Dealing with Penguin: Changing URL instead of removing links
-
I have some links pointing to categories from article directories, web directories, and a few blogs. We are talking about 20-30 links in total. They are less than 5% of the links to my site (counting unique domains).
I either haven't been able to make contact with webmasters, or they are asking money to remove the links.
If I simply rename the URL (for example changing mysite.com/t-shirt.html to mysite.com/tshirts.html), will that resolve any penguin issues?
The link will forward to the homepage since that page no longer exists.
I really want to avoid using the disavow tool if possible.
I appreciate the feedback. If you have actually done this, please share your experience.
-
Hi, no I haven't needed to, so to be fair to you (which doesn't come across in my original reply to you - apologies), you are right to be cautious.
My thinking, based on what you said "I either haven't been able to make contact with webmasters, or they are asking money to remove the links", was that if you have done those things then you have done what Google asks in trying to mitigate the issues. In other words, you have demonstrated you have tried to do the right thing.
In that case, then disavow is an option for you, but maybe, in hindsight, with 20-30 links affected that represent <5% of your backlinks, then you should do nothing and concentrate on further offsetting their impact by growing more good links.
What I wouldn't do is pay for them to be removed. IMHO, for sites that are trying to earn money from holding sites to ransom then that only encourages more sites to ransom. If the site is asking for payment as a sort of "administration fee" (which I still think is unreasonable) then maybe ask them one more time. If the links are genuinely bad and the host site(s) have more than just yours, then they are endangering their own site by keeping them.
I hope that helps.
Peter
-
Have you used the disavow tool before?
If so, how many links and what was your experience?
-
Have you used the disavow tool before?
If so, how many links and what was your experience?
-
Honestly, the ones that you can pay to remove, pay them and be done with it. There's a lot of companies that were out there and still exist before Google's disavow tool even existed. Worst case scenario, just submit a reconsideration request after you have done what you can and move on. Spend your time and money building new content and enhancing existing content and whatever else is part of your online marketing strategy. I wouldn't worry about these 15-20 links out there. Don't let those 15-20 crappy links haunt you. You did your best in trying to remove them.
Also, if you were to change your URL, it will technically work for your URL, but not for your domain. As others said, the links will not point the benefit to your tshirts.html page but will to your domain name. Also, the redirect in case you delete the page and redirect to the homepage will actually hurt your homepage. So I would let it be a 404 if that's the route you'd prefer.
-
Changing the URL doesn't remove the link to your domain and if Google has previously identified it as a spammy link they will know from their site cache that the link previously went to another URL, so I don't think you are going to disavow your site of anything by doing that.
Is there a reason you don't want to use the Disavow tool? With only 20-30 links affected it will take no time to put them into a text file and submit them to Google.
Peter
-
Sorry it will not change things for you.
Two scenarios.
First if you delete the old page it will still remain in the index but it will be 404(not found) page.The link juice will exists.
Second if you do not delete this page rather redirects it to new page the link juice still exists.
You have to disavow the URL with have low quality inbound links.
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
-
If you do 302 redirect then change to 301 redirect do you lose all link juice?
Hello everyone, I was wondering if you could help me with understanding the following story: A website has been moved from its HTTP version to a HTTPS version. The SEO manager has advised developers that they needed to do 301 redirects. However, in the end, 302 redirects have been put in place instead. Now, 301s should be put in place ASAP. The million dollar question is: has the website lost all of its link juice already given the nature of the redirects? Also, does it depend on whether Google has indexed the new 302 pages or does it depend on something else? Many thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MarketingGH0 -
Domain.com/old-url to domain.com/new-url
HI, I have to change old url`s to new one, for the same domain and all landing pages will be the same: domain.com/old-url I have to change to: domain.com/new-url All together more than 70.000 url. What is best way to do that? should I use 301st redirect? is it possible to do in code or how? what could you please suggest? Thank you, Edgars
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Edzjus3330 -
350 (Out the 750) Internal Links Listed by Webmaster Tools Dynamically Generated-Best to Remove?
Greetings MOZ Community: When visitors enter real estate search parameters in our commercial real estate web site, the parameters are somehow getting indexed as internal links in Google Webmaster Tools. About half are 700 internal links are derived from these dynamic URLs. It seems to me that these dynamic alphanumeric URL links would dilute the value of the remaining static links. Are the dynamic URLs a major issue? Are they high priority to remove? The dynamic URLs look like this: /listings/search?fsrepw-search-neighborhood%5B%5D=m_0&fsrepw-search-sq-ft%5B%5D=1&fsrepw-search-price-range%5B%5D=4&fsrepw-search-type-of-space%5B%5D=0&fsrepw-search-lease-type=1 These URLs do not show up when a SITE: URL search is done on Google!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingalan10 -
Does changing Anchor text of old built links raise a red flag in Google?
I have lot of links (10000+) built against Exact match anchor text so what is solution to that now? Other than disavowing them all, May I change the anchor text of those links (From Exact Match To Brand Name or naked URL)? Does Google have algorithms to detect anchor text changes and if so, do those algorithms detect these sorts of changes and raise a red flag on sites doing it. I respect your opinions but please only comment if you are sure about it because I am already facing a penalty so can't afford to get another.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Ishrat-Khan1 -
Will Canonical tag on parameter URLs remove those URL's from Index, and preserve link juice?
My website has 43,000 pages indexed by Google. Almost all of these pages are URLs that have parameters in them, creating duplicate content. I have external links pointing to those URLs that have parameters in them. If I add the canonical tag to these parameter URLs, will that remove those pages from the Google index, or do I need to do something more to remove those pages from the index? Ex: www.website.com/boats/show/tuna-fishing/?TID=shkfsvdi_dc%ficol (has link pointing here)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | partnerf
www.website.com/boats/show/tuna-fishing/ (canonical URL) Thanks for your help. Rob0 -
How to deal with old, indexed hashbang URLs?
I inherited a site that used to be in Flash and used hashbang URLs (i.e. www.example.com/#!page-name-here). We're now off of Flash and have a "normal" URL structure that looks something like this: www.example.com/page-name-here Here's the problem: Google still has thousands of the old hashbang (#!) URLs in its index. These URLs still work because the web server doesn't actually read anything that comes after the hash. So, when the web server sees this URL www.example.com/#!page-name-here, it basically renders this page www.example.com/# while keeping the full URL structure intact (www.example.com/#!page-name-here). Hopefully, that makes sense. So, in Google you'll see this URL indexed (www.example.com/#!page-name-here), but if you click it you essentially are taken to our homepage content (even though the URL isn't exactly the canonical homepage URL...which s/b www.example.com/). My big fear here is a duplicate content penalty for our homepage. Essentially, I'm afraid that Google is seeing thousands of versions of our homepage. Even though the hashbang URLs are different, the content (ie. title, meta descrip, page content) is exactly the same for all of them. Obviously, this is a typical SEO no-no. And, I've recently seen the homepage drop like a rock for a search of our brand name which has ranked #1 for months. Now, admittedly we've made a bunch of changes during this whole site migration, but this #! URL problem just bothers me. I think it could be a major cause of our homepage tanking for brand queries. So, why not just 301 redirect all of the #! URLs? Well, the server won't accept traditional 301s for the #! URLs because the # seems to screw everything up (server doesn't acknowledge what comes after the #). I "think" our only option here is to try and add some 301 redirects via Javascript. Yeah, I know that spiders have a love/hate (well, mostly hate) relationship w/ Javascript, but I think that's our only resort.....unless, someone here has a better way? If you've dealt with hashbang URLs before, I'd LOVE to hear your advice on how to deal w/ this issue. Best, -G
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Celts180 -
How to handle link building to product pages that change regularly?
How do I handle building links to an eCommerce site where the product pages change regularly because product is only available for a certain time frame? Should I focus on building links to the category pages instead?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mj7750 -
How to keep the link juice in E-commerce to an "out of stock" products URL?
I am running an e-commerce business where I sell fashion jewelry. We usually have 500 products to offer and some of them we have only one in stock. What happens is that many of our back links are pointed directly to a specific product, and when a product is sold out and no longer is in stock the URL becomes inactive, and we lose the link juice. What is the best practice or tool to 301-redirect many URLs at the same time without going and changing one URL at a time? Do you have any other suggestions on how to manage an out of stock product but still maintain the link juice from the back link? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ikomorin0