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March 24, 2008

Many SEOs Feel The Minus X Penalties Are Back Link Related

Backlinks and Penalties PollA month ago I wrote, Google's Matt Cutts Replies to -60 Penalty Thread at Google where I summarize how Matt said some links are hurting a particular site.

At that point, I decided to poll our readers and see if they feel that most of the "minus" X related threads and penalties are back link related or something else. Most believe the penalties are related to one's back links.

Here is the break down:

  • 47% said Yes (50 responses)
  • 28% said No Idea (30 responses)
  • 25% said No (26 responses)

My personal feeling is that many of those perceived penalties have to do with the links to the site. Just a hunch.

Forum discussion continued at Google Groups.

posted rustybrick in Link Building at March 24, 2008 8:06 AM Comments (6)

• Google Co-op Cartoon Barry

Comments

My poll is YES.

 

Posted by imran ali at March 24, 2008 08:22

If this is true, I would have started 'link building' for my competitors yesterday...

 

Posted by Gerben at March 24, 2008 09:46

Maybe you should. ;-)

 

Posted by Barry Schwartz at March 24, 2008 09:52

I'd throw my weight behind the "YES" in most cases - It has been happening more and more and I wrote up on a real life case here:

http://shrinkify.com/28k

 

Posted by sjachille@gmail.com at March 24, 2008 13:11

In my experience I have found a trend in penalties and surges in linking as I documented in a recent post based on real life experience http://shrinkify.com/28k

 

Posted by Sante at March 24, 2008 13:14

very interesting. I think google is moving back to applying backlink penalties and this is going to get worse. Google webmaster tool needs to quickly introduce a feature to reject incoming links like yahoo site explorer has to avoid competitors abusing this backlink penalty rule

 

Posted by Chris Baldwin at March 25, 2008 04:33

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