Google reminds webmasters that widget links are against their webmaster guidelines

Don’t be surprised if a new wave of unnatural link penalties are sent out via the Google Search Console for widget links.

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Google issued a stern warning this morning on the Google Webmaster Blog saying that they are reminding webmasters that links within widgets can be against their webmaster guidelines.

Googlers, Agnieszka Łata, Trust & Safety Search Team and Eric Kuan, Webmaster Relations Specialist wrote ā€œwe would like to reiterate our policy on the creation of keyword-rich, hidden or low-quality links embedded in widgets that are distributed across various sites.ā€ Google shared that while many widgets can enhance your web site experience, ā€œsome widgets add links to a site that a webmaster did not editorially place and contain anchor text that the webmaster does not control.ā€ Google explained ā€œbecause these links are not naturally placed, they’re considered a violation of Google Webmaster Guidelines.ā€

Google is reminding widget makers to remove the links from their widgets are add the rel=ā€nofollowā€ attribute to the links. If they do not, Google said the ā€œwebspam team may take manual actions on unnatural links.ā€ If you do get a manual action for this, Google said you need to remove the links or add the rel=ā€nofollowā€ before submitting a reconsideration request.

Additionally, those that embed these widgets on their site should ā€œadd a rel=ā€nofollowā€ attribute on those unnatural links or remove the links entirely from the widget,ā€ Google said later on in their blog post.

Google did add three examples of widget links that are against the Google guidelines:

I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a wave of new manual actions for unnatural links in the near future.