Ooops! Cool it be that the corona virus has awaken some strategy to some businesses in Google? Has it bring about reawakening to review so many guidelines in Google.
When I stumbled over this article online when surfing, it caught my attention and interest to read it. That is why am here to in summary bring to your notice what Google are currently doing to websites that is really leaving websites owners or administrative into dungeon.
From May, 2020, Google started detecting what is known as “inbound link” or “harmful link” or better still referred to by the Google Spam Team as “toxic link” from websites and once your site is found, either in a page or so many in your site, it is bound to be penalized by Google which could lead to total striking put your page or the whole website.
Wait a minute, what is unnatural inbound links? These are links that link from your website to and from other websites to your own. When another website share a link pointing to your website, it is called inbound link and when you link to other website from your own it is then called outbound link. When these links contained harmful or toxic contents as Google described it, then it has become unnatural inbound or outbound link.
A penalty from the Google Spam Team is a manual restrictive measure for violating Google’s Webmaster guidelines; it results in a websites’ organic visibility tanking rapidly. When your sites begins to have unnecessary search query or increase in ranking from search, it places a red flag on your site which Google Spam Team have been commend to keep an eye to it.
Among the most common triggers for a Google link penalty are unnatural outbound and inbound links. Unnatural links are also known as “harmful”, “spammy”, or, as we call them at SEMrush, “toxic”. Both inbound and outbound links can get your website penalized.
Outbound links are located on your website and point to other websites. You can get a penalty for outbound links for linking to another website the way that goes against Google’s guidelines — for creating a “pattern of artificial, deceptive, or manipulative inbound links”, as Google calls it.
Below are some types of inbound li ks that triggered Google Penalty:
Sponsored and paid links in articles and blog posts.
Guest posting and press releases.
PBN or link networks.
User-generated spam.
Web directories and link listings.
Pure spam.
Direct ads and affiliate links.
Business directories and bookmarking sites.
Links in widgets.
Hidden links.
Sitewide links.
Minor cases.
As you all know, Google is a respecter of nobody, however, sometimes if you are lucky a notification will be sent to you from Webmaster with two to three of unnatural inbound link for you to review and take the necessary consideration for your page not to be penalized.
But with the recent irritating detection of Google Spam Team using Webmaster Tool, you could just be penalized without notification, this means that your page could just disappeared without notification, guess what, some inbound link could be done without your notice. Some people do this to get traffic when your site is popular.
You may be wondering why your Google search ranking has dropped, Google is comprised of algorithms that search the web, index websites and then spits out results. These results can obviously be manipulated and many individuals, or SEO companies, try to manipulate results. One main factor in the Google algorithm is how many links come into a website and what the anchor text of those links are.
Anchor text is the actual linked text that goes to the page of interest. If in the link building process Google’s link guidelines are not followed, Google will look to penalize your website for spam technique and building links solely for the purpose of manipulating search results.
Google wants to give the best results possible and offer searches quality content and reputable businesses. That is their end goal.
The most frequently experienced Google manual penalty by far is the one applied as a consequence of unnatural inbound links to a website. Affected sites are deemed to be engaging in link schemes (link building intended to manipulate Google rankings), which Google considers a major violation. The penalty’s impact can be partial or affect the entire domain.
The consequent is loss in visibility in Google ranges anywhere from barely noticeable to a steady decline over time to a dramatic total loss of visibility overnight.
You may be asking now that, what should I do then?
Exactly, it is vital and recommended that you conduct a full backlink audit at least every month to remove unnatural inbound or outbound link, or disavow those links, you can also contact administrators of those sites linking to your page to remove such links.
Because of the above, depending the backlink data volume, it could take up to several weeks to do this accurately. All questionable backlinks are to be noted in a separate file. Remember that, for large websites with millions of backlinks, samples provided in Google Search Console will likely be too fragmented and offer insufficient data for a successful reconsideration request.
Therefore, you must identify all of the questionable links yourself before asking Google to be reconsidered.
To boost the prospects for a favorable result with the very first reconsideration request, it is crucial to consider not only backlink volumes and distribution, but also the linking site’s quality and their general approach to linking out.
A solid backlink risk assessment is inclusive of all historic linking liabilities, without neglecting any legacy link-building remnants, like directory entries of a long-gone SEO era.
Once you’ve created a file containing all your questionable or spammy backlinks, it’s time to work on getting those links removed from the web. This may require reaching out to webmasters and asking them to take down links to your site or have them marked as “nofollow.” Any spammy backlinks that you are not able to get removed, despite your best efforts, should be isolated and included in a .txt file called a disavow file.
Once the review is finalized and a disavow file created, it is recommended to upload the disavow file first (and receive confirmation of the change) before submitting documentation outlining all relevant steps taken to resolve the issues Google has highlighted.
How to Avoid a Google Penalty for Inbound Unnatural Links?
The ways to avoid Google Penalty for unnatural inbound links as recommeded by Google Webmaster is what we shall dive it. But first always review your backlink profile. Use the SEMrush Backlink Audit Tool to check bad links.
Here are some steps to follow:
Conduct a detailed backlink audit of your profile on a regular basis (at least once a month).
Monitor your backlink profile for an excessive amount of suspicious inbound links types.
Always evaluate anchor texts and revisit them; avoid excessive use of repeated anchors. If you are using money anchors, vary them with SEMrush Keyword Magic Tool. Use similar or related keywords.
If in doubt, always use the rel=”nofollow” attribute.
Get rid of pure spam — remove or disavow such links.
How to Recover from a Google Penalty for Inbound Unnatural Links If you are already a victim.
Be patient! Don’t try to cheat Google. Just follow these simple steps.
1. Collect this information:
How exactly the penalty affected you? Was it sitewide, or did it hit only a property, specific page, or a section of the site?
Links’ velocity of your website. Pay attention to irregular spikes in data.
Google Backlink Audit tool monitors and checks profiles for new backlinks. It notifies users about any suspicious changes in their projects.
Backlinks data from different sources, data from Google Search Console is a must (you can easily upload the data to Backlink Audit Tool).
2. Conduct an in-depth analysis of your backlinks. Carefully analyze all your inbound backlinks and classify them accordingly: Good, Paid or Spammy.
3. Contact those responsible.
Ask them to remove a toxic link pointing to your website. If you think a link is valuable, contact the webmaster and ask him to change the link attribute to rel=”nofollow”.
4. Disavow carefully
Prepare a .txt disavow file (you can do so using the SEMrush Backlink Audit) and submit the file to Google.
5. Send a Reconsideration Request.
Submit your reconsideration request to Google with a detailed description of what steps were taken and what was cleaned up.
Prevention is the Key
