brands, Google asks you to use the rel=”nofollow” or rel=”sponsored” attribute (it is recommended to add information regarding the affiliate commission).
Below we show you a case of a penalty even though the page showed that the products were a promotion (the links, however, were dofollow.)
Google Penalties - Direct Ads
Tips to avoid penalties:
Set rel=”nofollow” or rel=”sponsored” attributes.
Tips to remove a penalty:
Disavow or remove any nofollow or sponsored attributes that are not working.
Business directories and link aggregators
Case frequency: 10%
Don't get us wrong: not all directories are bad.
What is striking about this case is that there was not a single popular directory among those we examined, but they were all of low quality.
Therefore, if you have included your website in directories that fall into this category, remove these links (or disavow them if you cannot remove them).
Google Penalties - News Directories and Aggregators
Links in widgets
Case frequency: 7%
Google Penalties - Links in Widgets
The rule is simple, if you allow third party sites to publish widgets with embedded code on your website, always add the rel=”nofollow” attribute and if you can’t get it to say nofollow, disavow them.
The only exceptions we've found are links that point to a related content page (for example, rating widgets that point to a specific company or user-related section of your site).
Also, some free widgets you can use on your site require you to link to it with a nofollow attribute, so keep that in mind.
Hidden links
Case frequency: 4%
Google Penalties - Hidden Links
You will only be penalized if you deliberately use a hidden link strategy.
The cases we encountered typically had links disguised as plain text.
Tips to avoid penalties:
Make links visible and set the rel=”nofollow” attribute.
Request that the hidden link be removed.
Disavow the link if your request was unsuccessful.
Links throughout the site