Last night, Matt Cutts tweeted that he is working up several "ghost-related puns for a spam network."
I suspect they are working on targeting more and more link and spam networks and it is thus on his mind. I would think this spam topic is always on his mind, since he has been working in this area for over ten years now.
That being said, the pun he shared was "They try to look super natural, but using them will dampen your spirits."
Now, more importantly, is this a sign that Google just released yet another target aimed at another spam network? Could be.
The folks at BlackHat Forums asked if this is the time that the SAPE network of links was finally completely busted. He cited an increase in the number of complaints from SAPE link network users and how many of them have seen either manual actions in their Webmaster Tools accounts or a decrease in search traffic from Google.
This webmaster wrote:
A lot of movement has been occurring around the forum regarding SAPE links.Its no news that Google has been trying to shut SAPE down for some time now.
Has the time finally come? Is it time to move onto some underground link exchanges?
He then references Matt's tweet from last night:
Thinking of ghost-related puns for a spam network. "They try to look super natural, but using them will dampen your spirits."
— Matt Cutts (@mattcutts) August 29, 2013
And then cites other threads of complaints from SAPE users.
Supposedly, Google went after SAPE before but it seems to still be working for some webmasters.
Forum discussion at BlackHat Forums and Twitter.
Image credit to BigStockPhoto for target
