Kenichi Suzuki notified me via Google+ that Google has updated the link schemes guideline page. Specifically making the widget links section more specific and less general.

Now it reads:

Yesterday is read:

The example was the same, here are screen shots if you do not believe me:

New:

Old:

As you can see, Google stopped saying any links and now is specifically saying keyword-rich or hidden or low-quality links within widgets are against Google guidelines.

Matt Cutts, Google’s head of search spam, said in August of last year to nofollow links in widgets in this video:

So I guess Google backed down a bit on this by being more specific on the type of links in the widgets.

Forum discussion at Google+.

Update: So what is the real reason for the change?