Link Building Crackdown, New vs Old Domains, Black Hat SEO, Speedlink 5:2014

Hi everyone! Hope you all had a great and productive week. Google continues on with its link building crackdown, taking down recently yet another link network, the French Buzzea. Although Buzzea is defending itself, saying that they always kept the ethical side of sponsored articles focusing on quality and natural links, Matt does not seem to agree based on his tweet.

Today we’re taking action on a French link network that violates our quality guidelines (Buzzea).

— Matt Cutts (@mattcutts) January 29, 2014

What’s more is that Matt goes as far as saying that next on the line for action will be a German link network. I think I know of one that might be a target, but I won’t say it just for now. Let’s see. In any event, this is just to show you that it is getting harder and harder to build links. Guest posting is being devalued (specially if it low quality and inbound links are from low domain authority), site wide links are a no no, and now, Matt tells us why you should steer away from article directories. Actually, this type of link acquisition has been long gone in my opinion, and yet for some reason, many still use it. As a matter of fact, the “link building” term is now being replaced by “link earning”. What do you think? What “link earning” strategies do you employ that you feel does work? I’d be interested in knowing your thoughts.

Should I build links using article directories?

On a different front, Matt talks about another topic that may be of interest to those of you that have or acquire old domains as part of your SEO strategy. Matt explains why old or aged domains may not necessarily rank better than newer ones, despite the perceived value of an older sites, and provides some suggestions on how you can maintain your rankings.

How can an older site maintain its ranking over time?

Lastly, an interesting article published on SEMrush really caught my attention this week. When you see a title of a well established site saying “Why Black Hat SEO is Awesome”, you have got to read and see what that is all about. In the article written by Paul Bliss, he explains the difference between Black Hat SEO and sheer SPAM, and also provides some insights on why “black hat” tactics are still being employed by many. Head over there and read what he has to say and come back here to tell me what you think about it.

OK, I did say “finally” above, but this one should also be of interest to you, specially if you are into affiliate marketing. Another “warning” from Google about running affiliate programs on thin sites that don’t provide value. They warn of sites risking itself of being deindexed in case you violate their guidelines.

And as usual, in no particular order: