Fishy Links – How Do We Tell if a Link is Fishy?

Written by: Gary Horsman

What is a Fishy Link?

Penguin is a new version of the Google algorithm. It is intended to sniff out and then trash “fishy” links. This begs an important question. How does Google define a fishy link? How will Penguin catch these smelly fishy links?

I want to help you to understand what is the thinking behind a fishy link.

Here are some concepts:

• If you have too many unnatural or spammy inbound links pointing only to your home page then this is cause for concern. Have the links point to multiple relevant pages as much as possible.
• If all of your links a perfectly worded exact match text links then this may not look natural. Be careful overdoing it with exact keyword phrase links all going to the same page. Gain some non-keyword phrase in-coming links.
  If your have a large portion of your links coming from the comment sections of blogs or forums. Get links from a variety of sources.
• If you have a large number of links from the same IP address with the same keyword phrase. Get as many links as possible from as many relevant sources as possible.
• If a large percentage of your links come from low quality sites. Get as many high-quality sites to link to you as you can.
• If a large portion of your links are from low quality directories. Again, establish variety in your link network.
• If you have links from link farms and get caught then this is trouble. Just don’t do it.
• If you have too many unnatural footer links then this could be considered fishy. Avoid SEO companies that employ this kind of link building.

Beyond this Penguin wants to see links built up over time. If it detects a large number over a fairly short time frame then it may pay closer attention and if you violate a few of the above items then with the extra scrutiny your search position may not improve.