How to Avoid a Link Building Scam and Penguin 2.1 Penalty is a post from the best Link Building Tools available worldwide.
This analysis was created using our Superhero Plan and the new Competitive Link Detox tool extensively. The Superhero plan allows you to perform professional SEO and backlink analysis for your own or your competitor’s sites. If you only need Competitive Link Detox (CDTOX), that’s also included in all new Link Detox Pro plans and up.
Don’t miss our next FREE LRT Associate Training. Get one of the last spots if you’re up for 8 hours of free professional training with Christoph C. Cemper.
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WARNING: 16,523 Toxic Links on Sale at ThinkBizSolutions.com
I’m proud to present our fourth Penguin 2.1 case study, written by our Certified LRT Professional, Guntram Bechtold, who is the Lead Associate at StarsMedia.com!
This case study will look into a top SEO and Online Marketing Services company located in India – thinkbizsolutions.com. Guntram takes a different approach in this case study by analyzing the client list of Think Business Solutions. It is amazing to see an SEO Agency actually putting their own clients into Penguin penalties. Take a look for yourself and see what kind of SEO scams still exist today. And make sure you follow Guntram’s recommendations on avoiding and getting rid of Penguin 2.1
We look forward to your feedback and always appreciate you sharing the work of our Certified LRT Professionals 
- Enjoy & Learn!
Christoph C. Cemper
You can Tweet to Download the full Excel file of those 16.523 Toxic Links on Sale at ThinkBizSolutions.com
Download the complete Excel file here
Table of Contents
Facts about Think Business Solution
The Product Packages
Most interesting sales claims are:
Detailed Service Listing
Looking at the Links
Grouping the Clients into “Success Categories”
PRE-Penguin 2.0 Drop
Short time rankings
Step by step intoxication for larger sites
Penguin 2.0 Drop
Penguin 2.1 Drop
No Drop
Recovered from Penguin
Current TOX Levels
Analyse the Google Link-network Footprint
Lets check Some Linksources
Vendor Links his Clients into Penalty
Competitive Link DTOX
Toxic Link Examples
Bonus Material Number One:
Bonus Material Number Two
Take Aways:
Problems sorted by Priority
Recommendations to avoid Penguin 2.1 from External Services
Get rid of Penguin 2.1
Looking closer at a link selling scam from India.
I regularly get unsolicited E-mails, you can also call it SPAM, to my personal Business E-Mailadress. On 21. of October, I got the following E-Mail from ThinkBizSolutions.com, offering me “Ethical SEO” to increase the rankings of my website.
Looking a little bit deeper, the Vendor sent me an offer and instantly added a 25% rebate. Not necessarily very trustworthy to send an offer plus 25% rebate on the first e-mail. The tactic reminds me of us car dealers, that give you back $500 (http://usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/cars-trucks/best-car-deals/Toyota-Deals/) when you buy a new Toyota.
Facts about Think Business Solution
Think Biz Solution is located in Nodia, India and offers SEO and Online Marketing Services.
They are also listed here, but have not been rated yet: http://think-biz-solutions.topseosfirms.in/
The Product Packages
Back to Think Business Solutions, I checked out their Packages. Products give the impression that you get a lot of everything, just because the vendor has no clue what you the client needs. The Packages are a basket full of SEO Magic. From Onpage Optimization, to Social Media, Usability and Linkbuilding.
The Fact that you get half your money back if Toprankings are not reached within 6 Months is an interesting claim “In Case we fail to show improvement we will refund 50% of the Money. This applies on Silver, Gold & Platinum Packages only.” Find out yourself which of customers below are eligible of that claim.
Most interesting sales claims are:
Send TONS OF TRAFFIC to your website by using the power of our SEO packages
Comment: Lets see below
All work done as per google panda and google penguin guidelines.
Comment: Lets see below
ThinkBiz Solutions SEO Packages will make your website RISE TO THE TOP of all major search engines
Comment: Bold claim
All Your Backlinks get indexed
Comment: What? Indexing Backlinks?
All the links we build pass more link juice to your website
Comment: More than .. what?
High Authority Relevant Links
Comment: Lets see below
Increase your Ranking & Sales
Comment: Lets see below
Detailed Service Listing
Products and Services include, but are not limited to the following List. Dependent on the monthly plan picked, the client pays, $125, $225, $400, $700 or $1050. To see what features are included in each package please refer to the image attached.
Keywords
Preliminary SEO Check
Detailed SEO Strategy & Plan
Keywords Analysis Report
Competitive Analysis Report
Working with HTML Source Code
Crawler Compliance Implementation
Google XML Sitemaps
Google Analytics Analysis
Cross Browser Compatibility
Website Load Time
Checking the Page Size
Check the Broken Links
Duplicate Content Checking
RSS Feeds
W3C Validation
Optimizing Title Tags and Meta Tags
Robots.txt Optimization
Optimizing Site Directory Structure & Navigation *
Image Optimization
Anchor Tag Optimization
H1 / H2 Tag Optimization
Existing Content Optimization
Creation of new Optimized Pages (Additional Charges) *
URL Mapping
URL Rewriting
One Way Link Building
“No follow” Links Check
Social Bookmarking
Article Submission
Article Social Bookmarking
Press Release Submission
Listing the Website Product in Google Merchant & Bing
Article Writing
Press Releases Writing
Website Content Publication *
Home Page Content Publication *
RSS News Feed Submission
Local Search Engine Submission
Customer Review/Testimonial Submission
Geo-Tagging
Google Map & Wikimapia Updation
Creating Classified Ads for Service / Product Promotion
Posting Each Classified Ad in Relevant Classifieds
Social Media Optimization
Geo-Social Targeting Research
Strategically Presence On Top Social Media Websites
Blog Setup
Blog Optimization
Blog Articles Writing
Blog Submission
Blog Commenting (do follow)
Blog Feed Submission
Forum Posting
Facebook Fan Page Creation
Regular Updates
Facebook Profile Avatar Design
Facebook Timeline Design
Facebook Apps Integration
Facebook Page Likes / Fans
Twitter Page Creation
Regular Updates
Twitter Background Design
Twitter Followers
Twitter List Management
Google+ Page Creation
Regular Updates
Google Circle Adding
Linked In Account (Personal Profile)
Profile Keyword Optimization
Linkedin Company Page Creation
Regular Updates
YouTube Channel Creation
YouTube Background Design
Video Submission
Video Creation & Optimization
Guaranteed Views
Access to Premium Social Apps
Latest Online Marketing Trend Updation
Website Designing Consultation
Landing Page Analyzer
Enquiry pages Review & Suggestion
Enquiry Page Modification (If Required)
Branding Development Consultation
Social Reputation Monitoring
Number Of Pages to be Optimized
Google Penalty Link Removals
Mobile Compatibility Modification
Dynamic & E-commerce Optimization
Fortnightly Report
Monthly Activity/SEO Ranking Reports
Google Analytical Report
E-mail/Call/Skype Support
Looking at the Links
From the 44 Clients presented as success stories at Think Business Solutions, several aspects were relevant to be checked:
What is their current success?
Are the ranking high or were their projects hit by google penguin 2.0, penguin 2.1 and humming bird algorithm update. This factor can be measured by applying the Sistrix visibility index or the search metrics visibility index. Both Services analyze search engine rankings from all over the world. Sistrix is analyzing 10 Billion Pages per month and tracks rankings for more several million top keywords worldwide. If a site has significant ranking, it should show up in Sistrix SI index or Search metrics Visibility index.
What is their Link profile?
Do these clients have common patterns? How do the “winners” look like, and is their success settled on a solid basis and long lasting? What about the losers: Do they have many links in common? Are there footprints visible? The thing that concerned me the most was, obviously, Link graph health. So we checked the “Successful Case Studies of Clients” – During the study I thought we should rather call them Victims, but see for yourself.
The Client List of Think Business Solutions:
www.allpicturesmedia.com
www.apollogatemotor.com
www.bankruptcyattorneytucson.com
www.sydneyeventphotography.com.au
www.barbermall.com
www.martx.com
www.trainingboxgym.com
www.extremeoutdoorsupply.com
www.faux-grass.co.uk
www.flyingspares.com
www.sentryfence.com
www.merlebari.com
www.imusmacabee.com
www.romancelatina.com
www.northrydedentists.com.au
www.micromedinc.com
www.laser-hair-removal-leeds.com
www.dial91.com
www.melbournefooddistributors.com.au
www.headbobble.com
www.hongye.com.sg
www.kangenwellmalaysia.com
www.light-pros.com
www.blackhorselimo.com
www.phoneguys.com
www.yellowinch.com
www.technicalprospects.com
www.idating4you.com
www.casasecurity.com.au
www.rhythmboat.com.au
www.brodhagendentalcare.com
www.vokuz.com
www.edenweb.ch
www.waupacafoundry.com
www.corplearning.com
www.dinosaurcorporation.com
www.facelift-sydney.com.au
www.menonlyweightloss.com
www.mygardengreen.com.uk
www.matsd.com
www.24trauma.com
www.plantendersinc.com
www.wildlifeafrica.co.za
www.pfd-nz.com
Grouping the Clients into “Success Categories”
Grouping the Sites into five categories: PRE-Penguin 2.0 Drop, Penguin 2.0 Drop, Penguin 2.1 Drop, No Drop, Recovered from Penguin.
PRE-Penguin 2.0 Drop are all sites that lost ranking before 24. April 2013. Many of these Sites were hit by Penguin 1.1 on May 25, 2012.
Penguin 2.0 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Penguin) Drop are all sites that were hit by the update on 24. April 2013.
Penguin 2.1 Drop occurred on October 4, 2013
No Drop would be that the site that was not affected by these updates.
Recovered from Penguin are sites that were obviously hit but later regained rankings
PRE-Penguin 2.0 Drop
Short time rankings
Several sites got very short time rankings resulting from heavy and toxic link building.
www.melbournefooddistributors.com.au built links, ranked and got crushed
www.hongye.com.sg picked up links, ranked and got terminated within weeks.
www.casasecurity.com.au had the shortest possible ranking period
www.pfd-nz.com got a short time ranking in early 2013, after having built some links, and then getting terminated instantly
www.bankruptcyattorneytucson.com In terms of SEO-Success, it appears that this business is its own best client. The linkbuilding tactics worked only for a short period of time. After January 2012 the site was practically invisible for people searching for that company on google
www.trainingboxgym.com had a short time of raking after the links were build, and got instantly terminated by google just days later
Step by step intoxication for larger sites
Several sites got intoxicated step by step from bad links. They started well and then lost track step by step.
The more links were added, the worse it got.
www.extremeoutdoorsupply.com is possibly the site that suffered the hardest losses due to their seo activities. They had acceptable rankings until early 2012 and then got really crushed by google
www.rhythmboat.com.au was established okay but then lost more and more ranking
www.romancelatina.com was penalized by google for picking up links in late 2012
www.micromedinc.com was hit hard twice, once in early 2012 and once during 2012 to get the final punch.
www.corplearning.com had solid rankings and then, step by step got pulled down by bad links
www.dinosaurcorporation.com did pretty well in 2011 and steadily lost rankings from there
www.menonlyweightloss.com started out pretty well and grinded its rankings down from there
www.matsd.com had reasonable rankings in 2011 and 2012. And then got terminated.
www.martx.com had limited rankings trough out early 2012 and fully lost them in late 2012
www.wildlifeafrica.co.za had nice rankings in 2011 and 2011 and dropped from there
Penguin 2.0 Drop
www.24trauma.com possibly the perfect name for what the site experienced from early 2013 to penguin 2.0. Started out well and then
www.northrydedentists.com.au got some links, got ranking, was penalized, added more links and was penalized more
www.dial91.com got unranked by penguin 2.0
www.headbobble.com got fully hit at penguin 2.0 update
www.light-pros.com were engaged in heavy linkbuilding, ranking increased. All worked well until penguin 2.0.
www.blackhorselimo.com built so fast that their site was hit before and during penguin 2.0
www.yellowinch.com built links, ranked and then got hit hard by penguin 2.0
www.idating4you.com was hit hard during penguin 2.0
www.allpicturesmedia.com lost their ranking after penguin 2.0. Most likely from newly built links.
Penguin 2.1 Drop
www.apollogatemotor.com had only very limited rankings during penguin 2.0, yet they are fully gone with penguin 2.1
www.sydneyeventphotography.com.au had a short time of visibility at first trough link building and then lost practically all rankings permanently.
www.barbermall.com had relevant rankings until Penguin 2.0 and then really lost with google penguin 2.1 update.
www.faux-grass.co.uk signed up for marketing, got links, got rankings and then was banned. Permanently. Period.
www.merlebari.com
www.imusmacabee.com got some links, got some ranking and was crushed
www.laser-hair-removal-leeds.com added links, ranked and got penalized
www.kangenwellmalaysia.com started their marketing and gained some ranking
www.technicalprospects.com built links several times, gained ranking and then were hit again.
www.brodhagendentalcare.com was working on link building several times until penguin 2.1 drew the final line
www.vokuz.com got some links, ranked and lost its position immediately again
www.edenweb.ch from Switzerland signed up, ranked and was terminated
www.mygardengreen.co.uk had several tries until penguin 2.1 brought a full stop
www.plantendersinc.com got short time rankings without sustainability
No Drop
www.facelift-sydney.com.au had no drop. But also no Rankings.
www.sentryfence.com most likely not yet visible
www.waupacafoundry.com
www.phoneguys.com
www.flyingspares.com lost some rankings in late 2012, yet is ever since on the up and downwards track.
Recovered from Penguin
None
Current TOX Levels
The first thing after looking at the Visibility is to take a look at the LRT DTOX Level. I’ve categorized 100% of both Keyword sets, since this is the best way to get a valid result. Only by manually reviewing every single anchor text you can understand how the link graph is really set up.
Barbermall.com got a whopping DTOX Link Risk of 5325 and 312 top headed links. That’s quite a lot, when looking at the small number of Link and the high detox.
Yet equally poisoned is matsd.com with a Link Risk of4027, yet just 167 top headed domains. This site got significantly more bad neighborhoods than the other site, since only around the half of links were pointed to the domain, yet almost 80% of the risk was built up. Lets look a bit closer into
Yet even during Anchortext characterization, some things appeared strange:
And it even gets better:
So there are quite some shady anchor texts around.
Analyse the Google Link-network Footprint
How are Link networks identified? To uncover a Link network it is critical to find sites that got similar, suspicious links. This so called Neighbourhood indicates how reputable a site is.
In our Case, a total of 43 of all 44 Projects 135 Links in Common. That’s huge, considering most sites in this case study don’t have many more links than that.
To analyze this, I’ve used the Common Backlink Tool (CBLT) and added all Domains to the tool. In my test I’ve analyzed two batches, 22 Sites at once.
In this result Screen you see that I have selected all Domains that got a link to all 22 Sites in Total.
Lets check Some Linksources
Looking at some Pages, it’s obvious that these are seo directories of lowest quality, or as Matt Cutts would call it, “Pure Spam”.
Even worse is the fact that the sites are obviously selling links – at least there is a strong indication towards that, since average site owners rarely do side-wide links for casino pages. The variety of topics and the keyword-phrased titles add weight to the penguin penalty of these sites.
This Link network makes two facts crystal clear:
Every single Customer of TBS is in bad neighborhood and therefor gets penalized.
Every future Customer of Think Business Solution is doomed to penguin penalty.
Vendor Links his Clients into Penalty
Even worse is the fact that TBS is dipping each new client manually into this link network penalty by linking all case studies as showcases from their website. 44 Clients with one shot.
Competitive Link DTOX
Let’s take a look behind the scenes: 11 Sites and their intoxication Levels
We see in the CDTOX that there is a significant leap towards brand and money keywords. Practically none of the candidates got compound or other keyword anchor texts. What we see as well is that the sites are very close, due to the fact that they all got almost the same link graph.
From the Metrics Comparison by Detox we see that more than 50% of all links are toxic for the 10 analyzed sites.
When looking into the Detox Risk, we see that around 50% of all Links are deadly and 30% least moderate Risk.
Toxic Link Examples
During the Case study, a hand full of evil link sources surfaced.
Blog posts
Directory
Profile Spam
Mega Link Pages
Blog Comment Spam
Voting Directory Spam
BLOG POSTS
Random Blog posts on random sites scattered around the web on various topics.
At least in this case the male author got an interesting profile image.
http://www.indyarocks.com/profile/6722195/Robo-Hits-
DIRECTORY SPAM
Typical, old fashioned directory spam like addurladdsite.com
http://www.addurladdsite.com/Search/keyword/restorative%20dental%20treatments
PROFILE SPAM
At least this admin talks about things he should have been doing ever before starting to blog.
http://www.alphasigmaphi.us/author/admin
MEGA LINK PAGES
This Mega Link Page with 2160 Links on a single html file is definitely no place you want to have your site linked from
http://www.cbel.com/telecommunications_equipment/
BLOG COMMENT SPAM AND PAYED LINKS
Blog Comment Spam with paid links inside the blog post
http://blog.loveintros.com/2010/03/conservative-nature-of-the-colombian-women-1.html
AUTO GENERATED PAGES
Even hands full of automatically generated pages are part of the think business solution’s link horror show. http://mainstreamnewz.com/hd/index.php?t=implants%20tooth%20bridge
VOTING SPAM
Digg has been closed decades ago, yet voting directory spam appears still fashionable
http://berbagaipilihan.com/
Bonus Material Number One:
During the research I’ve found this thing that is the “ultimate SEO Blog Spam Scam”
I’ve found Blog Spam for “Link removal Services” that is pointing to a Site that is claiming to work defeating Penguin Penalties within the Network of sites that will make you nose dive deep into the Penguin Penalty.
See for yourself: The Blog post that is talking about Link removal. Please take a minute or two and read the text. It’s nothing less than hilarious.
Pointing to this site:
Managed by Canada Company “Webryze”
I would not suggest contacting Webrzye them as long as you don’t want to run into a penguin filter.
If you are Scion Automobiles, Walker Exhaust Systems, Carpages.ca, zencart, RBC Insurance or Novotel Hotels you should consider to not talk to Usaf Sami Ghumman about Seo.
Bonus Material Number Two
US Republicans managed to get a grip on SEO during their fight against the Obama Healthcare plan. Too bad that they used a bad SEO company that not only intoxicated a whole bunch of SMBs on nose dive course. At least their 1200 word long seo text with no information is massive. The Link block in the middle of the article is equally massive.
http://www.alphasigmaphi.us/obama-health-care
Too bad that some of these Businesses have been paying their fees to the chamber of commerce in Virginia
Blognetwork of Down and Toxic sites
4orcestore.us/
4preferred.us/
adaconstruction-custom.us/
al-qahira.com/
alphasight.org/
amcatglobal.us/
americanboykinspanielclub.org/
argentine-sur-seine.org/
b2n.us/
brenelle.us/
butuzen.biz/
buyers-alliance.info/
bytravelportugal.info/
clan-mackenzie.info/
clearsearch.us/
coach-action.com/
colinfanpage.com/
contrecorruption.org/
coursefinder.org/
dead-broke-horse-farm.com/
dinaseal.info/
dogwoodcarbon.org/
festivalparks.info/
fotovoltaiksecurity.info/
greenervps.com/
hedgelaying-sussex.net/
huge-boobs-cumhard.info/
infoaboutpoker.com/
iqubes.org/
jorgesmexicanbarandgrill.com/
kinemotion.us/
koiduqandsgwerg.info/
linncountyculturalcoalition.org/
nxdt.biz/
obamagirlfriend.org/
pokerbonusbob.com/
randomlogic.us/
rentalanya.info/
schnoodlepuppiesmn.com/
scraper.tv/
screenracer.org/
secureboot.info/
ternationaleunitude.info/
themgmt.net/
tiptop-smba.com/
tlcva.us/
villeeloranta.info/
walk-in-clinic.org/
Take Aways:
From this Case study I’ve compiled the following takeaways for my personal usage:
A broken SEO Strategy can get worse with more bad SEO.
Getting tons of online marketing services is not necessarily a good thing.
Fast gain most likely leads to fast fail in seo
Sites with bad links, like northrydedentists got instant success and failure
Cheap links are typically bad links
Easy links are typically bad links
Once inside a network is really killer dangerous
When looking at SEO and Link building firms, ask for examples
Problems sorted by Priority
Bad Linkbuilding
See Point 1
Recommendations to avoid Penguin 2.1 from External Services
Check your SEO Agency
Double Check your SEO Agency
Make sure they respect white hat SEO Rules and know about clean link building
Make sure they avoid Link Networks
Make sure they watch Ratios: Avoid a high number of Money KW Anchors
Use Brand and Noise terms in Anchor Texts
Never Buy Links
Detox your site at least once a Month to stay up to date
Activate E-mail notification for new links to see what is going on
Get rid of Penguin 2.1
Check your SEO Agency
Double Check your SEO Agency
Make sure they respect white hat SEO Rules and know about clean link building
Make sure they avoid Link Networks
Make sure they watch Ratios: Avoid a high number of Money KW Anchors
Use Brand and Noise terms in Anchor Texts
Never Buy Links
Detox your site at least once a Month to stay up to date
Activate E-mail notification for new links to see what is going on
This case study was written by Guntram Bechtold, Lead Associate at StarsMedia.com
A word from Christoph C. Cemper
This analysis was conducted and post written by Certified LRT Professional, Guntram Bechtold.
Guntram continues to show his expertise in doing a backlink profile and SEO audit using the LinkResearchTools, and pointed out quite a few critical issues to fix. I am excited by the detail and viewpoints that Guntram brought up. Already a Certfied LRT Professional, Guntram has taken the next step towards the Certified LRT Xpert and Certified LRT Agency certification – joining an exclusive circle of experts with direct access to my team and getting leads from us at no charge.
The goal of our Link Research Tools certification program is to provide our user community and clients a high quality service, and our certified experts are key to that.
I look forward to future work and personally recommend Guntram Bechtold to work with you whenever you get a chance!
You can Tweet to Download the full Excel file of those 16.523 Toxic Links on Sale at ThinkBizSolutions.com
Download the complete Excel file here
This analysis was created using our Superhero Plan and the new Competitive Link Detox tool extensively. The Superhero plan allows you to perform professional SEO and backlink analysis for your own or your competitor’s sites. If you only need Competitive Link Detox (CDTOX), that’s also included in all new Link Detox Pro plans and up.
Don’t miss our next FREE LRT Associate Training. Get one of the last spots if you’re up for 8 hours of free professional training with Christoph C. Cemper.
Don’t forget to signup for our notification list to get informed on other Case Studies on Google Penguin updates.