Link Spam Update: Modern Link Manipulation Penalties

Short answer

Google's response to manipulative links today works mostly by neutralizing them, not by punishing a whole site. When it announced the December 2022 link spam update, Google said it was "leveraging the power of SpamBrain to neutralize the impact of unnatural links on search results", and that rankings "may change as spammy links are neutralized and any credit passed by these unnatural links are lost." Its spam updates page adds the consequence for recovery: "Any potential ranking benefits generated by those links cannot be regained." The penalty side exists too: manual actions for unnatural links, which need removal and a reconsideration request. Knowing which of the two you face decides what to do.

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From Penguin to SpamBrain

Period	What Google described
April 2012	Google announced an algorithm change "targeted at webspam", naming techniques from "keyword stuffing to link schemes"
2016	Penguin became part of the core algorithm: "Penguin is now real-time" and "now devalues spam by adjusting ranking based on spam signals, rather than affecting ranking of the whole site"
2022	The December 2022 link spam update used SpamBrain, which "can now detect both sites buying links, and sites used for the purpose of passing outgoing links"
Now	Spam detection, including SpamBrain, runs continuously; Google's ranking systems guide lists Penguin among retired systems, now part of others

Google said in its 2016 Penguin announcement: “we’re not going to comment on future refreshes.” And its spam updates page says its automated spam detection systems “are constantly operating,” with spam updates marking notable improvements. Recovery doesn’t depend on waiting for a named link spam update.

What Counts as Link Spam

Google’s spam policies define it as “creating links to or from a site primarily for the purpose of manipulating search rankings.” The examples include buying or selling links for ranking purposes, excessive link exchanges, automated link creation, unqualified paid or advertising links, optimized anchor text in guest posts and press releases, low-quality directories, widget and footer links, and forum comments with optimized links. The full list, quoted, is in link schemes and Google’s guidelines.

Google publishes no anchor text percentages or “natural profile” ratios; patterns of manipulation are covered in anchor text optimization.

Two Kinds of Consequence

	Algorithmic neutralizing	Manual action
How you know	No notice; links simply stop counting	A notice in Search Console's Manual actions report
What happens	The links' credit is lost	Ranking or visibility is reduced by a reviewer's action
What fixes it	There's no notice to answer; earn new links in place of the neutralized ones	Remove or qualify the links, disavow the rest, request reconsideration

For a manual action, the steps are in manual actions, and disavow decisions in toxic links and disavow.

Outgoing Links: Your Side of the Policy

The 2022 update targeted sites “used for the purpose of passing outgoing links” as well as buyers. If you publish sponsored content, sell placements or host user content:

Qualify paid and sponsored links with rel="sponsored" or rel="nofollow"; the spam policies say paid links aren’t a violation “as long as they are qualified”.
Qualify user-generated links with rel="ugc" or rel="nofollow" in comments, forums and profiles.
Don’t sell followed links in articles, footers or widgets.

Attribute rules are in Google’s outbound link guidance.

If Your Rankings Dropped

Check for a manual action first. If there is one, follow the manual action process.
If not, look at your link history: paid placements, networks, exchanges, vendor work. If the drop coincides with a spam update and your rankings relied on such links, their credit may be gone.
Stop the practice and clean up what you control, so new links of the same kind don’t accumulate.
Build value that earns links: original data, useful resources, coverage and relationships; see link building fundamentals.
Diagnose other causes if the link history doesn’t explain it; see core updates and recovery.

Negative SEO

If spammy links point to you that you didn’t build, Google’s disavow documentation says “In most cases, Google can assess which links to trust without additional guidance”. Disavow is for a considerable number of such links that have caused or are likely to cause a manual action.

Building Links That Last

Links someone chose to give because your work helped their readers are outside the definition of link spam by nature. Anything built mainly to influence rankings risks being neutralized, and its value doesn’t return. Broader spam enforcement is covered in spam updates.

If rankings fall around a spam update, open the Manual actions report before touching any links; with no notice there, a disavow file won’t bring back credit that was neutralized.