Google Webmaster Tools Message regarding unnatural links - how to respond
-
I acquired a small website which was subsequently hit by Google Panda for unnatural links. Since the previous owner was involved in the link building, I'm not sure what to look for. Here's the message I received from Google:
** Message from Google **
"We've reviewed your site and we still see links to your site that violate our quality guidelines.
Specifically, look for possibly artificial or unnatural links pointing to your site that could be intended to manipulate PageRank. Examples of unnatural linking could include buying links to pass pagerank or participating in link schemes.
We encourage you to make changes to comply with our quality guidelines. Once you've made these changes, please submit your site for reconsideration in Google's search results.
If you find unnatural links to your site that you are unable to control or remove, please provide the details in your reconsideration request.
** End Message from Google **
I'm not sure how to locate "unnatural links" when there are so many pointing to the site. For example, are there specific domains I should look for that are known offenders? Or, should I look for sites that are using obvious anchor text that seems orchestrated? Any insights would be appreciated on creating an action plan.
- Jerry
-
Jerry, if it were me, I'd work my way through all the suggestions that Rand suggested over in a recent "White Board Friday"
It might well be that the previous owner had left you more than just the links to clean up and I think this would help you out.
-
You are right that the first port of call should be a link audit and a full analysis of what sites are linking to you and how.
Even though the message above is an automated one and may well have been triggered by "red flag" signals (an algorithmic penalty as opposed to a manual penalty) - you should (in my opinion) - still make a concerted effort to rectify the situation before responding to that message.
There are various tools you can use to analyze back links. If you are a member here I am sure you are familiar on using the tools on this site.
One of the first things I would look at also is what Google is saying about the links to you as detailed in GWT.
The links and anchor information in there are very helpful although the data lags quite a bit.
Still it will give you a good appreciation as to what sites are linking to you and how.
To access this, go into GWT for your site and then click on the menu option on the left that says
"Your Site On the Web" >> "Links to Your Site"
You will get a feel for what sites Google is recognizing as linking to you - which sites have sitewide links to you and the diversity of the anchor text (the text within the links).
This last point (anchor text diversity) is now a bigger point to emphasize than before.
eg: If you see 90% of your inbound links all pointing to one page on the site and all having one term for anchor text (that is not your brand name) - then you can probably guess that this is going to lead to some kind of red flag being raised.
I am not agreeing with that in terms of a methodology..... I think they have really made some miscalculations here in terms of this update.... but I am just pointing out that this may have caused some red flags in their automated unintelligent algo.
Post back and let us know what you find and I will try to assist further if possible.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Link Building
I have a question as competitor made backlinks on longtail keywords and just for one specific post, If I wanna rank in Google SERP, then should I have to do the same strategy as my competitor did. or can I use just my own keywords to get rank?
Link Building | | aamirmurtaza670 -
How much time does it takes for a backlink to get registered in Google? My basketball anime website has been live since start of this week and Google has not registered any backlink.
So my website https://www.animedhfa.com/basketball-anime/ about basketball Anime has shown no changes in DA or backlinks. It has been 5 days perhaps since it went live.
Link Building | | ahmad74750 -
Heavy Weight Backlink not Showing in Google Webmaster Tool
Hi Mozzers I got a nice backlink from Huffingtonpost already a couple of months ago from this page to coinstackr.com: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/25/mt-gox-bitcoin_n_4854095.html However, the link doesn't show in the Google Webmaster Tools. Is that common? Cheers, Chris
Link Building | | Diderino0 -
Why Links from Top Level Domains doesn't Pass Link Equity?
Hello, I have a doubt about Equity-Passing links report of OpensiteExplorer.org According to Sam Weber http://moz.com/community/users/432678 links which pass value from one page to another including followed 301 and Meta refresh links are under Equity-Passing links. I am surprising after looking at the links report generated by opensiteexplorer.org. Most of the article and directory links which have low DA and PA are under Equity-Passing links. Whereas websites like EzineArticle or Articlebase which have good DA and PA are not found in either Equity-passing links or under only nofollow category. Please suggest me if the report of Opensiteexplorer is not good enough or the links from the site like Ezine Article doesn’t pass the link equity. Thanks.
Link Building | | TopLeagueTechnologies0 -
Too many external links vs linking root domains - good or bad?
Hi guys, After the latest Linkscape update, we noticed that our website have 424,671 external links with 4,395 linking root domains, so roughly 100 links/domain. Does Google consider this to be a negative thing or we do not need to worry about it. Many thanks. David
Link Building | | sssrpm0 -
Value of Inbound Links to Pages With a lot of Outbound Links
Suppose you have a resource page of the Top 50 Awesome Sites in your niche. Since there are about 50 outbound links, then I would think there will be less Page Rank being passed to internal pages from internal links on the resource page. Since you are getting less PR passed to internal pages, are there other ways the inbound links can be beneficial, such as increasing the diversity of links of your domain? Sites like SEO Optimise seem to create a lot of Top 30 Resources lists and I have read that they think it is a strong tactic.
Link Building | | SparkplugDigital0 -
Do image links with no alt tags pass link value?
"... an image link with no alt tag is useless to search engines..." according to a Nov 2007 seomoz blog post. Is this still the case in 2011? I ask because I'm about to obtain a banner link on a high-traffic site (chiefly for the clickthrough value) but I notice the site uses neither "title" nor "alt" tags.
Link Building | | Jeepster0 -
SEO MOZ LINK BUILDING TOOLS
So I learnt that in link building you need to send an email to someone from where you want the inbound link coming in from. In this case, are there any tools withing SEO moz that allow you toactually search for links and also provide you the contact email? Thank you, Vijay
Link Building | | vijayvasu0