Polish link networks penalized (again)

July 2nd was quite eventful in Poland. Nobody was sure of what was happening, and most people were connecting all the manual penalties with the upcoming Penguin 3.0. I wasn’t too sure, though, so I asked at the source.

After our Selfie for Matt Cutts contest and Matt’s reply, I had a good feeling about Matt answering me.

So I asked away…

So it is confirmed then, all the penalties were targeted towards Polish link networks. Now the question arises – HOW MANY?

How many link networks were penalized?

Now, this in itself raises some questions. The information I got from many of my Polish SEO friends is that many more than two networks were targeted.

Where is the confusion from?

I don’t think that Karolina was actually trying to confuse anybody. I think they are dividing the link networks into Static and Dynamic, something that I believe can only be seen in Poland.

I’ve explained how Polish link networks work on our SEO blog. Therefore I am not going to explain that again. Instead, I will focus on the

Dynamic/rotation networks

A simple solution, yet unique to Poland alone. Websites with links in the footer that change each time you refresh a site. As an example, check out the main page of the biggest network in Poland – www.e-weblink.com

When you hit F5 or refresh the site, all those links change. This way, each time a Google Bot visits the site, the links change.

Static networks

Exactly like the example above, but the links stay the same as long as you are paying for those with points.

Conclusion

In my opinion, Karolina’s response to the Polish Google meant that they took action towards two network types more than only two networks, as at least five networks I know were hit.

BTW, Barry Schwartz was kind enough to mention my input into this case on SearchEngineLand and SERoundtable. You can see it here:

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-poland-link-network-penalty-18795.html

https://searchengineland.com/google-hits-poland-link-network-penalties-195740