Google has penalised a link network in Japan.
The link network was using black hat SEO tactics, such as buying and selling links, to try to artificially inflate websites' trust factors and PageRank in order to rank higher in the Google search results.
Such practices go against Google's Webmaster Guidelines and as such the link network has been hit by a penalty that reduces its SEO ranking, thereby making it unappealing to potential link buyers.
This is the first time since late 2014 that Google has announced that it has penalised a link network, when the search engine found a similar network in Poland.
Google has cautioned webmasters who subcontract their SEO efforts to check that their subcontractors are only using white hat SEO techniques.Â
