatural-links-are-dead-a-case-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/3146\/unnatural-links-are-dead-a-case-study\/","title":{"rendered":"[Unnatural] Links are DEAD \u2013 A Case Study"},"content":{"rendered":"<p align=\"center\"><strong>Yes they really are!<\/strong> \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><em>Oui. Ja. Si. Ja. Da. Ken. Hai. <\/em><em>\u662f<\/em><em> [Shi]<\/em><em>. <\/em><em>J\u00e1<\/em><em>. <\/em><em>Haan<\/em><em>. <\/em><em>\u0414\u0430<\/em><em>. <\/em><em>Evet<\/em><em>. <\/em><em>Nai<\/em><em>. <\/em><em>Tak<\/em><em>. <\/em><em>Taip<\/em><em>. <\/em><em>Kyll\u00e4<\/em><em>. <\/em><em>Ja<\/em><em>. <\/em><em>Ya<\/em><em>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>They are\u00a0actually\u00a0<strong>killing<\/strong> you site and business, that is if you are building a sustainable medium to long-term online business as most people do. If you are into the \u201ctrickery\u201d business (like short term \u00a0with no brand attachments &#8230;\u00a0) then unnatural links may still do it for you. <em>(read about it at the end of the article).<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-3162\" title=\"Unnatural Links Penguin Dance\" src=\"http:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/unnatural_links_dead.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"650\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/unnatural_links_dead.jpg 962w, https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/unnatural_links_dead-300x234.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 962px) 100vw, 962px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Here are a few things on what this article is\/isn\u2019t:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>This is not SEO propaganda &#8211; just a catchy title \ud83d\ude09<\/li>\n<li>This is a Serious SEO Case Study.<\/li>\n<li>This is about link building strategies that work\/[or don\u2019t] in 2013.<\/li>\n<li>This is about real sites with real problems.<\/li>\n<li>This is about Google.<\/li>\n<li>This is for every SEO Pro! (penalized or not)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<blockquote><p>How good is Google at spotting shady links you might ask yourself?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This case study analyzes the ranking trends on a set of sites and correlates this information with their unnatural link profiles.<\/p>\n<p>We took 4 sites in the \u201cbirthday invitations, cards and more\u201d niche that were ranking top 10 on a set of keywords representative for the niche. One of these sites stands out with a steady SEO visibility growth in the last year.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/cardstore_seo_visibility.png\" target=\"_blank\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-3147\" title=\"Cardstore SEO Visibility\" src=\"http:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/cardstore_seo_visibility.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"650\" height=\"219\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/cardstore_seo_visibility.png 912w, https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/cardstore_seo_visibility-300x100.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 650px) 100vw, 650px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>This is the SEO visibility of the CardStore.com site for the last 2 years. Looking at the SEO visibility trend, it seems that they also had SERP volatility in the past due to some Google Penalties or Algorithms updates. Even so, they recovered and are increasing their SEO visibility more and more.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/healthy_backlink_profile.png\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-3153\" title=\"Healthy Backlink Profile\" src=\"http:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/healthy_backlink_profile.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"650\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/healthy_backlink_profile.png 1277w, https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/healthy_backlink_profile-300x26.png 300w, https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/healthy_backlink_profile-1024x90.png 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1277px) 100vw, 1277px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Looking good! Their link profile is Green and Orange.\u00a0 This means that the site is having a healthy link profile. Healthy link profiles may have a small amount of suspicious links. Nothing to worry about!<\/p>\n<p>On the other hand, some of their competitors don\u2019t have such a great SEO visibility.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/seo_visibility_variations.png\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-3159\" title=\"SEO Visibility Variations\" src=\"http:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/seo_visibility_variations.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"650\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/seo_visibility_variations.png 865w, https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/seo_visibility_variations-300x104.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 865px) 100vw, 865px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Correlating the ranking data with the linking data, it is almost obvious why some sites are struggling in Google while others are winning.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/unnatural_link_comparison.png\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-3152\" title=\"Unnatural Link Comparison\" src=\"http:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/unnatural_link_comparison.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"650\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/unnatural_link_comparison.png 1186w, https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/unnatural_link_comparison-300x84.png 300w, https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/unnatural_link_comparison-1024x289.png 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1186px) 100vw, 1186px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Looking at the correlation between the unnatural links and SEO visibility, we can easily see that Google pushes up the sites with more natural looking link profiles. The sites with shady link profiles are steadily declining.<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s dig a bit deeper into the story of each individual site.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>1. CardStore.com<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Let\u2019s look at what <strong>CardStore<\/strong> is doing, in terms of link building strategies.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/brand_commerical_anchor_text_success.png\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-3161\" title=\"Brand Commerical Anchor Text Success\" src=\"http:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/brand_commerical_anchor_text_success.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"650\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/brand_commerical_anchor_text_success.png 1180w, https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/brand_commerical_anchor_text_success-300x95.png 300w, https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/brand_commerical_anchor_text_success-1024x324.png 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1180px) 100vw, 1180px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>By checking the <a href=\"http:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/1385\/backlink-analysis-tool-link-analyzer-intelligence\/#8\">competitive link analysis area<\/a> we can easily spot a very low amount of commercial anchor text compared to the other sites. This usually indicates a site that is doing either smart SEO or isn\u2019t doing SEO at all. The other sites seem to be a bit more aggressive in terms of SEO.<\/p>\n<p>Another important fact that dictates a steady growth would be a consistent monthly link acquisition.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/link_velocity_success.png\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-3163\" title=\"Link Velocity Success\" src=\"http:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/link_velocity_success.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"650\" height=\"185\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/link_velocity_success.png 1286w, https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/link_velocity_success-300x85.png 300w, https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/link_velocity_success-1024x291.png 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 650px) 100vw, 650px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>This chart only tells you that the CardStore site has a constant link acquisition trend, with numbers that are above their competitors\u2019. This doesn\u2019t tell you anything about the quality of the links. If we look at the link velocity we see that this is trend started in 2009 and goes on since then. This single fact increases the chances of something \u201cgood\u201d actually going on, leading to a link profile with a much higher number of referring domains.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/referring_domains_success.png\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-3160\" title=\"Referring Domains Success\" src=\"http:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/referring_domains_success.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"650\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/referring_domains_success.png 1146w, https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/referring_domains_success-300x101.png 300w, https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/referring_domains_success-1024x345.png 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1146px) 100vw, 1146px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Trying to discover some of their major link building strategies, I noticed what <strong>link building strategies they did not use<\/strong>. I refer to Web Directories and Article Directories Link Building.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/webpage_type_link_building_strategies.png\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-3158\" title=\"Webpage Type Link Building Strategies\" src=\"http:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/webpage_type_link_building_strategies.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"650\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/webpage_type_link_building_strategies.png 754w, https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/webpage_type_link_building_strategies-300x158.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 754px) 100vw, 754px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Looking at some of the other competitors, we see 2 of them being quite active on Webdirectory link acquisitions, while others have a similar and more natural link acquisition pattern.<\/p>\n<p>Overall this site\u2019s main characteristic is that<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"center\">No External Backlink Over-optimization!<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<h3><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><strong>2. Paperculture.com<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Their webmaster <a href=\"https:\/\/productforums.google.com\/forum\/#!msg\/webmasters\/B7un2eHufBI\/_VsWyDcWnj4J\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">confirmed<\/a> that the site received unnatural link warnings from Google and also said that they did not see a decrease in search traffic.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/paperculture_seo_visibility.png\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-3151\" title=\"Paperculture SEO Visibility\" src=\"http:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/paperculture_seo_visibility.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"650\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/paperculture_seo_visibility.png 921w, https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/paperculture_seo_visibility-300x101.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 921px) 100vw, 921px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In the PaperCulture case we see an increasing SEO visibility trend, even though the site has been sent unnatural link warnings. Taking a look at the naturalness of their link profile we can see that they have a small amount of unnatural links.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/unntural_link_comparison_small_numbers.png\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-3150\" title=\"Unntural Link Comparison Small Numbers\" src=\"http:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/unntural_link_comparison_small_numbers.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"650\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/unntural_link_comparison_small_numbers.png 1173w, https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/unntural_link_comparison_small_numbers-300x92.png 300w, https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/unntural_link_comparison_small_numbers-1024x316.png 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1173px) 100vw, 1173px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Their main problem seems to be the struggle to grow their SEO visibility.<\/p>\n<p>It is important to know that unnatural link warnings do not necessarily mean a decrease in traffic they might also mean an SEO growth blockage. Removing the unnatural links might enable the site to grow faster, only if they increase the link acquisition trend in a natural way.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>3. SimplytoImpress.com<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/unnatural_links_detected.png\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-3157\" title=\"Unnatural Links Detected\" src=\"http:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/unnatural_links_detected.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"650\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/unnatural_links_detected.png 1276w, https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/unnatural_links_detected-300x141.png 300w, https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/unnatural_links_detected-1024x483.png 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1276px) 100vw, 1276px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>With the high level of toxic links this site has, this only indicates the certainty of a Google Penalty or Unnatural Links Warning. This is also confirmed also by the SEO visibility trend. The latest major SEO visibility fall is on the Google Penguin 2.0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mattcutts.com\/blog\/penguin-2-0-rolled-out-today\/\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">date<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/simplytoimpress_seo_visibility.png\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-3149\" title=\"Google Penguin 2.0 SEO visibility\" src=\"http:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/simplytoimpress_seo_visibility.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"650\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/simplytoimpress_seo_visibility.png 917w, https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/simplytoimpress_seo_visibility-300x100.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 917px) 100vw, 917px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>At a more in-depth look, we spot the main problem in their link building strategy:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/webdirectory_link_building_strategy.png\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"644\" height=\"364\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-3156\" title=\"Webdirectory Link Building Strategy\" src=\"http:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/webdirectory_link_building_strategy.png\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/webdirectory_link_building_strategy.png 644w, https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/webdirectory_link_building_strategy-300x169.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 644px) 100vw, 644px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><strong>Webdirectories \u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>From my point of view, this \u201cancient\u201d link building strategy, that once worked extremely well, slaps all the sites that abused it quite hard now. My recommendation for link profiles such as this is to start diluting them by doing \u201cnatural\u201d link building and steadily removing the web directory links that were built in the past.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>4. Finestationery.com<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/unnatural_links_risky.png\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-3155\" title=\"Unnatural Links Risky Backlink Profile\" src=\"http:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/unnatural_links_risky.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"650\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/unnatural_links_risky.png 1276w, https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/unnatural_links_risky-300x25.png 300w, https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/unnatural_links_risky-1024x88.png 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1276px) 100vw, 1276px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Their naturalness level is at the lower end limit. This means that they are on \u201cmoving ground\u201d and that they are at risk to be hit by Google because of unnatural links.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/finestationary_seo_visibility.png\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-3148\" title=\"Panda January 2013 SEO Visibility\" src=\"http:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/finestationary_seo_visibility.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"650\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/finestationary_seo_visibility.png 907w, https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/finestationary_seo_visibility-300x98.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 907px) 100vw, 907px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>SEO visibility has a rather big decline! My opinion is that this big decrease is not related to unnatural links but more to a Google Update in January 2013, a possible Google Panda as <a href=\"http:\/\/www.seroundtable.com\/google-jan-17-brands-16261.html\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">reported<\/a> on several <a href=\"http:\/\/searchengineland.com\/google-panda-update-version-24-1-2-of-search-queries-impacted-146149\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">sites<\/a> for that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.webmasterworld.com\/google\/4542094.htm\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">particular<\/a> timeframe.<\/p>\n<p>Having identified their biggest drop and looking at the rest of the visibility we see a linear visibility with a very small increase trend. It is important to notice that Google Penguin 2.0 did not have any impact on this site, even if they have a link profile with 19% to 25% unnatural and suspect links. I have seen these numbers on a lot of other sites that have problems with their link profile and have not been penalized yet. Looking at how Google\u2019s algorithms have evolved in terms of spotting unnatural links, I would say that it is only a matter of time until these kind of link profiles take a big hit and loose any SEO visibility that they might still have.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/commercial_anchors_safe.png\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-3154\" title=\"Safe Brand vs Commercial Anchor Distribution\" src=\"http:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/commercial_anchors_safe.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"650\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/commercial_anchors_safe.png 1283w, https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/commercial_anchors_safe-300x34.png 300w, https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/commercial_anchors_safe-1024x117.png 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1283px) 100vw, 1283px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In this particular case their <a href=\"http:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/2522\/brand-anchor-text-vs-commercial-anchor-text-ratio\/\">brand vs commercial anchor text distribution<\/a> is looking pretty natural. The \u201canchor text distribution\u201d is also used by Google, in order to determine the overall naturalness of a site\u2019s link profile.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Conclusion &amp; Advice<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>With several in-house studies we did, similar to this one, I would \u201cdare\u201d to say that sites that haven\u2019t been over SEO-ed have a very good chance of continuing with steady rankings and growth, while sites that move over the 15-20% unnatural links limit, have a very high chance of being penalized by Google for unnatural links.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/healthy_backlink_profile.png\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-3153\" title=\"Healthy Backlink Profile\" src=\"http:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/healthy_backlink_profile.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"650\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/healthy_backlink_profile.png 1277w, https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/healthy_backlink_profile-300x26.png 300w, https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/healthy_backlink_profile-1024x90.png 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1277px) 100vw, 1277px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Sites with Orange + Green Link Profiles are considered safe sites, in terms of unnatural link penalties. Unfortunately not many sites fit in this category and for the ones that don\u2019t, I highly recommend starting to actively <strong>build links by not building links<\/strong>\u00a0:).<\/p>\n<p>That means forget about SEO for a moment (at least the way you did it before) and try to recover that lost authority that you once had. In order to do that you just need to prove to Google that your site is trustworthy of being top ranked in their index. You can only do this by following their <a href=\"https:\/\/support.google.com\/webmasters\/answer\/35769?hl=en\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">guidelines<\/a> and not by trying to bend the \u201claw\u201d in order to get a better ranking. Re-build your business model by focusing on SEO as an integrated marketing activity and not by trying to trick Google in thinking that your site is \u201cthe site\u201d that should be ranked in the top spot.<\/p>\n<p>And remember &#8230; all this makes sense, only if you care about Google\u2019s traffic.<\/p>\n<p>Good luck and I hope this case study helped you understand link naturalness, toxicity and SEO volatility better.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Unnatural\u00a0Link Detection Tool Used<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>The unnatural link analysis was done using the <a href=\"http:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/3068\/automatic-unnatural-link-detection\/\">automatic unnatural link detection<\/a> Widget in the <a href=\"http:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\">cognitiveSEO<\/a> platform. You can try it yourself, if you have&#8217;t already, using the <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/pricing.php\">free 14 day trial<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>A <strong>new feature<\/strong> that was silently added last week, is the <strong>Unnatural Link Comparison<\/strong> widget in the Competitive Link Analysis Area. This case study already highlights some of use cases for this chart. The major use case is the ability to compare multiple sites from a backlink profile naturalness point of view.<\/p>\n<p>Always open to questions and discussions \u2026 so if you have any, ask them in the comments.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><strong>14 day Free Trial!<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>To be able to test the system we give free\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/pricing.php\">14 day trials<\/a>, so you might want to take advantage of that first and see if the tool is up to your expectations. You will also get the full functionality of the tool, including\u00a0full\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/1385\/backlink-analysis-tool-link-analyzer-intelligence\/\">backlink analysis<\/a>, daily\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/tour.php#6\">rank tracking<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/2609\/social-visibility-social-media-site-tracking-made-simple\/\">social visibility<\/a>\u00a0and a plethora of\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/tour.php#2\">cool &amp; useful stuff<\/a>.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>PS: If your business model is short term, you should be reading <\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/1075\/black-hat-seo-technique-exposed-payday-loans\/\"><em>this<\/em><\/a><em>. <\/em><\/p>\n<pre><em>Photo <a href=\"http:\/\/pierrecolletderby.blogspot.ro\/2011_11_01_archive.html\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">*<\/a> <\/em><\/pre>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yes they really are! \ud83d\ude42 Oui. Ja. Si. Ja. Da. Ken. Hai. \u662f [Shi]. J\u00e1. Haan. \u0414\u0430. Evet. Nai. Tak. Taip. Kyll\u00e4. Ja. Ya. They are\u00a0actually\u00a0killing you site and business, that is if you are building a sustainable medium to long-term online business as most people do. If you are into the \u201ctrickery\u201d business (like [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,6],"tags":[104,100,81,105,102],"class_list":["post-3146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-case-studies","category-seo","tag-google-penguin-case-study","tag-toxic-links","tag-unnatural-links","tag-unnatural-links-case-study","tag-unnatural-links-guide"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3146\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}