BrightEdge: 25 Percent Of Companies Audited Had Illegitimate Backlinks To Their Sites

In the wake of JC Penney's link farming issue on Google, SEO firm BrightEdge released to a free auditing tool that tells brands about the quality of the backlinks to their sites and whether they may be at risk from paid links and link farms. It's been over two weeks since the tool was released and BrighEdge has analyzed audits for more than 1,000 brands. BrightEdge reports that the "improper black hat SEO tactics" are much more widespread than you would think. While BrightEdge is keeping the names of brands surveyed anonymous, the SEO firm said that a quarter of all brands surveyed probably have these back link issues. Most companies have no clue this is being done because outside contractors are hired to do SEO work.

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