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You mentioned in the article that you have links in the headers/footers of various websites that say: "Powered by Jitbit AspNetForum". Here is my take on that.

by xpose2000 13y ago

You mentioned in the article that you have links in the headers/footers of various websites that say: "Powered by Jitbit AspNetForum". Here is my take on that... These COULD potentially hurt you, but I doubt it. That would mean all forum software links in the footers were doing more harm than good. Forum software websites like phpBB, vBulletin etc are doing just fine. Furthermore, your install-base and incoming links should grow slowly over time and Google will recognize that as a natural kind of thing. Therefore, I would cross that off your list of reasons. Your main reason for being hit by Penguin are bad SEO practices. Never buy links for SEO. You may benefit from these links today, but 3 years down the road Google might catch on. (As you just realized) If you do purchase links, make sure to nofollow them and point the user to an actionable page. Such as purchasing your software or signing up for a newsletter. The goal here won't be for SEO purposes, but for advertising.

michaelbuckbee 13y ago
We've thought of replicating something like MixPanel's free actions for adding their image and a link on your site program [1]. Would something like that be penalized with Penguin? Honestly, not sure if that counts as "Gray Hat" or not. 1 - https://mixpanel.com/free/ https://mixpanel.com/free/
- xpose2000 13y ago
  That practice is similar to adding a "powered by X Company" link. The fact that it is an image doesn't really change anything. Clicky.com also uses this method. I do not think those links would be penalized with Penguin for the same reasons I previously mentioned. Is it a cheesy way to get links? Probably. But you should be fine.