How Big Brands Deal With Google Penalties: Part Two With Mark Cronin of Tui Travel

Last month we published a blog where seven SEO experts shared their experience and advice on removing Google penalties. To coincide with this, we have asked four leading brands how they deal with such penalties themselves. This is part one of four, where we interviewed Mark of TUI Travel.

How did you first find out that your brand had been hit by a Google penalty?

Myself and a colleague were actually attending an SEO conference at the time, checking our rankings online through one of the talks, when we discovered a few of our larger traffic driving terms dropping. Experiencing this at a conference was not at all pleasant.

Did you find out on the day, or were you informed at a later time?

I think it was safe to say that we found out on the day, we checked WMT the next day to find the email of impending doom.

What was your reaction when your Google Penalty Landed?

At first I think there was some initial panic, this was back when Google was handing these penalties out left, right and centre. The biggest thing for us was reassuring stakeholders in the business that this problem can be fixed. Reducing panic in house is much more important than you might imagine, it’s a case of putting a stopper on any rash decisions – that could further damage the brand online.

Did any of your other competitors get hit at the same time?

Yes, we saw several brands get hit, and in some cases site-wide (ours was a partial match). The embarrassing thing was that they were hit before us, so we initially thought we were fine… (The karma of gloating to yourselves when competitors are penalised – but we don’t do that… ).

When looking at the link profiles of your organic competition, do you think that Google’s decision was fair?

I think that’s a difficult question to answer. In all honesty the spam links you see pointing to sites with huge link profiles makes you somewhat sour that they are not penalised. However, with smaller profiles it is easier to identify patterns that occur, especially if any specific tactics had been used. So I suppose in Google’s eyes it was a fair decision.

What Channels did you explore to maintain your market presence?

As with a partial match penalty, it wasn’t the end of our online presence, so we were cautious not to up lift too much through other channels. Obviously for the big revenue driving terms we invested in additional PPC spend at the busy period of the year to make up any direct shortfall. At the same time our social campaign had only really started kicking off, so additional time was invested in building the team.

What (internal/external) resources did your brand use to rectify the issue?

One of our advantages was that we had an in house team, that works across several brands. However I wanted to bring in an agency to help with the reconsideration request, as we were penalty “virgins” – so some guidance was much appreciated!

Who or What had the most beneficial impact on your team in order to rectify the issue?

In all honesty I believe my Senior SEO Specialist Joe Johnson became the driving force behind getting the recovery underway, essentially becoming the liaison between agency and in house. It was great to get some guidance on approach from the agency, which then enabled us to accelerate recovery for any other brands.

If your SEO company got you into a penalty - Did your SEO company get you OUT of the penalty?

When I was brought in we used a couple of agencies, the idea being that they would then be disbanded once we built a team in house. After 6 months we cancelled work with the agencies. I don’t think it is fair to point the finger, as I honestly believe that at some point we have all indulged in the dark chocolaty gateaux of an easy link in the past. However, we didn’t use the same agency when recovering from said penalty. I still believe that the agencies we have used in the past, were more than helpful and provided great partnerships.

How long did it take you to get out of the penalty and at what cost?

We recovered traffic and revenue within about 6-8 months, to the point where it was exceeding YoY. However, the actual penalty wasn’t lifted (removed from WMT) for 18 months. Partial match penalties in my opinion are the bane of your website, at least with a Site Wide penalty, you are more likely to be more aggressive with link removal.

What would you learn from this experience?

I think several things, that I could rabbit on about for hours. But most importantly I think that regardless of your penalty type, you need to be harsh with your backlink profile. Take every piece of data you can get, and remove anything that could be considered a “dodgy” link. Especially those with smaller link profiles. Secondly I would say that honesty is your best policy when it comes to your recon request. If you haven’t checked your backlink profile, and haven’t been hit by a penalty, don’t wait for it to happen. Clean it up now.

How have you changed the way you think about getting ahead in Google?

I think the idea behind “getting ahead of Google” is almost a redundant one now. This isn’t so much about chasing algorithms, more about improving your overall marketing strategy. SEO is all encompassing, depending on how you actually view it. Every aspect of your business can affect your search rankings in some form or manner (maybe not directly, but indirectly – most definitely). I can yap for days about this too. We need to use Google as the tool it is intended, to display your website for the most relevant searches.

How does your brand intend to increase their search performance in 2014 and beyond?

SEO in house for us has become a widely known aspect of the business right through to the call centre over the past couple of years. This is one of the benefits I have found working in house, being able to share digital marketing with people from all over the company. The benefits speak for themselves, when people going on holiday or trips, bring back photos, videos or blog entries for us to use – because they now understand the benefit it can bring. However, that’s one small piece of the gigantic puzzle, our SEO campaigns will become longer running content marketing campaigns, designed to build brand and improve our outreach!