(New) Deadly Google Link Spam Algorithm Update 26 July 2021

Google link spam algorithm update rolled out on July 26th. This update will help in the fight against link spammers.

The new algorithm aims to penalize websites that resort to these tricks, resulting in lower rankings on Google’s search engine results pages.

According to Google;

“In our continued efforts to improve the quality of the search results, we’re launching a new link spam-fighting change today — which we call the “link spam update…Sites taking part in link spam will see changes in Search as those links are re-assessed by our algorithms.”

Google

Google’s “link spam algorithm update” is aimed at the SEO-spammers, who game the system using spammy guest posting and paid tactics to manipulate search results. 

It also extends to affiliate marketers who monetize their blog through affiliate marketing.

Google is mainly doing this to prevent people from using lousy link techniques to trick the system.

They emphasized people engaged in sponsored posts, buying guest posts, or running an affiliate marketing blog.

Google does not say these are red flags, but not appropriately marking your content with a “REL” link attribute or value can result in a manual action.

You can still write a guest post on many blogs, but you should specify that it’s a guest post. 

Also, Google wants you to specify an affiliate or sponsored post/link within your blog.

On Google search central, John muller explains more about specifying affiliate links on Google’s youtube channel.

Should I hide affiliate links to be free from the new link spam algorithm? Hiding it is not the solution. Watch the video below to see what John Mueller said about affiliate links.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INnLFVbAGfs&t=11s

There’s nothing wrong with affiliate links, but you need to specify it from now onwards.

Google Link Spam Algorithm Best Practices(Recommended By Google)

Google link “rel” values help to distinguish from sponsored, guest post and, affiliate link.

Google urges site admins, bloggers, blog authors, web content writers and, SEOs to utilize the best practices.

1. All affiliate links should be marked as “REL=SPONSORED.”
2. Guest posts should be labeled as “REL=NOFOLLOW.”
3. And paid or sponsored post to be “REL=SPONSORED.“

In two weeks from now, the algorithm will be effective in search results in different languages.

Google would penalize websites that violate this algorithm policy with a manual action.

Abide by the Google link spam policy for you to be free from this new update.

My advice is to use an affiliate link management tool to automatically set the “rel=sponsored” for any affiliate link on your website. 

It can be time-consuming for a large website with thousands of posts to manually edit each post with up to fifty affiliate links.

WordPress blog owners will not find it hard to implement because many affiliate link tools can do that for you. 

Avoid guest posting websites that sell guest post opportunities. Those websites and people patronizing them are more likely to be victims of the link spam algorithm update.

Again, specify that a link is sponsored for both users and search engines.

The formal update, called “Penguin,” was launched in 2012 and has been a significant contributor to Google’s overall quality improvements.

The Penguin Update marks a dramatic turnaround from Google’s previous attempts to find and penalize spammers who manipulate search results through spammy techniques.

Conclusion:

This update is the best defense against spammy practices because it targets link spam. So, you need to do every possible thing to make your link clean by marking the connection appropriately with the right “rel value.”

Further reading:

Benefits of local SEO