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Yesterday, Google's head spam man, Matt Cutts, issued a stern warning to link spammers in Italy and Spain. This warning will likely be followed up with some unnatural link notifications and ranking penalties within the week.
Yesterday afternoon, Matt warned both Italian and Spanish SEOs and webmasters that they will be cracking down on link spam. I don't really get why they issue the warning and not give them a few months to revert things because now it is too late. At least when some armies drop bombs on cities, they drop warning flyers to leave by a specific time. Here, Google is trying to break their spirits by warning them without any real immediate recourse to save themselves.
I should be fair, this is part of the webmaster guidelines forever.
Here are Matt's tweets:
A reminder (in Spanish) about unnatural/paid links and that we're willing to take action on them: http://t.co/uTBdJpRNbw
— Matt Cutts (@mattcutts) March 10, 2014And here's a reminder about unnatural/paid links for Italian: http://t.co/OoA4dSXqhI #hint #hint
— Matt Cutts (@mattcutts) March 10, 2014Google recently penalized Polish link spammers and German link spammers.
Here are some recent link networks taken down by Google:
- Google Targets Poland In Latest Link Network Penalty
- Google Boots Large German Agency & Clients For Link Schemes
- Google's Matt Cutts: We're Taking Action Against Buzzea, The French Link Network
- Google's Matt Cutts Calls Out Nailing Another Link Network
- Google Penalizes Another Link Network: SAPE Links
- Google Crushes Ghost Rank 2.0, A Russian Link Network
- Backlinks.com: The Next Link Network Penalized By Google
- Google's Matt Cutts: Text Link Ads Link Sellers Targeted
- Google Penalizes Blog Networks, Did SEOs Use It To Hurt Competitors?
- Beware: Google To Squash Another Link Network Very Soon
Comments:
Gianluca Fiorelli
03/11/2014 12:51 pm
Well... it's a long time people like me is complaining with Matt that the spam team seems missing in action in Italy :)
Gridlock
03/11/2014 03:13 pm
What's Italian for "Reconsideration Request"? :P #adwords
Stewart.T
03/11/2014 03:19 pm
Russia, France, Germany, Poland, now Spain etc. They're getting closer to the UK. Should we all start sweating?
Gridlock
03/11/2014 03:26 pm
I think it's a language thing, not specifically a region thing (of course this is supposition). UK sites are seemingly already just as likely to get Penguinised or a Manual Action as US sites IMO.
Stewart.T
03/11/2014 03:32 pm
I wasn't implying that it was a region thing despite the fact that indeed all the latest attacks on link networks that have been publicised the previous 3 months have been European based - so there is some truth in the localisation argument that. Google is targeting this continent. The UK was hit already actually in Oct 2013 the Anglo link network was 'taken down'.
Gridlock
03/11/2014 03:45 pm
I see - good point.
Chad
03/11/2014 05:40 pm
I wonder if after the Mafia is gonna be coming for mat?
Josh Zehtabchi
03/11/2014 06:01 pm
The mafia is smarter than doing spammy linking just to be caught. :P
PM Fiorini
03/11/2014 07:03 pm
Yes, I would. If a site looks fishy and enough of its links look fishy, Google may not hesitate to say "We've caught a fish, so let's fillet it and watch it fry."
Don-Kebab
03/11/2014 08:30 pm
I think it is: "Make me an offer I can´t refuse"
Jack
03/12/2014 09:28 am
Richiesta di riconsiderazione
n0tSEO
03/14/2014 11:07 am
Since I removed 'Google' from the link development equation, it feels so much better. :) No need to worry anymore. Heh, I missed that from the early 2000s.