Search giant is rolling out an update to discredit paid and affiliate links.
Google is rolling out an update to its search results to combat what it calls “link spam”. The complete rollout will take about two weeks.
The search company still places a lot of weight on links that point to a website, counting them like votes for the website that is linked to. Companies try to take advantage of this by buying links on websites.
Google says that sites taking part in link spam will see changes in their search rankings as Google’s algorithm re-assesses those links.
As the listed contact on two blogs, I can say that the amount of requests for link insertion and guest posts has ballooned over the past couple of years. I typically get about 6-8 emails every day, and even bigger brands are asking for these insertions now.
While Google asks website owners to use tags to qualify sponsored links, there’s a fine line between Google putting too much onus on website owners. At some point, Google needs to just figure this out for itself, especially in cases where content is clearly delineated. Which, according to its algorithm update, it’s apparently capable of doing.
amplify says
I wonder if Google is going to give brownie points to websites that do report links as sponsors correctly in the rel tag. It certainly would tell everyone that they have nothing to hide, which could relate to not having any misleading content.