When it comes to Google and they’re algorithms and penalties, nobody is immune to them. Ironically, a warning was sent to Scott Wyden, who is a Moz contributor, via his Google Webmaster Tools. What was the violation? Links. This is part of where the irony comes in.
One of the links that Google mentioned within the email that Scott received was called Build Relationships Not Links. That is certainly irony at its best. But what would cause Google to feel that that article was in violation of the Google Quality Guidelines? Simply because it was a guest article. That’s the reason given in Scott’s email.
But does this really mean anything? Is there any real violation? For Moz, no there isn’t. Rand Fishkin wrote a post on Moz in Scott’s defense saying that his post clearly doesn’t violate anything on Google’s guidelines.
Rand states in his post that
“Scott’s link from the YouMoz post was absolutely editorial. Our content team reviews every YouMoz submission. We reject the vast majority of them. We publish only those that are of value and interest to our community. And we check every frickin’ link.”
Rand is not only in support of Scott getting his warning revoked about his YouMoz article, but is also in support of him getting his link back to his other sites that where found wanting by Google.
To read more about Rand’s post and Scott’s situation with his Google warning, you can hop on over to Moz.com, or you can follow the link below directly to the Moz post.
Moz Blog: Dear Google, Links from YouMoz Don’t Violate Your Quality Guidelines