When Was the Last Time You Saw a Manual Penalty for Links?

[JoyHawkins]

It's been ages since I've seen a manual penalty for links. How often do you guys see it happen, and what is the threshold? I know of so many businesses that are buying links at scale (mostly PBNs + guest posting) and I was curious to see if you're still seeing penalties given out for it.

 

[Joey Abna]

I have wondered about this as well. Haven't heard anyone talking about link penalties much anymore. Makes me wonder if Google just ignores these links that would normally generate a penalty. That way they keep us in the dark not knowing.

 

[keyserholiday]

I haven’t seen or heard of one in a long time. I feel that Google typically ignores spammy and low quality links. John Mu advises people not to disavow unless they specifically have been buying links or have a penalty.

 

[Adam Di Frisco]

We had a company come to us a few weeks ago that straight up said they had hired a blackhat agency with their marketing team knowing very well what spammy link building was and the risk. Like obvious, laughable spammy link building in the span of weeks across multiple domains. After the initial uptick they tanked update after update. Never got a manual penalty. If that didn't trigger it I don't see what could honestly.