Mark Skipper/Flickr
Several companies have been penalized by Google for having unnatural links, some have complained that Google has been over-enforcing rules outlined in the WebMaster Guidelines.
What are the differences between natural and unnatural links? Some unnatural links are easy to spot and others are not. As stated in Google’s quality guidelines, Google considers “any links intended to manipulate PageRank or a site's ranking in Google search results” to be violations of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.
There are plenty of link schemes that Google will not tolerate although some are easier to detect than others. Links are intrinsic to the Google algorithm and an abundance of unnatural links would damage the system.
Importance of Natural Links
To understand the importance of natural links, it can be helpful to think back to earlier days when search engines such as Lycos and Alta Vista used information retrieval algorithms. Meta keywords and the number of times a word appeared on a page was what used to help determine the order of search results. Its successor, PageRank, does not work in this way.
Ideally, the importance of a page should be reflected in where it ranks in search results.
For example, academic texts that are frequently cited should be higher up in the search results than a page that would have appeared near top of search results using the aforementioned information retrieval algorithms – a page that would have relied on an excessive use of keywords and the number of times a word appeared on a page.
Now, links to trusted pages are paramount in rankings. The quality and trustworthiness of pages you link to is what counts. Anything that appears to be manipulating the rankings and not giving a genuine vote for a site might lead Google to request the site to remove the links.
Ways to Keep Links Natural
Here are some ways that you can ensure your links to be considered natural:
1. Avoid keyword rich anchor text
2. Avoid linking to any potentially “bad” or spammy sites
3. Avoid large-scale article marketing
4. Adding nofollow tags or redirecting links to a page that is blocked from search engines will eliminate the linking issue but prevent PageRank from passing
Google’s quality guidelines state that “the best way to get other sites to create high-quality, relevant links to yours is to create unique, relevant content that can naturally gain popularity in the Internet community. Links are usually editorial votes given by choice, and the more useful content you have, the greater the chances are that someone else will find that content valuable to their readers and link to it.”Controversy
Today we took action on a large guest blog network. A reminder about the spam risks of guest blogging: http://t.co/rc9O82fjfn
— Matt Cutts (@mattcutts) March 19, 2014
Some have questioned the care taken by Google’s Webmaster review team when deciding who to call out and penalize for using links labelled as “inorganic”. The general consensus is that Google has been over-enforcing and penalizing several sites that feel they have been treated unfairly. Ann Smarty, owner of large guest blog network MyBlogGuest.com, admitted to being penalized by Google.
The error given by Google was that “Google detected a pattern of unnatural artificial, deceptive, or manipulative links pointing to pages on this site. These may be the result of buying links that pass PageRank or participating in link schemes.” Support for the site came from all over the internet, some claiming the move was nothing but a PR stunt.A tweet by @JoeHall read “Google penalizing @myblogguest is nothing more than a PR move structured around a FUD strategy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt … Wake up people!”
However, in an interview with Search Engine Journal, Smarty did acknowledge the difficulties MyBlogGuets.com has faced when trying to keep spammers out from a large community. Smarty admitted that they have “been fighting paid links, duplicate content issues, link farms, etc for years.”
Google penalizing @myblogguest is nothing more that a PR move structured around a FUD strategy. http://t.co/Gn59zZxd6Y Wake up people! — Joe Hall (@joehall) March 19, 2014
Smarty stated that there would be a new policy at MyBlogGuest.com to prevent further penalizing, vowing to utilize nofollows for all guest posts and to submit a reconsideration request to Google.
How Easy To Spot?
The easier-to-spot unnatural links can be obvious; some might promise a free gift in exchange for a product review and include a link.
However, some might argue that if a company sends a free product to a variety of bloggers and some of the bloggers inevitably go on to write about their product (and include a link that passes PageRank), nothing illegal has occurred. Furthermore, if the bloggers approve of the site in question, it must be worthy of a high ranking on Google. Yet Google might argue that this is incentivized and self-made.
Consequently, Google might ask the blogger to nofollow the link so the PageRank is left unaffected.