Disavow links from legit sites but have spammy link profiles?
-
I'm currently doing a backlink audit for our site with a LOT of backlinks.
Some of the linking sites are legitimate business websites in our industry who have linked to us for a totally legitimate reason (we have good content!). However, these businesses themselves have a spammy backlink profile—that is, the only sites linking to that site are obvious link farm sites.
Here is an illustration:
spammyseolinks.com; payforseo.xyz; blackhat.ru ==all link to==> legitbusiness.com ==links to==> mysite.com
Should I disavow this backlink? I guess it's not really giving me much SEO worth since it surely been branded a spammy junk domain, but then again, it's a real website that we've earned a link from because we're doing stuff the right way. Is it hurting or helping me?
-
In my opinion those links have less "strenght" than from websites with better link profile. The question is what are the anchors, content around, other footprints?
If they're good, not spammy, good anchors, content around, no footprints, etc etc then keep.
However links on websites with high pa or da won't make them good everytime. They can be spammy and you can be penalized.
-
So just to clarify - the linking websites are legitimate however these 'legitimate' sites have questionable link profiles?
If this is the case i would keep these links, why disavow a legitimate link from a legitimate website?
i would also argue that Domain authority and page authority are only indicators, if the link is relevant then these metrics shouldn't really matter
Just my opinion
-
I have to back Bernadette.
If you find, by your own ways, that those links are spammy, why would you want to keep them?. Disavow them! -
Godard, that's a good question. What I recommend is that you look at each link individually and determine if that link has been created naturally or in a spammy way. If it's a legitimate link, on a real business's website, then the link should be okay. But, if the link was created in order to try to manipulate Google's rankings then you should disavow it.
Many sites get links just because they're ranking well--and that's typical. It doesn't mean that you necessarily have to disavow them or try go get them removed.
If you are using Moz's Open Site Explorer to see the Domain Authority and Page Authority of the site linking to you, then that would be a way to judge the quality of the site linking to you. If the site linking to you is, in fact, very low quality because it doesn't have a lot of good links pointing to it, then the site's Domain Authority and Page Authority will be low.
When disavowing and working on getting links removed, take a look at Google's Webmaster Guidelines and keep them in mind--if the link wouldn't pass their guidelines, then you should disavow it.
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
-
Can piracy sites linking to you hurt your SEO?
Hello, Our website sells software that we have developed, but there are piracy websites that offer a crack/keygen to our software and are linking to our site. From an SEO perspective, are those sites hurtful to us if their spam score is below 30 and their DA is not 1? We'd like to understand if there is any action we need to take from an SEO point or if our site's SEO is not affected by it. Thank you!
Link Building | | marynau0 -
Unnatural Links To Your Site — Impacts Links warning, Should I do something?
Hi, I got: "Unnatural Links To Your Site — Impacts Links Google has detected a pattern of unnatural artificial, deceptive, or manipulative links pointing to pages on this site. Some links may be outside of the webmaster’s control, so for this incident we are taking targeted action on the unnatural links instead of on the site’s ranking as a whole. " I don't see any dropping at rankings, could the best solution here to be, just to leave everything as it is and be more careful with the link building in the future? Or is there a danger that Google gives further penalties if I don't act on this one do something? I am little afraid that if I start removing links, my rankings will drop, even though they have remained same if don't do anything? Any help is appreciated.
Link Building | | pok3rplay3r0 -
Is it possible to un-disavow a link if we later decide that it isnt spammy / undesirable ?
Is it possible to un-disavow a link if we later decide that it isnt spammy / undesirable ? (i know best practice is to get it right first time, but worst comes to worst is it undo able ?)
Link Building | | jpeg800 -
Can a feeder site link directly to the main site?
I have a client that has several coupons sites. They have about 15 different URLS all of which are [city]deals.com all of the domains have coupons lists that are relevant to that area. Other than the coupons there is not any other content on the sites. There is a Main site however, that has coupons, content, store locations, blogs, news etc... The coupons on the feeder sites are displayed differently than what is displayed on the main site. They are also categorized differently. So the question is on the feeder sites can they have the coupon link directly to the store page on the main site?
Link Building | | Firestarter-SEO0 -
Header and Footer Links on Home and other catelog pages of site
Hello, in our site www.mycarhelpline.com - we have just reworked on header and footer links. Have removed lost of unncessary footer links. However, the header links on extreme top right side has some links like - login, register, about us, partner with us etc. Is is that google will give importance to these links and i rather should move them to footer links of page and should move the most important anchor links on the top header. Pl suggest
Link Building | | Modi0 -
Does a hashtag link pass the same amount of link juice as a link without a hashtag?
Example 1: link to: http://www.domain.com/#something-inside-the-page Example 2: link to: http://www.domain.com/
Link Building | | adriandg0 -
Interesting link to a competitors site
I recently found a very interesting link to two of my competitors sites. The companies are number 2 and 3 in Google for my targeted keywords (for some reason Wikipedia is number 1) and are both linked from the home page of this site. I don't want to leave a link for linkers site because I don't want them to be able to see that I'm snooping on them but, here is the scenerio: The site that they are linked from is a .org site. It is basically our targeted keywords in a .org. Something like bluewidgets.org. At the very bottom of the home page are some tabs, you click the first tab and it opens about 20 new tabs, when you click any of those 20 tabs it displays some text at the bottom of the page. This text is of no value to visitors, it is obvious to me what is happening here. Both companies are linked with targeted keywords in the anchor and title text. I'm wondering if I should also pursue a link from this page. I know there is value in a .org link but this site seems to be built to link to those two sites. Anybody else ever run into anything like I'm describing. Should I post a link to this site?
Link Building | | TRICORSystems0