What Google Blog Network Massacre?
One of the biggest headline SEO stories during the past week has been to do with the deindexing of blog networks by Google. The biggest blog network that hit the news is Build My Rank. This was a private blog network of sites that have all been deindexed by Google.
Google has announced it is de-indexing many link building networks. Although it is still early in the day, Build My Rank is shutting down. They are refunding credits to their members and payments will be issued when that is done.
What is not clear is how this will impact all the existing blog networks. I heard that SEO Link Monster, Authority Link Network, and Linkvana have all been affected recently.
What is clear is that this will have an impact on the IM community, as well as SEO firms. It also emphasis that you have to diversify your link-building tactics.
Why Blog Networks Are Targeted By Google
Google’s stance on paid links are well documented. As they have said, “buying or selling links that pass PageRank is in violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines and can negatively impact a site’s ranking in search results.”
Read The Google Blog Network Massacre – Blog Networks Deindexed for an in-depth view on the currently SEO and Google news.
So why are blog networks being targeted by Google?
- Blog networks are a form of paid link building.
- Blog networks are a form of “link scheme”.
- Articles posted to blog networks tend to be low quality.
Google has stated time and again that it wants quality and unique content in its search engine results page. And you better believe that they will go after the websites that attempt to game the system.
On the one hand, I do applaud Google for trying to clean up the search engine results and making sure it contains quality websites. But I am not yet convinced that they have gotten this part right, at least for now. It is an on-going battle for them.
But on the other hand, Google has just put another legitimate business under. Therein lies the problem, business is about fulfilling a market’s need. If blog networks are so popular, it is due to the fact that there is a demand for what they are providing. While the aim of a blog network is to increase incoming links to their members, it also is a source of free content for other website publishers.
How Does This Impact You?
If you site is not a part of the network but you are getting links from the network, your links have zero value. When Google de-indexes a website, any outgoing links automatically become null. If you offer SEO services that generates links to your clients websites, those incoming links have zero value now.
Overall, it is the links to your websites that are impacted. That in turn may cause you to loss search engine ranking and Page rank. So it may impact your ranking but should not get you se-indexed.
