This update was started on December 14, 2022 and got fully rolled out 12th January, 2023, taking a total of 29 days.
Google has officially confirmed that the December 2022 link spam update is done rolling out on 12th January, 2023.
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The Official Announcement:
Google officially confirmed the December 2022 Link Spam Update is done rolling out on search ranking updates page.
What is a Link Spam Update?
A link spam update is a way to neutralise, or stop counting, links that Google deems to be spammy and against its policies.
Google wrote:
Ranking may change as spammy links are neutralized and any credit passed by these unnatural links are lost. This launch will affect all languages.
Google Fighting link spam with SpamBrain: Google’s AI-based spam-prevention system is called SpamBrain.
In addition to utilising it to directly detecting spam, it can now detect both sites buying links, and sites used for the purpose of passing outgoing links.
Quick Facts on December 2022 Google Link Spam Update
Name: Google December 2022 Link Spam Update
Release Date: It began to roll out on December 14th 2022
Rollout Duration: This update will take up-to two weeks to fully roll out
Targets: It targets both websites buying links, and websites used for the purpose of passing outgoing links.
Penalty: This update will neutralise links detected as spam and thus links detected won’t be counted and may show a decline in rankings.
Not a manual action: This is not a manual action, so you won’t be notified in Search Console if you are hit.
Global and all languages: This update applies to all languages and is a global update.
What To Do If Your Website Have Been Affected?
If this Google update has affected your website, there are a few critical things you can do right away:
- See if any of your backlinks are hurting your site or not by checking your backlinks in Google Search Console (GSC). If found, put them to your list of people you disavow.
- Disavow any unfavourable or spammy links you see in your backlink management tools (SEMrush or Ahrefs etc) from the GSC .
- Check your traffic and keyword rankings. And see what is your normal traffic to analyze the impact of the december link spam update.
- Ensure your links are natural and follow Google’s webmaster guidelines.
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