Google’s Decision to Deindex blog networks

What before was only rumour has finally been confirmed: Google has officially declared that their new focus is blog networks; they did and will continue to conduct target mass de-indexing of blog networks, a move that causes significant drops and losses in site rankings.
Blogging networks affected by this targeting so far include SEO Link Monster, Authority Link Network (ALN), and, on Mar.19^th, BuildMyRank. Rumours are also circulating that SEONitro, BacklinkBuddy and SEOLinkvine Elite may also be under focus.

Let’s examine this controversial move by breaking it down into the two main questions bloggers around the world are asking themselves: how and why did Google do this?

Unfortunately, the nitty-gritty details on exactly how Google achieved this remain unclear; as they are the superpower on the internet, they definitely have know-how and resources to accomplish tasks that the rest of us internet-savvy individuals are still in the dark about. Considering this, here are the most probable methods that Google may have employed.

Warning Messages

Using Google Webmaster Tools, the search engine giant may have sent out warning messages, stating that they identified “artificial” or “unnatural” links on various sites. If users responded in the affirmative to this allegation, that they have indeed used artificial links, then Google de-indexed either all blogs within the link profile, or de-indexed the appropriate sites according to a manual review.

Manual Review of Networks

Google may have also performed manual review of blogs hosted on SEO hosting accounts without the accompanying warning emails. This suggestion operates on the assumption that the networks targeted accessed various IPs through these accounts.

Both of these suggestions, due to the wealth of knowledge and resources that Google has, are essentially well-educated guesses; more detailed facts on how efficient, targeted de-indexing occurred have yet to come to light. But what is neither so mysterious nor complex is the reason behind the action, the why of the equation. Google’s decision to de-index was motivated by the desire to fight and limit spam. Spam is, as we all are well aware, rampant on the targeted networks, as well as on those similar to them. What’s more, Google’s Terms of Service are very clear on their definition of spam and networks with artificial links violate these terms. Accordingly, Google’s WebSpam team has put their collective foot down – networks created for the intention of creating and sharing links that contain content of little value found themselves kicked to the curb: de-indexed and without ranking.

If Google is waging a more focused war on spam, it follows that they will no doubt pursue other tactics. However, considering these latest developments, it does not seem unlikely that Google might soon target over-optimized sites. Whether this will happen, or rather, how soon it will happen, remains unknown: however, we suggest that you take a look at what tactics you are using, and how you might be affected.