The opinions expressed by the collaborators of Emprenderos are their own.
Have you noticed that your site’s organic traffic has plummeted over the past few years? This may have been caused by evidence of spammy link building practices that have crept into your SEO work.
The Google Spam Link Update was released in December 2022, supported by the SpamBrain AI algorithm. This update is intended to combat spam and improve the browsing experience for anyone using the search engine. Successful marketers must be aware of its effects in order to maintain a very clean backlink profile that helps, rather than hurts, the organic visibility of their site.
In this post, I’ll take a closer look at what SpamBrain is, its effects on SEO, and three of the most effective strategies for aligning your link building strategy with this element of Google’s ranking algorithm.
Related: How to change an outdated link building strategy
What is SpamBrain?
SpamBrain is an AI-based algorithm created by Google to identify poor quality spam content and make it less visible in Google search results. Although it was first launched in 2018, Google only publicly acknowledged it as part of the company’s program. Web Spam Report 2021suggesting that it has become a larger part of Google’s ranking system over time.
from Google Link Spam Update 2022 was launched to identify and neutralize backlinks coming from low-quality spam sources, preventing webmasters from artificially boosting their rankings.
What does SpamBrain mean for SEO and marketing?
Link spamming caused many website rankings to plummet. These were websites with backlink profiles characterized by spammy link building practices that Google has consistently warned against, such as:
Buying links to artificially inflate a website’s ranking. Excessive link exchanges between websites. Using junk, low-quality directories and “link farms” that provide no value to the end user. Building links through spammy forum comments, over-optimized anchor text. Excessive distribution of links in widgets, footers, etc. Using automation to generate links without worrying about relevance or context.
If you noticed a drop in rankings or organic traffic after the December update, this may have been caused by evidence of spammy link building practices being incorporated into your link profile of entry
As Google’s algorithm updates become more focused on providing the best possible user experience and become more adept at identifying backlinks that go against their policies, it is essential that SEOs and webmasters consciously build links that avoid spammy practices and run a tight ship when reviewing the status of their link profiles.
Related: 19 Safe Subject Line Formulas for Link Building Emails
Three link building strategies to avoid getting penalized by SpamBrain
Now that you understand what SpamBrain is and its role in the Google algorithm, here are three crucial link building strategies you can use to maintain a healthy backlink profile, maximize the value of your campaigns of link building and avoid being penalized by Google’s Link Spam Policies.
1. Regularly review your backlink profile
It can be easy to let backlink profile audits fall by the wayside as part of your routine SEO work, especially if you’ve been investing in organic marketing for a while and your link profile is already large and diverse. However, this is an essential step to ensure your campaigns work within Google’s policies and not put your ranking at risk of a penalty.
Block out some regular time in your calendar to analyze your site’s backlinks, checking for signs of poor quality spam links that can be flagged for removal. This should include links to low-quality or irrelevant referring domains or those that use unnatural and over-optimized anchor texts. While in use Google’s opt-out tool will ensure that spammy referral domains don’t affect your rankings in the future, it’s important to exercise caution before entering a huge list of domains to disavow.
Occasionally, you may come across a spammy link or irrelevant anchor text as a result of poor quality previous SEO work, but it exists on a quality domain that could be a major asset for your SEO. In such cases, it is better to disavow specific referring pages or ask webmasters to remove the links manually.
2. Review link building practices
To ensure that you are not affected by link spam in the future, it is a good idea to establish clear link building policies that you or your staff can follow when running a link building campaign. This will ensure that new backlinks meet a certain quality threshold and don’t run the risk of creating a spammy link profile.
Some of the things you may want to set policies on for a robust link building SOP include:
Minimum domain authority. Indicators to ensure your content is relevant, high quality and authoritative according to Google’s criteria EEAT guidelines.Approved anchor text.Strategies and examples for framing backlinks in content.
By approaching each link building campaign with a strong set of anti-spam policies, you eliminate the risk of Google flagging spamming practices while building your backlink profile.
Related: How to maximize the number of linkable assets on your website
3. Commit to high quality content
Remember, the ultimate goal of SpamBrain and every Google algorithm update is to improve the experience for everyone who uses Google. They want to keep their users loyal, which means providing the most relevant content for their search queries.
One of the most effective things you can do to ensure your link building stays on the right side of Google’s spam policies is to maintain a firm commitment to high-quality content. This is important for your linkable resources and content that will serve as referring URLs to your campaigns.
This means creating content that provides tangible value to your target audience, demonstrates a high level of subject matter expertise, and is written for a human audience rather than in a style that aims to artificially “game” a search algorithm.
Although it’s not always easy, maintaining a high standard of content in all aspects of link building will prevent spammy practices from infiltrating your backlink profile and set you up for future success with Google’s user-centric algorithms.
[ad_2]
Source link
