Google May Have Penalized Another Major Link Network: Ghost Rank 2.0

Google has significantly penalized another underground link network over the weekend and we believe that one of the link networks targeted by Google is named Ghost Rank 2.0.

A few weeks ago, Matt Cutts, Google’s head of search spam, tweeted “Thinking of ghost-related puns for a spam network. “They try to look super natural, but using them will dampen your spirits.” Then I noticed a nice number of webmasters complaining about a weekend Google update.

From there, I received an anonymous tip from an SEO I trust in the industry that told me at least two link networks were significantly targeted by Google over this past weekend. Digging deeper, I spotted a forum thread at Black Hat World where the manager of the network has admitted to some of their clients being negatively impacted by the links in their network after Google took action this weekend.

Leith in the thread, who appears to be the manager of Ghost Rank 2.0, said, “unfortunately, it looks like you were one of the clients affected from the recent update.” Leith added, “Google is getting more strict with these russian links and that’s why we’re changing things up to better improve the service.”

I received a copy of an email from my source, not specifically confirming or denying this was related to the Ghost Rank 2.0 network, but telling me this came from an underground link network. The email said that Google specifically took actions they’ve never seen before, calling the action “more esoteric in nature” than the previous ones. Here is a copy of that email as a PNG file:

It seems from the complaints in the Black Hat World that a nice number of Ghost Rank 2.0 customers were impacted by some Google action has taken over the weekend.

Here is one of many complaints from a Ghost Rank 2.0 user:

This service wasn’t good at all. I was at 10th and now my site also is gone. Rank only increased to 8 for a few days. Poor me, I fell prey to the reviews. I am at 98th position now.

Google has taken action on underground link networks before. They did so with SAPE links back in March and has continuously targeted paid and link spam over the course of the past couple years.

Google would not comment on this story.

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