Google has steadily been taking out link networks that violate its quality guidelines whenever possible, and Matt Cutts announced on Twitter that they’ve taken care of yet another one. This time it’s the French network Buzzea.
Today we're taking action on a French link network that violates our quality guidelines (Buzzea).
— Matt Cutts (@mattcutts) January 29, 2014
@karthik1990kr thanks. Pretty wild that we've been crystal clear about this behavior since 2005: http://t.co/N8RLKhwFDS
— Matt Cutts (@mattcutts) January 29, 2014
Interestingly, Buzzea’s home page now displays this:
Buzzea put out a press release addressing the situation. Obviously it’s in French, but here’s a snippet from the Google Translated version:
Indeed, Buzzea is an advertising network that sells items before providing any relevant content to users and facilitating navigation through the links they contain, which is characteristic of any item online. It is important to understand that advertisers are not only trying to work through their SEO Buzzea. They wanted above all to improve their image and credibility by taking advantage of the reputation of bloggers recognized in their respective fields and their editorial quality, in the image of traditional sponsorship.
Buzzea The team would like to highlight the fact that we are not the main victim of this decision which will impact on a case by case thousands of publishers removing their perhaps their main source of income, which we deeply regret . It is a sacred step back for a dynamic and passionate blogosphere approached professionalization.
If you are one of the publishers Buzzea is talking about, it’s probably not a good day for your own rankings.
In the ongoing link network battle, Cutts indicated on Twitter that Germany will soon be an area of focus.
Image via Buzzea