Recently, on the SEOBook Community Forum*, this question was asked:
I built too many incoming links too quickly and tripped a filter sending me from about #17 to #95. Whoops! Not being much of a link builder historically, this has never happened to me before. Is it possible I could just wait it out? I will have some natural links coming in over time to sort of balance things out … it might not kill me since #17 wasn’t too great to begin with.
Great question! The topic of tripping filters comes up all the time, let’s take a look at it.
You have a website, it’s been around a while, has a good number of pages in the index and ranks decently for your primary keywords. You did a little optimization and link building when you launched it so it has a handful of links plus a couple you picked up while you’ve been online. Other than that, you’ve done almost nothing to the site and things have been OK ranking wise.
Now life is good until one day you notice your little site with its handful of inbound links has slipped in the search results. You also notice your competitors are actively marketing their sites and moving up in the rankings while you’re moving down. Life goes from good to crap in a link heartbeat! 
So you decide to quickly fight back by aquiring a large number of one-way links all pointing to your home page. Then you sit back, rub your hands together gleefully and wait to see your little site climb back up in the serps.
And you wait. And wait. And wait some more.
Then this happens:
“sending me from about #17 to #95″
Oh crap.
What the heck is happening? Was I slapped with some +99 , over optimization, under-the-radar, anti-brand, bad neighborhood, they don’t like my hair penalty? The bad hair thing aside, probably not. You just tripped a link pop filter and have been tweaked for too many links too fast.
Search engine algorithms are mathematical equations, you can’t add new numbers to the mix without another part of the equation being affected. The little site had a history of being a little site with a handful of links so when big changes happened, red flags go up. All of a sudden the numerical equation behind the site changed dramatically which caused the site to tank. When you add a lot of inbound links quickly and nothing else changes in and around your historically quiet site, you should expect to see either no-or-downward movement. That type of link growth isn’t natural unless you’re doing something promotionally to build links.
But you’re not doing anything to the site except adding links. There’s no new content, no increase in search queries, no media mentions (media = social and traditional), no nothing. Hoards of people don’t just give away links to a single site/page unless they’ve been asked/paid to do so, so the engine assumes the links haven’t been acquired editorially and either ignore them or slaps you down.
Ouch.
At some point time passes and you either add content/traffic/media or the time filter wears off and you see a little improvement in your ranking. Or maybe you don’t because you weren’t smart enough to figure out what was going on when you added those links to begin with so you kept adding MORE.
The concept of link popularity is simple. Link quantity, quality, anchor text and relevance all factor into the equation, change one of them dramatically without balancing the rest and the single biggest component of the ranking algorithm will start to scream and throw up flags. Keep in mind link popularity is also balanced by 199 additional ranking factors some of which include content, domain age, load rates and search referral traffic. ALL of these things need to be considered when adding links to a web page/site.
Even for big/branded/competitive sites. They “get away” with being able to add more links because what they do have established (their reputation, content, traffic, links, involvement in the media) continues to work for them. Small sites lack that insulation so they need to be careful and remember balancing content, traffic, and links is key.
*The SEOBook Community Forum is a paid membership platform and part of the SEOBook Training program.
[...] Pulling a Kesey (or tripping link filters) – Debra Mastaler [...]
First of all – I have a question for the community!
Do they count No-Follow links also for filtering? I guess the answer is a BIG NO from everybody.
And as most says – I too believe in the relationship between link acquiring equation with that of a site’s age.
Suppose – a site barely 6 months old — with few backlinks – suddenly acquires few hundred links in a month. I think the Red Flag is hovering on the radar.
Compare that to a site of 3 years – and if it suddenly acquires those links – it should have a lee-way with Google bots. Thats how I’m figuring the current ‘algo’ and having no problem.
I have a site that has been having normal SERP ( OK type ranking) since I started it — but the main “Keyword//Phrase” — has gone for a hiding over a year now though I have been getting natural links regularly for it.
The secret – (sadly I discovered it late) – I sponsored a WordPress template with it when it was 5 months old- and unfortunately the template became more popular than required. Links came in quickly- SERP improved dramatically, remained inside top 10 for 5/6 weeks — then out of top 500.
It has been more than one year — and hoping that my site will come out from the filter — and then dominate the SERPs again with a vengeance:) I can afford it because it is not my main earning site.
This happened to me before and I have to compensate my client by sending him free traffic from my network of websites. This is one of the reasons why I no longer outsourcing link building to others.
I totally agree with channel5′s point of view : It would be too easy to blow competitors out of the serps if it was that simple.
[...] to start taking notice of your inbound links? Apparently, there is, and there isn’t. The article over at LinkSpiel, explains that there is a difference in Amazon receiving thousands of links, and your website which [...]
“under-the-radar, anti-brand, bad neighborhood, they don’t like my hair penalty”
Those are the worst kind LOL
Agree with Channel5 above. This article is FUD.
I think you’ve overlooked the fact that *if* such filters exist then it would be simple to kill your competitors by building a bunch of links to them in short order.
You should read:
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/10/dealing-with-low-quality-backlinks.html
where they state that you basically shouldn’t worry about a bunch of low quality links appearing.
Anyway, part of me is happy that the myth of BLOOP is being propogated as it reduces the competition in the SERPS
I’ve been doing some testing in this area and its quite unpredictable. I have one site which I have been trying to get a penalty on by acquiring many large site wide links (10k each). It totally disappeared for 3 weeks then flew back in with a top 3 position!
But I would go real slow with new sites and never look at blogrolls.
@Jaan – your avatar always makes me laugh. Agree about sites/media mentions/insane link growth but again, it’s usually balanced with people looking for it.
@Jason – Cool logo on your site! Keep in mind we’re not talking penalties here, just flags. Penalty to me is out of the index, flag just downward movement in the serps. I know we use the term interchangably but they are different and probably good to note that.
Like yourself, I’ve been building links for a few years and I too have seen new sites add links without issue but I’ve also seen the reverse. Since nothing in SEO is consistent to every site or channel, we have to speak in generalities and work with averages. Sure I can throw a lot of site-wides or single links to a page and have that page react positivly in the serps but it’s normally short term. Short term sucks in my book, I hate wasting time for something that’s not going to be beneficial for the long run.
Can I use site-wides for older sites in busy niches? You bet. Will they help? You bet. Would I do it if those older sites didn’t have good links and domain age behind them to balance my new links? No way. I wouldn’t take the chance and bring eyes or algo flags to the site if I didn’t have to. Staying under the radar is best, and balance is key IMO.