Should we worry about Google’s new link scheme guidelines?
Google are notorious for sending the internet – and especially the SEO industry – into a frenzy every time they edit their guidelines, with constant fears about new ways to penalise people for perfectly legitimate link building activities. The slightest change in what Google deems to be acceptable could send entire swathes of sites crashing down the rankings, so the panic is justified. But should we be worried about the most recent alteration?
A lot of people are talking about the fact that Google has removed its paragraph about the quality and quantity of inbound links to your site from its guidelines, which included the line: ‘Your site’s ranking in Google search results is partly based on analysis of those sites that link to you.’ Does its removal mean that suddenly links from guest posts don’t count?
To put it simply: no. There is no reason to stop guest posting just yet, as long as you’re doing it in the right way. The general consensus seems to be that this paragraph has been removed to reinforce the fact that resorting to dodgy link building isn’t the way to climb the rankings. However, it does support another of Google’s recent tweaks to its guidelines, where it stated that top quality sites would be rewarded more highly than backlinks.
At Artemis, we know exactly how to optimise your site’s content to make it not only Google-friendly, but user-friendly. We know not to overload it with keywords or write anything unnatural which will look suspicious and won’t read well, so our content writers create suitable content for your site which will keep your site perfectly usable whilst still showing Google what it can find – the ideal situation.
As sneaky SEO companies come up with new techniques to slip through the net and get around Google’s guidelines, Google has to retaliate with specific rules and regulations which specify which practices violate its terms. While your SEO company may promise you a top spot within three months – and it may well manage it – you will soon be hit by the penalties when Google discovers how they’re doing it. The key is to maintain a solid, steady SEO campaign over time. It may not be quick, but it’s the right way to do it and will benefit you in the long run.
However, not everyone is convinced that this won’t affect anything. Nobody wants to be the person who is stung by the wrath of Google at the mercy of its guideline amendments, but equally, we have no reason yet to change the way the majority of the SEO industry operates. We’ll be watching closely to see what Google’s next move is.
