Google Targets Two European Link Networks

Over the weekend, Google has sent out mass link penalty notifications throughout Europe for those sites partaking in specific link networks with the goal of manipulating their rankings in Google.

Google’s Johannes Mehlem posted on Twitter that Google has “taken action on one European and one German linking network.”

We have taken action on one European and one German linking network. Ressources on German Blog: http://t.co/6xJMZYMHZI

— Johannes Mehlem (@JohannesMehlem) August 18, 2014

Jennifer Slegg notes that Karolina Kruszyńska from Google posted the notice on Twitter in Polish for Polish webmasters.

Gianluca Fiorelli from Spain notified me of this a day earlier but it wasn’t until today, where Google confirmed it.

Supposedly, the notification was sent to webmasters via Google Webmaster Tools. So make sure to check your manual actions viewer to see if you were impacted by this link network. Of course, if you are concerned, then you should probably be safer about your link practices.

Google is frequently penalizing sites that partake in link networks throughout the US and in many parts of the world. You can see our coverage of these in our Google Penalties section.

Postscript: Google published this now on their official Google+ page:

As part of our ongoing efforts to promote high quality search results, we are taking action today on one European and one German linking network. Take a look at our Webmaster Guidelines on link schemes (http://goo.gl/wuI1gs) to make sure that your site is not engaged in deceptive linking practices! If you hired someone to work on your site, such as an SEO, check if they are using illicit practices by reviewing examples from the link schemes page.

About The Author

Barry Schwartz

Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on SEM topics.