Are you guilty of spammy tactics on your website? If so, gird your loins because Bing just released a new set of link penalties. These will go after websites that are using manipulative cross-site linking, PBNs, and leased subdomains. The latest penalty updates from the second largest search engine is an effort to make the platform a better place for website owners.

Over the past years, Bing has been releasing a series of updates. Before these new link penalties, they marked the sanctions for violations in their inorganic site structure as well as fixes for cache bugs.

But is your website one of the violators of the link guidelines? Here are the things you need to know:

Private Blog Networks aren’t accepted

Private Blog Networks are notorious among website owners, but Bing is set to penalize this tactic. PBNs abuse the boundaries of the domain by splitting the site into different domains. Through this, a website can gain SEO advantage.

Websites that are using this method will be penalized. Worse, their rankings will be affected and they will lose revenue. Nevertheless, Bing is doing this for fairness, especially for new sites that just got live.

Manipulative site linking is a no-no

Websites need backlinks in order to establish positive signals for search engines. However, some site owners manipulate this by creating multiple websites and cross-linking within its pages. This is one of the practices that Bing aims to sanction.

Manipulative cross-site linking gives site owners an unfair advantage. It also interrupts the natural process of building website integrity and rankings.

As much as you want your site to rank up, you should never resort to these shady tactics. In the long run, Bing will catch you and impose heavy penalties that will impact your website’s revenue.

Subdomain leasing will be penalized

Another tactic that website owners use is renting a subdomain from an established website. Through this, they can enjoy an excellent online presence even for a newly created website. This is possible since the SEO advantage will trickle down to the subdomains or subfolders of the mother domain.

This is a spammy method that will be penalized under the new link penalties of Bing. Subdomain leasing is like a cheat to get around the SEO guidelines of the search engine. If Bing discovers that your website is guilty of this practice, you will face sanctions that will have an adverse impact on your ranking.

Will it affect my website?

If you’re using the aforementioned methods, then expect that Bing will penalize your website in no time. You can get away with it for the next months, but as the crawlers advance, they will find your website and apply the necessary sanctions.

This spells trouble for your website. If your website violates multiple guidelines of Bing, you will experience drastic changes in ranking and revenue.

Final words

Although Bing just comes second to Google, it’s still a valuable traffic source. As much as possible, use only acceptable SEO methods to prevent any penalties. Besides, playing by the rules will keep you safe from any problems.