Looks like a bunch of blackhaters and link networks got beaten by google and Matt Cutts sometime ago. But how fast will they be back up in different clothing ? News from here http://www.ereviewguide.com/news/2013/09/27/google-gets-serious-about-ghost-seo/ I think it's a good approach if it will help the good guys rank who follows the rules and work like they are supposed to. Any good guys here that already see value from this?
Draxima, I have read one paragraph from that URL, "Overall, this should not really be a surprise. Google has been saying along that they are going to continuously target networks that accept payment for back links and outright link spam." For this i have question, still there are many peoples are buying links and article post on high quality links, so how Google will found those buyer or seller? And if all will stop buying links or article post then how they rank in Google? The website owner where people are buying links, those sites are already good that's why advertiser/SEO are paying to them for link placement, so is it good method? Because without payment publisher will not post link or article in their site So if all will stop buying links or article then how they get links on good quality sites?
Lots of webmasters are still getting away with building links the bad way. To answer your question how google will find those bad links, well they have a complex algorithm in place. They wont find all but their updates against spam and bad links and bad content through penguin and panda updates is just a further but hopefully better step to get rid of the serious spam activities. The best way to build links is by someone linking to your page or website because it's good, something that has value to the site it was linked from. That's called natural link building. However, this is something google is stating (they want you to do that), not me but not everyone in the world would be able to do that because the competition on the internet has gone up quite heavily. What I mean is how would someone with a very very thin budget, create something that would be valuable to todays savvy internet users ? Therefor webmasters from 3rd world countries usually engage in blackhat and various spam activities or through link networks but others do as well.
Really, this is news? What do you think they were trying to accomplish with the Panda/Penguin updates?