Google Redefining Standard For SEO Spam: Portent

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Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) is raising the penalties for sites that attained high rankings through artificial or unnatural inbound link acquisition. There are many firms, which have been penalized because they were not concerned about the issue, and believed that their search marketing firms were abiding by the rules.

Google has made it clear that firms are responsible for the tricks of their SEO practices.

Google Redefining Standard For SEO Spam: Portent

Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) is tightening its standard for manipulative linking, putting more companies at risk of being penalized with every Penguin update.  The Google update, which is known as Penguin, started in April 2012 automatically downgrades a site in its rankings for specific phrases if it finds that the site has obtained the external link just to influence search results. Google also started penalizing the worst offenders.

To determine the effect of Penguin on the businesses, the Seattle-based marketing firm Portent, looked at 50 websites. Portent’s analysis found that 36 out of 50 have “clean” profiles with less than 10 percent links coming from objectionable source.

However, there were some businesses, which took their links from questionable sources likely of being spam. According to the report there were four sites that were clearly eligible for the fine because 40 percent of their of links came from suspicious sources.

According to the report, Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) is even making the norms stricter. Initially sites were penalized, which compromised 80 percent of links from suspicious sources but now Google further brought down this standard to 65 percent within two months. In October 2012, Google started penalizing sites with 50 percent manipulative links.

In the report, it is mentioned that the links obtained through the following sources should be removed using Google disavow tool this will help to stay clean of spams:-

  • Paying someone other than a charity or foundation
  • Using any tool with “amazing,” “super,” “crusher” or any other superlative reference in the name
  • Begging someone for a link that adds no value to their site
  • Trading
  • Writing the same article 100,000 times

Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) has raised the standards, and this implies that instant success for the search visibility is over. Instead of finding shortcuts to increase their page rankings marketers should design a long term strategy based on the quality content and sound SEO tactics. The business will have to aim at enhancing their online reputation and contributing in meaningful ways to the conversation about their brand, industry and product.

According to the report Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) isn’t concerned with why or how the sites acquired the unnatural links. It simply wants them to be removed. This will be difficult for many small and medium sized businesses, but Google is coming heavy on Spam, which means it is high time to stop using tactics and start marketing the right way.

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