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Blogging, Digital, Google, SEO

Google will Penalize you if you Use These Links

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) professionals who fully understand how the industry works know the value of links and content. Links may seem...

Google will Penalize

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) professionals who fully understand how the industry works know the value of links and content. Links may seem like they don’t do much at first glance, but trust us when we say these contribute to your site’s rankings. Websites that are loaded with bad links send warning signals to Google’s algorithm and are automatically downgraded. The worst-case scenario would be receiving manual action from the search engine giant, and that is the last thing that you want to happen to your website. So, in This post, we will be discussing that Google will penalize you if you use these types of links.

In this article, we listed down some of the bad link types that will get you penalized and how you can work your way around them.

Forum Discussion Links

Hold up before you start removing forum discussion links from your website because some of them are actually good links. Forum discussion links that come from sites that have known users and are of good quality are worth keeping. A telltale sign is if they are not spammy or manipulative. On the other hand, if the links are coming from foreign discussion forums, it would be best to dispose of them. Links that seem spammy immediately get penalties from Google.

Press Release Links

Press links are easy to get that’s why they were popular a decade ago. All that had to be done was to come up with a well-written press release and send it to sites that are dedicated to press releases. Site owners instantly get hundreds of links in return.

It was a brilliant tactic in doing SEO unfortunately, it was abused. As aftermath, Google sees press release links as a scheme since they are easily manipulated. If it is imperative that you have these links on your website, use branded URLs or naked URLs. Make sure that you only have one press release link to avoid getting penalized.

Private Blog Networks

Private Blog Networks (PBNs) is an excellent way to boost search rankings, once upon a time. Site owners easily get substantial gains from this technique but unfortunately, it no longer works these days.  PBNs that are used at a larger scale sends red flags to Google, causing a decrease in the website’s organic traffic. It may take a while for Google to detect these PBNs, but penalties await when they do. If you want to decide which site is a PBN, then check out the site’s traffic and its external linking structure! The sites which tend to have low traffic even if they have good domain ranks are usually PBNs.

Overdoing the Blog Comments

One of the most overused SEO tactics is blog comments. Blog commenting is good for SEO but overdoing it can get you in trouble. Site owners should stop using this tactic nowadays because they don’t work and are easily detected by Google. As a matter of fact, blog comments are the reason why we now have no followed links. The reason being, this keeps spammers from taking advantage of SEO benefits no matter how hard they try to spam the comments section. The best way to handle blog comments is by posting relevant comments on proper sites and not doing it just for the link building.

Foreign Guestbook Links

These are manipulative links that can from the foreign guestbook. The placement of these links can be done manually, or with the help of a program. When there’s a questionable number of guestbook links on a website the search ranking goes down.

Directory Submissions Service

Directory Submissions Service love to make promises they can’t keep. They claim they will help boost search rankings in Google, but they fail every single time. The submission of directories that are not even of good quality will only harm the site’s rankings. The exceptions to the rule are targeted and relevant directories that are used in natural link building.

Random No Follow Links

Gone are the days when randomizing footprints keep spammy links away from Google’s radar. Those that exist without the help of an automated program are easily spotted and that is simply because humans are creatures of habit. It is hard to randomize footprints that won’t be detected by Google. It just can’t be done.

One way to make sure that your website will not be penalized by Google is to conduct a technical SEO audit. The audit uncovers potentials issues that may have a negative effect on the website. Regular content audits will also help review the status of the content on the website, while a link profile audit will check if the link profile of the website is ok.

What you should do in Real?

With the Google Latest Updates, it has become essential that the link building will remain ethical and we should focus on the quality of links. Following a good content strategy, focusing on the on-page, generating unique articles, making use of images and creating visuals, etc. is vital in SEO.

Suggested:

Things that hurt SEO.

Instead of just focusing on the links, you also need to demonstrate the website content, On-page SEO and the strategies of your competitors in order to bring the best SEO results.

Written by Robin Khokhar
Robin Khokhar is an SEO specialist who mostly writes on SEO. Thus sharing tips and tricks related to SEO, WordPress, blogging, and digital marketing, and related topics.
       
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6 Replies to “Google will Penalize you if you Use These Links”

  1. Google keeps updating their policy which makes it tougher for new websites. Hope from the start every website follows the policy and stay safe

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