Matt Cutts once tweeted that "a minor weather update" was on its way when speaking about September’s "EMD" update. Before then, there really hadn’t been anything major to report on since Penguin’s second refresh. But for the three weeks that followed, Google released update after update with Pandas, Penguins and Panda extensions (some kind of bamboo conservatory?) storming down everywhere. Mr Cutts’ implied southerly breeze turned into a shit-storm of panic pretty quickly.

So as an agency whose world revolves largely around Google, how do we manage these algorithm updates? How do we react to each one and how does client retention look when it all goes south? Well this guide will help to protect you and your beloved clients from being at the mercy of Google.

Algo-Isolation is Key

We all know at least the basics of Google’s algorithm updates.

• Panda – the onpage update that stopped us getting away with cookie cutting London, cookie cutting Leicester, cookie cutting Nottingham.
• Penguin – the offpage update - who’d have thought that those $1.50 exact anchor match anchors weren’t future proof?
• The rest – layout updates to stop SEOs stuffing content down the bottom or publishers from confusing visitors with above the fold ads.

Unfortunately the basics are not enough; before you go any further you need to at least clue up on Panda defence, anchor text distribution and define:above the fold.

As an agency, when an algorithm rolls out, or two hit at the same time, we need to know what update caused the issue and more specifically, what it was about the update that triggered the penalty/devaluation.

So How Do Agencies Do It?

Link Removal

It’s not rare to take on a client that left their previous SEO agency because their rankings and traffic plummeted over the course of a year. More often than not, a quick backlink check with OSE or Ahrefs.com will turn up footer links from irrelevant websites that are in and amongst a gazillion other footer/sidebar/header/’content’ links. And while we’re on the topic, a link from a guest post doesn’t make it a quality link – invariably it makes it terrible.

So as a responsible SEO agency you should do your best to have these links removed. You may even want to consider outsourcing link removal and paying per link. If you’re big enough to swallow your pride, you might even want to pay the people who originally sold you the link… to remove it (ouch!).

But How Does This Come Back to Algo-Isolation?

Well, when we go through a site and remove every single link that we would not consider to be of a certain level of quality, we know that when the next penguin update rolls out and the site is hit - it’s not a link quality issue. In this case it has to be something else, and by removing low quality links we are able to isolate one impact of a penguin update to help us track down what actually needs fixing.

Panda Obedience

The gulf between black and white hat SEO is now pretty damn gulfy. In fact, there used to be a ton of grey areas but now it’s more or less a case of – hack a site to hell or obey Google with every pixel of your webpage. I’m sorry, but Rand’s relentless (but loveable) preaching for white hat SEO is quickly being realised.

Panda is far more wide open than Penguin and what constitutes a Panda offence can be extremely subjective. But as we have done with Penguin, the best thing to do is to strip out anything that could be causing a penalty or devaluation; and once that’s done, you can start to isolate issues resulting from algo updates.

Google’ Panda checklist is a little wordy, so here’s a quick one to help you clear up those major penalty triggers:

• Duplicate content – easily picked up with SEOmoz’ campaign manager.
• Cookie cutter content – you know if you’ve done this, illegitimate location/type specific pages with near identical content need removing or legitimising.
• Orphaned pages – are there redundant pages that are not being linked to? If they need to be there then link them up, if they don’t then remove them.
• Keyword density – it’s amazing but people still treat KWD as a thing. It’s not - rewrite content that was written around keywords and write it around the topic.
• Internal linking – exact match anchor internal links are a form of over-optimisation (AKA Panda food). Mix up internal anchors where it’s not being done legitimately.
• Headers – multiple H1s with keywords in will flag you up, structure headers logically*
• Poor grammar/spelling – clear it up and you know it won’t be holding you back.

* I’ve seen people go completely overboard on this and remove all mention of a keyword from their headers. While Google can’t then say that you’re over optimising your site - your content, on first-impression, is effectively meaningless to a user and you’ll be skipping on simple SEO best practices.

The Ultimate Sacrifice

The domain is screwed. Years of paid linking, thousands of cookie cut pages and a whole load of penalties make for an irrecoverable domain. Or at least so close to being irrecoverable that the best way to spend your time is to start all over again.

In cases like this you will want to delete the site and its content. You’ve effectively put Google in the front row of your Gerald Ratneresque speech about how your website's content and associated link portfolio is made of total crap.

Start on a new domain or purchase an existing one, cut ties with the old and completely restructure your content and linking strategy from the ground up.

But how the hell do you explain that to a client?!

"We deleted your site because…"

Client Retention

At Inbound, we’re fortunate enough to be in the business of (you guessed it) inbound marketing. OK, it revolves heavily around Google rankings but risk is really and truly spread across multiple channels. Pure SEOs should consider incorporating both Bing and Google PPC into their strategy; if for whatever reason your SEO gets knocked, you can simply turn up the heat on PPC while you diagnose and recover.

Let’s take a possible client scenario following the September 2012 updates; Google targets EMDs and rolls out a Panda refresh all at the same (deliberately o.O) awkward time. A quick check of a client’s Google analytics the next day and yep - traffic is down 80%. Any SEO is probably thinking:

• I’m fired
• Google’s made a mistake
• Delete analytics – new company policy to count visitors by hand

Turning The Update In Your Favour

It doesn’t matter who triggered the penalty; whether it was you or the previous SEO company – this is not the point at issue here. You are the expert, the consultant, the person that visits SEOmoz, Search Engine Land and Search Engine Roundtable every damn day to better understand the workings of Google. Pick up the phone, take responsibility and deal with it like this:

1. Explain the update
You’ve seen what’s happened, you know what update rolled out and you can explain the situation to your client. Send them references to news or blog posts (ideally ones that people in your own company have written) and let them get to grips with the issue.
2. Explain why the update hit them
Be honest and explain why you think their site might have been caught up in the latest algorithm change. If it’s because you built too many low quality links or focused too heavily on exact match anchors then let them know – clients love honesty, but better yet they want to know they’re working with an expert.
3. Diagnose and strategise
You’ve seen what the problem is and you’re confident you know what’s causing it. Let the client know that you’re coming up with a new strategy to counter the problem and arrange a meeting or phone call to run through it with them.
4. Be a decent person
Your client shouldn’t be tied into a contract; I understand that in some instances the work is really front heavy and you may need 3 months upfront - but when you’re in the flow and working month to month there should be no contracts (algo updates are one reason why). So as a decent person who charges their client on a performance basis, consider lowering the monthly cost for SEO or dropping it altogether. That doesn’t mean that you can’t charge for working on other marketing channels, whether it’s a temporary PPC campaign or content development – but as a responsible SEO you need to put your hands up and deal with the problem appropriately.

The last thing that you can do as an agency is to shy away from confronting the issue. Take a weakness and turn it into a strength by demonstrating not only your understanding of Google, but your ability as a strategic SEO.