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Google Squashes Backlinks.com, Another Link Network Outed By Google’s Matt Cutts

Dec 16, 2013 at 9:15am

 

Google Busts Yet Another Link Network: Anglo Rank

Dec 6, 2013 at 3:20pm

Google’s head of search spam, Matt Cutts, just confirmed on Twitter that Google has targeted another “private link network” – this one is named Anglo Rank.

Matt’s tweet was pretty direct, he wrote:

“There are absolutely NO footprints linking the websites together” Oh, Anglo Rank.

That is a quote directly from Anglo Rank’s marketing material, and a dig from Cutts suggesting that indeed, Google was able to spot sites in the network.

In response, Search Engine Land’s editor-in-chief Matt McGee suggested on Twitter that those in the network were likely to find that it was “torched.” Cutts responded by saying “messages can take a few days to show up in [Google Webmaster Tools], so timing of when to post can be tricky to predict.”

In other words — yes, Cutts confirmed that Anglo Rank was penalized, and that those involved with it were getting penalty notifications, and since those were finally starting to appear in Google Webmaster Tools, Cutts felt it was OK to finally go more public with a tweet.

Over the past year or so, Google has been going after link networks at greater speeds. Here are some of the reports we have on those stories over a year or so:

• Google May Have Penalized Another Major Link Network: Ghost Rank 2.0
• Did Google Just Penalize Another Link Network? SAPE Links
• Google Eliminates Another Link Network, BuildMyRank.com – Just One Of Several?
• Google Zaps Another Link Network, ‘Several Thousand’ Link Sellers Hit
• “Text Link Ads” Was Latest Hit By Google’s Actions Against Link Sellers

Cutts did say that Anglo Rank is not the only link network targeted in this effort. He responded to me that Google has “been rolling up a few” link networks in this specific target.

So if you get a message in Google Webmaster Tools about paid links in the next day or so, it may be related to this update.