Google’s War on Backlinks: The Crackdown & Updates

@allfreechips 238351 wrote:

Appears that if its actually a penalty a new strategy would be to bring down sites ranked higher than you in se terms? I cant see this being possible as it would be a whole new war out there.

Agreed. Google is to smart for that. If it were that easy, we could all just do reverse seo and run xrumer on each others sites for a couple hours and then hit the report button… and its easy to claim reverse seo if your site is reported… its a complicated thing..

@rmeeuwsen 238362 wrote:

And the same goes for ‘bad backlinks networks’

How is google supposed to sure that the site with the linkback is actually responsible for the ‘bad’ link.

To be totally sure it is not some competitor trying to destroy someone else, the most they should do is ignore the bad link.

And, it will not change my SEO habits. But it will also serve as a constant reminder not to be tempted.

It is my understanding that its exactly what google does – ignore bad links. Its just too easy to hang the so called “good guys” if there are any penalties for them… I’ve never seen or heard of someone penalized for bad links.. maybe to drop down in search results, but that’s only because links that once counted get ignored if they don’t like them. I cant imagine them ever introducing a penalty for it.. too messy..

I think that bad neighborhood links can contribute to your site to be flagged for human review which is only a bad thing if your site doesn’t justify it’s position – on second thought human review (single human not likely your target market) scares me regardless.

What if we were to but 50,000 trash links to onlinecasino.net? then what do you think about this? Thats the worry, I am all for sites getting knocked down for for this to but it will start a new war

@allfreechips 238649 wrote:

What if we were to but 50,000 trash links to onlinecasino.net? then what do you think about this? Thats the worry, I am all for sites getting knocked down for for this to but it will start a new war

I think Matt Cutts actually answered this question a while back, the bad links just get ignored and don’t contribute to you increasing in the SERPs. Same as bad neighbourboods.. the links from them get ignored, and some of those sites disappear from the SERPs.

My thinking is.. with new links. It has to look like normal human behaviour.
If 50K links appeared to point to your site, I think Google checks each of those 50K site links, to see what their standing in the SERPs are, and gives them a link value.

And of those 50K links, Google probably expects

w% to be from similar sites
x% to be from social media
y% from news websites
z% from directories
b% rss feeds
a% other sites

I guess I am saying, if all your links cam from social media sites – it doesn’t look correct. You’d expect for normal link passing around on the internet, to come from different types of sites.

@allfreechips 238684 wrote:

Nope, new ballgame now as I hear people are getting demoted in the the SE ranks shortly after getting letters.

Thats nothing new – when google discovers links that they don’t like pointing to your site, they discredit them and they no longer have value, and so your site drops as a result of loss in links. Nothing like a penalty.

It makes sense for this to happen after people get contacted and warned, because it means the site is in googles radar and either has been reviewed or is pending a human review. I think Rak hit the nail on the head.

I cant imagine google finding a way to penalize sites for bad linking practices, at that point it wouldnt even be about seo and links to your sites, it would be about destroying your competitors. If Im #11 I just need to nuke the top 10 and Im #1
then Im getting nuked and so is everybody else – it doesnt make sense and its not sustainable. Ignoring them is all they can do. But that’s just my humble opinion.