Wednesday, 2 October 2013

Google Alerts against Large-Scale Guest Posting, Advertorials and Optimized Anchor Text in Press Release.

Google has updated the link schemes document under their webmaster guidelines to add large-scale guest posting, advertorials and optimized anchor text in articles or press releases to the list of types of links that violate their guidelines.

The Guideline examples that were added to the document are:
·         Large-scale article marketing or guest posting campaigns with keyword-rich anchor text links.
·         Advertorials or native advertising where payment is received for articles that includes links that pass page rank.

·         Links with optimized anchor text in articles or press releases distributed on other sites.

Google removed these guideline examples:

·         Linking to web spammers or unrelated sites with the internet to manipulate page rank.
·         Links that are inserted into articles with little coherence.

Large-Scale Guest Posts:
If you are guest blogging with the intent to build links, and those blog posts are done large scale with very little quantity built into them. Google may take action against the links in those articles or guest posting.

Advertorials
In a recent video by Google’s head of search spam, Matt Cutts explained that Google treats links as editorial votes. When links are embedded into advertorials or paid stories, if they are not disclosed, that is against Google’s guidelines.

Optimized Anchor text in press release
This is one of the huge updates that may have not been so clear for numerous webmasters. Google said “Links with optimized anchor text in articles or press releases distributed on other sites” is an example of unnatural link that violate their guidelines. Say for example, if you are publishing a press release or an article on your site and distribute it through an article site, you must make sure to nofollow the links if those links are optimized anchor text.