Google has started rolling out the December 2022 link spam update on December 14.
This will take up to two weeks to complete.
Reminder: The December 2022 helpful content system update is still rolling out.
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Official Announcement of December 2022 Link Spam Update
Google officially announced the rollout of the update on its twitter handle and updated its search updates ranking page as well.
Today, with our December 2022 link spam update, we’re leveraging the power of SpamBrain to neutralize the impact of unnatural links on search results. The update launches today & will take about two weeks to rollout. Learn more: https://t.co/ACO2Ut8wmi
— Google Search Central (@googlesearchc) December 14, 2022
What’s In The December 2022 Link Spam Update?
Google with the help of SpamBrain will fight with link spam.
SpamBrain not only can be utilised to directly detect spam, but it can now also identify sites that are buying links as well as sites that are used to pass outgoing links.
What is SpamBrain?
SpamBrain is Google’s AI-based spam-prevention system that is used to nullify the impact of unnatural links on search results.
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.
Will The December 2022 Link Spam Update Affect My WebSite?
In a sentence, I would say, YES! It can affect your website.
Google said that, the link spam update will neutralize unnatural spammy links that are being used as a manipulation for search rankings, so you may see drop in your keyword rankings.
This update affects search results in all languages, resulting in a widespread impact.
Google has strict guidelines what they call link spam.
For example, if you are embedding an affiliate link in your piece of content, you need to qualify that link with a rel=sponsored tag.
Similarly, to quality a guest post link add a rel=nofollow tag.
To avoid getting hit by spam update.
What To Do If Your Website Have Been Affected?
There are a few crucial things you can do right away if the Google’s this link spam algorithm update has affected you:
- Check your backlinks in Google Search Console (GSC) and see if any backlinks are harming you or not. And if you found add them in your disavow list.
- If you are using any tools SEMrush or Ahrefs to monitor your backlinks profile and found any negative or spammy links disavow them in your tools as well from GSC.
- Check your traffic and keyword rankings. And see what is your normal traffic to analyze the impact of the december link spam update.
- As the update will take two weeks to completely rollout, it’s better not to make any changes in your backlink profile, till that time.
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