Manual penalties suck. I think we can all agree to that. The only real unfortunate issue is that there are too many site owners whose businesses and sites are suffering because of these penalties.
One of the parts that can be real thorn in your side is if one of the “problematic links” that Google has an issue with is one of the best links that ends up converting the most traffic.
There can even be some “sketchy” links, but they were given editorially.
Some examples that Julie Joyce has given in this type of scenario are some of the pages linking to a site of hers that is getting identified as “dangerous” inbound links:
There can be problems when some of your highest converting links get flagged by Google, and the worst part of it is that it’s not a person flagging the “offending” page, it’s merely a tool.
A question posed by Julie is this:
“So, what do you do when Google flags a valuable inbound link as a spammy one?” You can either screw your users, or forsake the value of Google all together. Either way, the choice can suck. So what do you do?
In her post on Search Engine Land, Julie points out a few issues with the view point that all user-generated links are good links. To check out her post, just follow the link below!
Search Engine Land: Naturally Generated Links? Hey, Google Might Still Hate Them!