You may have heard on the grapevine that there’s been a recent update to Google’s link spam algorithm to better their overall user experience through search quality.

The update aims to combat black hat link building techniques and practices that people use to get an unfair advantage in search engine rankings. If you practise safe link building, you shouldn’t be too stressed, but regardless it’s good to know what’s being targeted and what you can do about it.

The big difference with this update is that Google is now using its AI tool known as SpamBrain, which is designed to take action against websites that are engaging in link spamming or other such practices.

This AI tool will go past identifying just the number of links coming from a site, it can now look at the quality of these links and where they are coming from. It can also find any unnatural link patterns, such as many links made in a short amount of time or links to websites that are unrelated to the topic.

It’s vital to remain proactive when it comes to link building in general, but if you want to be safe, here’s what you can do:

1. Audit Your link Profiles
You should use some of the tools in your arsenal to make sure that your links are all coming from reputable sources and that none of them are linked to websites engaging in spammy link practices.

2. Monitor Incoming Links
By keeping a close eye on the websites linking to you, you can make sure they’re relevant and legitimate. If you see anything suspicious linking to you, the Google Disavow tool is on hand to remove them from the index.

3. Create Great Content
Quality content is one of the vital things you can do in anticipation of this update. Ensure you create content that is useful and relevant to your target audience. On top of this, make sure to implement natural link building as much as you can. This can be internal linking vita-related blog posts, a resource page or a product page to name a few. You can also link to external websites too, but make sure they are of high quality and choose carefully.

Once the update rolls out, the newly implemented AI doesn’t go away, so you can’t do this as a one-off, it needs to be a continual procedure you undertake for the foreseeable future, or at least until Google alters its algorithm again.

If you’re struggling to keep on top of upcoming updates, algorithm changes and system changes, you should consider working with the experts in link building. When you work with an established link building company like PLB, they will stay on top of the changes in the industry, and you can get back to what you do best: running your business!