Google May Have Penalized Another Major Link Network: Ghost Rank 2.0

Google has significantly penalized another underground link network over the weekend and we believe that one of the link networks targeted by Google is named Ghost Rank 2.0. A few weeks ago, Matt Cutts, Google’s head of search spam, tweeted “Thinking of ghost-related puns for a spam…

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Google: We Prefer To Assess Reconsideration Requests On Links Within Webmaster Tools However…

What does a webmaster do when they receive a manual action from Google telling them they have a penalty because of paid or bad links pointing to their site? Google has told us back in June that you should use Google’s “links to your site” report within Webmaster Tools to analyze bad links pointing…

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Is Paid Social Media The New Paid SEO?

Brands have a new way to pay for external or offsite SEO, a path to influence rankings. It follows the search engines’ terms of service and can lead to the type of links Google says are among the most valuable. Google spokespersons even endorse the principle behind this new paid form of SEO……

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Understanding Google’s Latest Assault On Unnatural Links

Without much fanfare or publicity, Google quietly updated the Link Schemes/Unnatural Links document inside the Webmaster Tools section of their site last month. If not for the excellent work of Barry Schwartz, many of us would have missed it. (I have a page change tool app set up for that exact…

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Google: Links In Press Releases Should Use Nofollow Like Paid Links

Friday we broke the news that Google updated their link schemes webmaster guidelines. Now that the dust as settled, I aimed at getting more clarification on what Google meant by the new example around keyword rich anchor text links within articles or p…

Google Warns Against Large-Scale Guest Posting, Advertorials & “Optimized Anchor Text” In Press Releases

Google has quietly updated the link schemes document under their Webmaster guidelines to add large-scale guest posting, advertorials and optimized anchor text in articles or press releases to the list of types of links that violate their guidelines. Th…

Google: Guest Blogging For Links? You Better Nofollow Those Links.

Marie Haynes spotted two video responses from Google where Google’s John Mueller, said in general, it is best you nofollow links in stories you write, especially when those stories are guest blog posts for the purpose of link building. In general, that is Google’s advice. If you link to…

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The Problem With Identifying Problem Links

Since the last Penguin update, there has been a lot of chatter about examining your link profile in order to identify bad links. Whether you’ve been hit by that update or your site remains unscathed (for now), the potential danger of “unnatural” links is top of mind. Many people…

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“Text Link Ads” Was Latest Hit By Google’s Actions Against Link Sellers

On May 15th we reported that Google targeted yet another link selling network that resulted in several thousand penalties. Google’s head of search spam, Matt Cutts, has revealed which link network was the target via Twitter last week. The target was one of the oldest and arguably the most…

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Big Brand SEO & Penguin 2.0

Taking a broader look at Multinational SEO, though, throws up particular issues for the big brand sites out there, and I though that in light of the upcoming Penguin 2.0 update confirmed by Matt Cutts recently it would be useful to look at particular a…

Video: Google’s Matt Cutts On Advertorials & Webmaster Guidelines

Google’s head of search spam, Matt Cutts, posted a new video today on YouTube clarifying Google’s stance on Advertorials and “native advertising.” Advertorials are editorial-like content that is published because an advertiser has paid the publication to publish the story or…

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More Proof Google Counts Press Release Links, Using Matt Cutts’s Own Blog

About six months ago, Google’s head of search spam, Matt Cutts, made a comment in a Google forum thread that links within press releases won’t “benefit your rankings.” Since then, we showed one case where Google not only discovers the links within typical press releases but…

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