IndustryMatt Cutts Isn’t Amused by This Guy Selling Links on Twitter

Matt Cutts Isn't Amused by This Guy Selling Links on Twitter

"Vince", a self-proclaimed SEO, took his link selling into a very public forum, Twitter, where anyone from Google’s spam team could (and did) see his tweets to various companies, including T-Mobile. You must see Matt Cutts' hilarious response.

It has been nearly 2 years since iAcquire was penalized by Google for participating in link buying schemes for their clients. At the time it was pretty significant because it was an SEO agency that had been banned for work they did for the clients, rather than work they did specifically for their own site.

However, iAcquire’s name has once again been linked to link buying, this time with a tweet from a former client who was selling links to iAcquire, a tweet that Google’s chief spam fighter Matt Cutts happened to notice and respond to.

“Vince” from Web Design Library has been tweeting multiple companies about renewing their link buys that were expiring on the WebDesign.org website. The link seem to have been sold initially by iAcquire, but appear to no longer be doing so, as the company is performing the outreach to the individual link buyers.

This was one of the pages in question that was being used to sell links.

Search Engine Roundtable grabbed a screenshot of the entire conversation between “Vince” and T-Mobile before T-Mobile deleted the tweets:

Trying to Renew Paid Links via Twitter

As a self-proclaimed SEO, you really have to wonder why he is taking his link selling into such a public forum, where anyone from Google’s spam team could (and did) see his tweets.

“Vince” has placed on Twitter not only a page he is selling links on, but also the names of all those people and websites whom iAcquire was presumably selling links for as well. What is even more curious is the fact that the link seller hasn’t deleted any of the offending tweets since Cutts (and many others) have commented on it.

It also caught the notice of Brian White, another member of the webspam team, who mocked the link seller along with a clever photo of himself using an Android cookie jar like a batphone.

Has Web Design Library been penalized? It now appears so, five days after Cutts’ tweeted his response, though that wasn’t the case just yesterday.

After ranking 8th on a search for [web design] yesterday, now the site is ranked 48th, Search Engine Land reported. And it no longer ranks first when you search for Web Design Library.

Google has been treating both link buyers and link sellers harshly of late, including cracking down on numerous link networks.

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