Danny Sullivan, the Google Search Link, made it very clear that the site’s reputation abuse policy has nothing to do with the link. This means that who you link to and/or who links you has no impact on this new policy that Google started enforcing with manual actions earlier this week.
Danny Sullivan said this X, “Abusing site reputation isn’t about linking.” Instead, he said it’s about the content, “It’s about content that abuses a site’s reputation,” he wrote.
Here are those posts:
Abusing site reputation isn’t about linking. This is content that abuses a site’s reputation. See here: https://t.co/Yl9XWr6aql
Link spamming is a completely different policy, and this is where link rating can come in handy (and nofollow vs sponsored doesn’t matter). Look here:…
— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) May 9, 2024
So, if anyone was confused by this, it should now be abundantly clear: this policy is about content, not links.
That’s how Google defines it abuse of site reputation:
Site reputation abuse occurs when third-party pages are published with little or no oversight or involvement from the first party, where the goal is to manipulate search rankings by exploiting the site’s own ranking signals. These third-party pages include sponsored, advertising, partner, or other third-party pages that are typically independent of the primary purpose of a host site or produced without close supervision or involvement of the host site and that provide little or no value to users.
Google posted more examples in the link above.
Discussion in the forum a X.
