Spam Sites Still Ranking in August 2018

Hi guys,

Just been looking at some of my competitors backlink profile on AHREFS and they are ranking purely on spam. For example, 2000 domains and 64'000 backlinks which are largely comments. I know that they could be cloaking links but for the sake of argument lets say that they are not. I am filled with admiration and pissed off at the same time (a better word may be jealous lol).

Do you guys think this has anything to do with the recent Google update or do you think that there is always just going to be an exception to the rule that always slips past the algorithm?

I suppose that they could always get manually checked over the next month and removed but I was just interested in sounding everybody out.

Thoughts?

What's your niche? It seems that the recent updates are only targeting health niches. Other niches doesn't seem to be that affected.

Ph03nixx said:

do you think that there is always just going to be an exception to the rule that always slips past the algorithm?

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There are always sites that pass through the cracks, but it also depends on the niche and type of query. Some IM niches will have spam, some general knowledge niches may have no spam. Spam is mostly for money terms. So not all queries are made equal.

hippo123 said:

What's your niche? It seems that the recent updates are only targeting health niches. Other niches doesn't seem to be that affected.

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Yeah, I am targeting the health niche as well so that may explain it. Don't get me wrong, they aren't all spam sites but I have noticed a marked increase since the update was released. Ill keep an eye on rankings over the next few weeks and see what changes occur with the SERPs.