Considering the credibility that the BBC holds when it comes to news stories and current affair, it is no surprise that thousands of websites link to their articles and attempt to gain a small piece of this credibility. However it would appear that Google are surprised by this, with their algorithm failing to take these factors into account.
A recent post on Google’s product forum, from a BBC representative, revealed that the broadcaster has received a “notice of detected unnatural links”. There can be only question to ask here and it is does Google really believe that the BBC are conducting link building and that they even need to try to procure links?
A fellow forum member reassured the BBC representative that it was simply a case of the algorithm being over-sensitive, yet surely Google must find a way to factor this into their algorithm and prevent similar issues in the future. Otherwise credible sites will be punished for the simple fact that they produce high quality content and this could alter their willingness for others to share their content.
Despite the fact that a Google representative stated that these unnatural links were related to a single article on the site and not effecting other parts of the site, it is unlikely to have left those at the BBC impressed by Google’s actions. What are your views on this?
