I agree. This works until it doesn't. (Rap) Genius tried this a few years back, and was killing other lyrics sites until Google got wind of it. They've never really recovered.

https://techcrunch.com/2013/12/25/google-rap-genius/

In my 20 or so manual tries of billboard top 100 songs and some other random ones, Genius is top 1-2 in results, so they might have recovered fine in the SEO sense...

That is a really interesting example. They had the best product by far. Google penalizing them is almost like penalizing its own users because they provide a much better product for lyric searches, in my own opinion. Every other lyric site before them was generally full of spammy ads with no added value, but Genius actually tries to add to the experience. Some songs more than others, but still a world away from the old lyric sites.

Recovered in the financial sense- they recently fired a quarter of their staff:

https://technical.ly/brooklyn/2017/03/16/genius-layoffs-verg...

I do agree that their product is the best by far; they're my go to site for lyrics.

They've not entirely recovered in terms of what comes up in search results, but they're still the go-to for anyone I know who looks up lyrics on a regular basis.

They got a little public slap on the wrist, they recovered just fine after Google removed the manual action.

https://www.semrush.com/info/genius.com+(by+organic)

I mean "recover" in the financial sense, they've recently laid off a quarter of their staff:

http://www.theverge.com/2017/3/15/14924238/rap-genius-web-an...

But you said they never really recovered. There's no way to interpret what you wrote but to suggest they never really recovered from their ranking demotion. Which isn't the case right? Their financial issues go far beyond their google rankings (namely I think Genius hasn't really gotten big with annotations beyond lyrics. Not at their valuation and hype)

Google no longer applies a demotion penalty to a site with spammy links, especially those from negative seo campaigns, but rather devalues the links. This is since the "real time" Penguin update at the end of September. You can still use disavow, but it's likely a waste of time...and if you don't know what you're doing could make things worse.

I haven't head that as far as I know you can still get a manual penalty for a number of issues.

I have had to help clean up one or two sites.

I wonder if the down voters have ever had clear up a manual penalty.

Google said so themselves late last year.

Explain that to the manual "link spam" penalty we got in April ;)

It's only March. How do you know you're going to get a penalty next month?

Question on this- does Google penalize you even if you run a network of actual, honest to goodness quality content sites that link together (think Wirecutter linking to Sweet Home) or is this specifically if you are making crappy, temporary pages that link into your site?

The latter.

You don't accidentally create a PBN. It's more than accidental crappy pages. It's automatically-generated link wheels with spun content and capitalizing on expired domains, etc.

How do you view PBNs in 2017? Would you ever consider purchasing a site that is ranking with a PBN or is it just too risky? I've read conflicting opinions, some saying that if it is done is a silo'd way and the content is not terrible, its not such a big deal.

There is some grey area as it pertains to content farms though. Google has penalized sites for creating a ring of sites that point to a central property, even if the content is hand created, of "okay" quality, etc.

Where has google penalized hand created content sites of okay quality where a ring of them link to a central site? I'd highly doubt that happens if the content truly is of okay quality.

Unless your quoting okay meant that the content is barely okay aka not good at all. Then the links the sites get could be crap too and some other factor could be the reason for the penalty.

One example of the algorithm deciding a site was a "content farm" https://www.labnol.org/internet/blog-as-content-farm/18750/

By "okay", I mean content written by someone in their first language, with intent to be useful. Not necessarily great, but not intentional filler.

Thanks. I was a bit skeptical at first. May have sounded like sort of a dick as a result. But thanks for for the link. Cheers!

Google doesn't penalize sites if it's an honest to goodness quality site link. Just look at how Yahoo! is linking to out to college sports sites, ticket sites, gaming sites, etc. etc..

The problem is that many of the larger "link networks" are controlled by big brands.

I have heard that disavowing is actually not a good practice because you can hurt your own ranking without much benefit (if there isn't a problem).

If you don't know what you're doing then disavowing can hurt rankings.

But if you know what you're doing, disavow is awesome. It works.

seconded disavow is a powerful tool but not to be used lightly

Disavowing definitely hurt my website. I disavowed a handful of the most spammy links and I dropped from the consistently 2nd search result to 4th quickly. I "un-disavowed" and now back to 3rd.

Problem for me was I didn't know if I was getting hurt by the spammy links or not. You don't know if you have a problem or not.

True if there isn't a problem. But most sites nowadays have problems.

The tricky part is links that look spammy to you can be viewed by Google as legitimate. So as a practice I only disavow the spammiest of spammy links.

Thanks!