What’s this Google Ignoring or Penalising Link Spam about?
This is an extract from TWIS SEO Update 16 June 2017.
In this free thought-piece, you can read actionable insights into the issue of Google Ignoring or Penalising Guest Post Link Spam. If you would like to discuss ways these links could hurt your web business, and ways to get better links, please feel free to contact me.
#SEO #LinkBuilding #WebSpam #ContentMarketing
Google Ignores or Penalises Guest Post Link Spam
Guest Post Link Spam Summary:
- Following last week’s commentary on selling links to Google, and previously on Google Article Spam warning, they’re at it again, muttering about ignoring or penalising link spam.
- In particular, some of these comments appear to be aimed at Forbes, Inc and Entrepreneur – favourite sites of the guest post spammers clogging inboxes everywhere.
- Google is getting pretty clear: these links are worthless. They will either be ignored, or in the worst case result in manual action / penalty.
Guest Post Link Actions to take:
- Next time you get a “I can get you guest posts on XYZ famous name site” spam, delete it.
- Write good content, make a name for yourself, do your own outreach. Yes, its tiresome, but the benefits are better over the longer term,
- Although Google has stated it is better to do things other than disavow, if you have been on a heavy guest posting spree on these types of site, consider disavowing them through Google Search Console.
- Think about asking Google why they continue to surface these sites, if they are filled with guest posting dross. How does that really help the user?
- Contact me if you would like to discuss creating great content, targeted to users, and conducting outreach.
Guest Posting Discussion:
Okay, so something’s up. Admittedly Google has stirred the pot with webmasters, so generating some of the kerfuffle, but for Google to continually refer to this implies that something is in the works regarding links, link spam and guest posting spam.
Personally, I dislike sites like Forbes. Their ads are too aggressive and most of the content is relatively low-grade. It’s their site, they can run it as they see fit, and make money as they see fit, but I am a bit surprised Google hasn’t down-weighted their rankings somewhat for “egregious link manipulation”. They’ve done it to big sites before (although they were less content heavy link-spamming operations) – think JC Penney a few years ago, and even Google Chrome around the same time.
It is tough to get content seen, especially with the inundation of content we talked about in The State of SEO Mid 2017 Update, but it’s not impossible. I still see articles shared by interested parties, and I still share them. I even link to them occasionally, as it;s how the web was built, and long may it continue.
If Google wants to go after these guest post farms, I’m all for it.
More info:
The State of SEO Mid-2017 Released
TL;DR
- Read The State of SEO in mid-2017. It will make your SEO Strategy robust!
- Several spammy, ad-heavy sites are in the frame.
- Their links are worthless – why bother?
- It’s possible the penalty hammer is being warmed up.
Thanks for reading. If you would like to discuss what these changes mean for your web property, or would like to know how to implement them, please feel free to contact me.
