Your Rankings Drop Around May 15th? May Be Due To Link Networks Google Busted

On May 15th, Google's head of search spam, announced on Twitter that Google has taken "action on several thousand linksellers in a paid-link that passes PageRank network."

Google has done this time and time again, and we covered at least two previous cases of this. We do not know which link network - some are asking if SAPE links was hit again, but others are asking about a network named ghost. I am not sure. It seems like it may be several smaller networks.

One thing for sure is that around May 15th, many webmasters started to complain about ranking drops in WebmasterWorld. Here are some quotes:

Also, seeing a significant drop in ranks for a different domain I mentioned in another thread that I was using to test junk links. It's possible we could be seeing a penguin update.

I am also seeing a decent drop on the 14th which seems to be continuing today.

The complaints go on and on.

I am trying to figure out which network(s) were hit but I can't seem to nail it down to any specific one.

The Black Hat World forums are talking about it but no one is mentioning anything specific and concrete outside of some guesses.

Do you know which link network(s) were hit?

Forum discussion at Black Hat World & WebmasterWorld.

Update: We have a statement from ghost network about this:

How to Beat The Google Penguin Update

How to Beat The Google Penguin Update

Did the recent Google Penguin update affect you website or online business negatively? Whether you experienced a dip in traffic and or loss of productivity, you can do several things to remedy the situation. Consider the following two guidelines on how to beat Google Penguin update:

Site Reputation

With the recent Penguin update, Google introduce a new reward system that depicts how websites rank in its search results. Websites that are of high quality, and improve the experience of web enthusiasts, rank higher in its results and as such, benefit from its high organic traffic. In view of this fact, the first thing that you should do, to beat the Google Penguin update is to improve the reputation of your site or e-commerce establishment. This is not as hard as it sounds. Consider the following two tips to increase your chances of success:

Tip 1: Publish Unique Content