Google has a long history of penalising Link Networks. Here’s some examples. And this one.
This latest action comes whilst Matt Cutts, spam-fighting super techie and head of Google WebSpam team, is on annual leave. Which goes to show the strength in depth that Google have in their Webspam Team.
The Networks
Johannes Mehlem was the man in charge of breaking the news to the unfortunate souls who have found their websites penalised by this action. See his Tweet below:
We have taken action on one European and one German linking network. Ressources on German Blog: https://t.co/6xJMZYMHZI
— Johannes Mehlem (@JohannesMehlem) August 18, 2014
Note that they specifically say a German network has been penalised, as well as saying a European network has been penalised too. This could mean one of two things a) the link network is so large that it spans a number of European countries and is therefore classed as European or b) Google want to hide the location of the links network for some reason. If it’s B, they haven’t done the best of jobs as Karolina Kruszyńska has posted another tweet in Polish announcing the same thing. Giving the distinct impression that the country the network has come from is in fact Polish. Check it out below:
Dziś podjęliśmy działania przeciwko europejskiemu i niemieckiemu systemowi wymiany linków. http://t.co/VtQ82nSIgz #bettersearch — Karolina Kruszyńska (@karo_krus) August 18, 2014
So, good news for all SEOs with more of the spam getting cut down from the SERPs. And if you’re one of the websites that’s been hit by this update, you should probably stop the way you’re currently working.
Blog Post by: Greg McVey