5 Reasons Why you should care about the Link Spam Update

While you were busy celebrating the holidays, Google was busy doing something very important. Google officially announced a Link Spam update on December 14, 2022. This Link Spam update is no joke if you invested a lot in building backlinks for your web project or service. Because Google aims to hunt down links created to cheat the search engine and adjust the ranking accordingly. 

How will it affect me?

If the links you have for your service or project are of dubious nature according to Google evaluation, you will no longer benefit from those links for ranking your website. Those links will be neutralised and the ranking will be adjusted accordingly. 

How long before I see the results?

According to Google, the rollout time for this update is 2 weeks. Knowing how these Google algorithms work, the new year might bring some bad news to people who tried to trick Google. 

Is it only for English Content?

It is important to notice that this Link Spam update came almost a month after the Google Useful Content Update. Which emphasises ranking useful content higher than content created to get a better ranking on Google.

This means, the effect will not be limited to just English content, but all languages. 

How are they doing this?

Google is making use of its Artificial Intelligence (AI) based tool called SpamBrain which is part of Google’s machine learning systems to hunt down spam for this purpose. Unlike in the older days, Google (and its tools ) can “ understand “ things rather than just “ spotting “ them. 

They are intelligent like humans (to an extent ) in understanding the context and thereby assessing the legitimacy of an action.

What can I do?

One simple method to prevent SEO backlash is to rely on best practices. It is applicable to both incoming and outgoing links for a website.

You should also work on building useful, high-quality content that people bookmark, share and print for further use.

How to keep safe from new algorithm changes?

It is vital to stick to the best practices for content and link building as shared by Google through their official resources. Google does not like when people try to circumvent their barriers to improve ranking. There is a good chance that you might succeed for a short period of time. But at some point, the whole thing will collapse to a surprise algorithm update. Always try to stick to white hat SEO practices and keep yourself updated about the latest announcements by Google.