Company name causing Google penalty?

[AnthonyHall]

Hi all,

Once of my clients has a keyword as part of their company name, and it seems like the website is being given a penalty in the keyword SERP because of the amount of websites linking back using the company name?

Is there anything i can do to prevent/balance this out?

Thanks,

Anthony

[Everett]

It can be tough to turn an exact match domain (EMD) into a branded domain sometimes. I would be careful of labeling this as any certain algorithmic filter / penalty. Back when EMDs were being devalued I'm sure there were a lot of false positives. This could be one example. It could also have to do with anchor-text over-optimization that isn't specially "penguin" related.

I guess my first question would be: Why do you think this is related to the use of the client's brand name? Is it just those keyword/s that have lost rankings? Is it limited to certain landing pages, keyword phrases, etc... ?

What is the domain / keyword? And if you can't provide that, how about a close example? For instance, is it something like:

buy-blue-widgets.com

Or more like:

bluewidgets.com

Or like:

bluewidgetsincorporated.com

or ???

The first example is difficult to turn into a brand. The second one is doable. The third shouldn't be seen as an EMD at all.

[AnthonyHall]

Thank you all for your replies.

There is no manual penalty in play - checked with request to Google via Webmaster Tools.

The company has claimed its Local+ page.

My thoughts are that it is Penguin. The majority of links back to the website are retailers that sell the products of my client, so these links are out of my control unfortunately.

All the links i have setup to my clients website are setup like Scott suggests.

Bit stuck really : /

Is there anything else you guys would suggest?

Thanks,

[MarieHaynes]

I know a lot of people get their backs up if you call Panda or Penguin a penalty but to me it's all the same. If or some reason Google is causing you to rank significantly lower then in my mind it's a penalty. But really it's all semantics. If the site is truly ranking lower because of branded links then there's either a manual penalty or penguin at play.

[OrionGroup]

Marie, that's true. When talking "penalties", you'd want to first check in Google Webmaster Tools if there truly has been a manual action taken against the site. Otherwise, it would probably be better to refer to it as a "devaluation", correct?

Scott

[MarieHaynes]

I've seen this happen where a site buys an EMD and then names their company after it and then subsequently gets links that are branded but in reality they are only branded because they were lucky enough to buy an EMD.  Does that make sense?  For example, if someone wanted to start a house painting company in Anycity and they see that anycityhousepainters.com is available then they name their company "Anycity House Painters".  The branded links that come to them are indeed branded...but they're also an attempt to manipulate the serps.

I think that if you have a brand name that is the same as a keyword Google may not look at it as a brand name.

As far as "balancing this out" goes, it depends on whether or not you've really been penalized.  If there is an unnatural links penalty then that needs to be dealt with.  If there's a drop on a Penguin refresh day, that's a whole 'nother issue.

It's also possible that the drop has nothing to do with the branded links.

But, I think that Scott gave you some good advice on ways to link to your brand.

[EEE3]

Hi Anthony,

Has the business claimed its Local+ page? Perhaps a verified listing would help. Also some downstream local citations could possibly give it a boost. Scott also has a great point about making your link profile look more natural too, even though it's completely justified to have lots of links on the company name.

-EEE3

[OrionGroup]

I would suggest adding keywords before and/or after the company when linking. For example, if the company name is "Milwaukee Roofing LLC", you could make the anchor text "visit the Milwaukee Roofing LLC website"... perhaps this will give enough variety and make the link profile feel more natural.

Scott O.

References:

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/click-here-seo http://www.seomoz.org/blog/beyond-exact-match-anchor-text-to-next-generation-link-signals-whiteboard-friday http://www.seomoz.org/blog/anchor-text-distribution-avoiding-over-optimization