Yesterday morning, @gfiorelli1 notified me of that Google has "launched a massive amount of links manual penalization emails" specifically in Spain.
Google this morning confirmed it via Twitter, where Google's Johannes Mehlem posted on Twitter that they targeted a link network in Germany and Europe:
We have taken action on one European and one German linking network. Ressources on German Blog: http://t.co/6xJMZYMHZI
— Johannes Mehlem (@JohannesMehlem) August 18, 2014Google has been warning webmasters in Germany and Europe about these link networks. They have taken action on large agencies in Germany and penalized networks in Germany, Italy and Spain in the past. They've targeted Poland and many other countries in the past and many other link networks both in the US and worldwide.
I do not know which networks specifically were hit here but the pattern has not stopped. @Jenstar thought there was a network slapped last week, but Google would not confirm it, nor did I see mass complaints about it - which is unusual.
Again, the warnings hit yesterday morning. Was it related to all the shifting and ranking fluctuations from last week, I doubt it.
Forum discussion at Twitter.
Update: According to the community and comments below, Rankseller.de and Teliad.de were among the networks hit.
Update 2: Google posted the news officially on their Webmaster Google+ page:
