iGB Affiliate 71 Oct/Nov | Page 13

TRAFFIC Figure 1. A rejection makes a precarious situation worse. It means that more resources need to be committed and a more thorough clean-up is required Figure 2. A Google Search Console backlink sample can be a useful starting point for link data but it almost never provides a complete picture, which is why third-party tools are needed Figure 3. Third-party tools such as DeepCrawl must be used to aid a thin content analysis before clean-up, removal and making a reconsideration request in good faith “Every successful website should be audited to confirm Webmaster Guidelines compliance, but more so to analyse and improve technical signals” may apply to the smallest of websites but it does not to the overwhelming majority of medium-sized and large websites, which require third-party tools. Both for ongoing SEO, but more so when a penalty needs to be lifted, GCS information (see Figure 2) and data provided by third-party tools such as DeepCrawl, Botify, ScreamingFrog, RYTE, Majestic, Ahrefs and LRT, to name a few (see Figure 3), are supplemental to each other. That is as much the case with content penalties (thin content, doorways, and so on) as it is with backlink-related penalties. Fresh, accurate and complete data are basic requirements to lift a Google penalty. It’s important to focus on the precise issue at hand. It may be that multiple, overlapping penalties issued for different violations can be holding back the same website. But each one of them needs to be resolved iGB Affiliate Issue 71 OCT/NOV 2018 11