Warning against bad SEO, Google updates link schemes with additional inclusions

Google recently updated the list of types of links that violate their guidelines in their link schemes document within Webmaster guidelines.

By violating Google’s Webmaster Guidelines, marketing agencies that practice SEO may find their content devalued in search. The link schemes document now include large-scale guest posting, advertorials and optimized anchor text in articles or press releases.

Added to the list of link schemes:

• Large-scale article marketing or guest-post content campaigns with keyword-rich anchor text links
• Advertorials and native advertising that include links which pass PageRank in exchange for payment
• Links with optimized anchor text in content or press releases distributed on other sites

Additionally, Google also deleted the following guideline examples:

• Links to web spammers or unrelated sites with the goal to manipulate PageRank
• Links inserted into content with little coherence

Google is trying to crack down on schemes that deliberately manipulate Pank Rank of websites and content in order to foil search ranking. The official inclusion of these examples may not shock SEO professionals or marketing agencies, as Google's warnings have surfaced long ago.

The central theme of Google's warning is an effort to reduce low quality content that has the deliberate purpose of SEO.  Poor quality content reduces the value of search. From a marketing perspective, poor/low quality content is short-sighted and does not factor in the experience of the user. With advertorials, Matt Cutts warns that all links need to be nofollwed. Advertorials cannot become part of an organizations link-building strategy.

SOURCE: https://searchengineland.com/google-adds-large-scale-guest-posting-advertorials-optimized-anchor-text-to-list-of-link-schemes-168082