What’s this about Link Spam?
This is an extract from TWIS SEO News & Updates 07 July 2017.
This post discusses Google running into a bit of trouble with links. After going through a period of penalising LinkSpam, Google has been ignoring bad links algorithmically more recently. This has now led to a rise of new spam techniques, especially with the rise in Content Marketing. It’s likely there will be a focus on linking penalties in the near future.
If you would like to discuss ways Google is ignoring links, and ways to generate good quality back links, please feel free to contact me.
#SEO #LinkSpam #LinkBuilding #GooglePenalties #ContentMarketing
Link Spam – Ignore or Penalise?
Summary:
- AJ Kohn posted a great opinion piece on Google’s current preference for ignoring Link Spam rather than penalising it, expressing his doubts at its effectiveness.
- Google claims it is “pretty good at ignoring links”.
- This is a game of whack-a-mole, other link spam techniques are springing up to replace previous methods. Google has yet to catch those.
- Google is likely to implement linking penalties again.
Link Spam Actions to take:
- Ignore those spammy links offers which appear in your inbox.
- If content marketing and posting content on third party sites, choose those sites wisely. Some of them are good-looking spam-farms.
- Assume that any content which you post which contains non-editorial links are being ignored.
- Read the Basic SEO Guide to External Linking & Mentions.
- Contact me if you would like to discuss ways to implement a Content Marketing strategy which generates links without being ignored.
Discussion on Link Spam:
As mentioned in a couple of other post about spammy article links, Google appears to be girding its loins ready to tackle link spam again. This is a good thing, but there will be good sites caught up in the cleansing process, in the same way that perfectly valid linking techniques got caught up in the link purges of the early 2010s.
Personally, I can’t wait for the day when some sources of link spam get pushed to the bottom of the pile. They produce rubbish content, effectively sell links and are trading off great names, while filling the web with tosh and drivel.
Over the years, Google has tried various methods of ignoring links for ranking purposes. Apparently the resulting indexes didn’t look good. As part of this work, they probably found that certain types of links could be devalued, or ignored, with minimal impact on the index, and then chose to ignore those types of links.
If you want to know the basics of getting external links, read my Basic External Linking Guide.
Overall, AJ’s piece is good and well-reasoned. I disagree partially with his point about the rise of content marketing being down to Panda & Penguin in 2011-2012. That timeframe is when the likes of BuzzFeed & Huffington Post rose to prominence with their push into Social Media, and the rise of importance of Social Media as a content distribution / consumer reach channel. (Yes, both, all were around previously, but this is the period where everyone started to get on board).
More info:
The State of SEO Mid-2017 Released
TL;DR
- Google currently ignores rather than penalises spammy / low quality links.
- This is leading to a rise in LinkSpam, which Google is likely to deal with sooner rather than later.
- Read The State of SEO in mid-2017.
- Read about how Google’s Mobile First Index is not Mobile Friendly.
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.
