Any recent discoveries or observations on the "Official Line" of incoming link penalization?
-
I know this is always a contentious issue and that the official, or shall we say semi-official line is that you can't be penalized for incoming links, as you can't control who links to you (aside of course from link buying, and other stuff that Google feels it can work out).
I was wondering if anyone had any recent discoveries or observations on this?
Obviously there's the problem that is usually brought up where you could damage a competitor buy link building to them with spammy links, etc... hence the half denial of it being an issue... but has anyone seen or hear anything on it recently, or experienced something relevant?
-
There definitely are and have been for a long time... I was one of them for a while, I linked spammed with software to get sites up. That is until I realized what proper SEO was, and how much better it is, especially in the long term. That's just the problem though... it did work to a certain extent, but it came with its problems.
-
Actually, this makes a lot of sense. Probly there are many spammers doing this already?
-
Yeah that's pretty cool, but still leaves that same question hanging there though... does link spam in fact work well, and if so, what are Google going to do about it... because inevitably is something works, it will get used.
-
Ah cool, thanks Dejan. I didn't realise they'd started being so much more open about it all. All the stuff I ever found tended to go around the questions rather than actually answer them lol.
I don't get how the algo could tell the difference though, between if I went out and built a whole bunch of spammy links to my own site or to somebody elses, so surely the resulting rankings from doing that would be the same. Meaning, if the competitors get a boost like that... link spam is worth doing on your own site, and then you could just submit a re-inclusion if you got caught and blame it on sabotage.
-
I read an anecdotal account on a less than savory SEO-related site in the last week or so about someone who blasted a competitor's site with spammy links, and they said they noticed a drop in the competitors SERP rankings...but that within a week the competitor was actually back on the first page, and ranking higher than they were before.
Obviously there are a million variables that could affected that outcome, but I enjoyed reading it knowing that the person trying to sabotage their competitor actually ended up further "behind," when they could have spent their time doing something constructive for their own site.
-
There is absolutely no mystery about whether inbound links can harm you or not. Apparently Google is very good at determining whether it was you buying links or somebody trying to sabotage you. I had a chat with Tiffany from Google's web spam team at SMX in Sydney and she said that there has been no cases when they got it wrong when they issue penalties.
I have a different theory however. To get penalised you need to demonstrate consistent link buying pattern over time. What typically happens is that SEO people buy high PageRank links only with very closely matched anchor text. Often these links are sold to other webmasters with different site topics. This is very easy for Google to spot.
What happens though is that during this process the rankings will shoot up like crazy and if you were to try and sabotage your competitor you would have helped them in the process and also spent an incredible amount of money. All that for them to submit a reconsideration request to Google and be out of jail within weeks.
As far as I know attempts at cheap forms of link spam in order to penalise competitors have so far been unsuccessful.
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
-
New un-natural links to my website that i didnt create.. and lots of them!
Hi There In the last few months my search organic traffic has gone down and i am looking into links to my website through webmaster tools. It looks like there is some sort of automated robot that is building new links to my website at a rate of 5 per week! All are spammy, directory links. It looks like this has been going on for a few months now. I have no idea how to find and stop this. But i have a feeling this might explain why my traffic is down. ALSO non of these links are in MOZ Open site explorer or Majestic SEO.. they are just showing as just discovered in webmaster tools. I am assuming that means its pretty accurate ?! ALL help is appreciated! Thanks! Paula
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Pixelstorm0 -
Sudden Recent Drop in Impressions in GWT - WTF?
I noticed this recent drop in impressions in Google Webmaster Tools. It started mid-February, and I know there was the page layout algorithm on the 6th, and I've heard mention of a Panda update around the 11th, so I started to wonder what was resposible. A manual penalty was just recently removed, too. As I dug deeper, I discovered other problems. For one a misredirected blog causing 404s, plus a redirected site whose duplicate pages were never removed from Google's index. There are also two exact match domains 301 redirected to the site, but there were no links or content prior to the redirect. In a site:operator search, one is showing a duplicate homepage. When the wordpress.com blog was redirected, it was not redirected to the /blog subdirectory. Could the resulting 404s which go back as far as I can see in GWT (3 month limit) be the cause of this drop? We're talking about hundreds of blog pages and their links. FYI the main nav in /blog pointed to the old site until 2/7 when I pointed them to the existing domain (so hundreds, if not thousands of links were being redirected) The million dollar question is: is it just the 301 redirect issue causing the problem here? It looks like I might just have exacerbated it when I fixed the nav menu links. Will fixing the redirect rescue the impressions? My plan of attack includes killing the 301 redirects from the exact match domains with no backlinks, and removing the old site from Google's index from within GWT. Any yays or nays? FYI, a 301 redirect of .index.html, default.asp, and non-www was done 1/8,
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | kimmiedawn
the reconsideration request was sent 1/24, manual penalty lifted 2/10. Index.html still redirects twice, going to www.site.com/index.html before resolving at .com. Same with default.asp. IarDs8u0 -
Do Wikipedia links add value?
Do Wikipedia pages/links add any value to your website and SEO? We are not an advertiser or seller of products, whereas we help people with planning so say I add an external link from an established page relevant to our service, will we get penalised by Wikipedia? Or is it worth setting up a page about our company, similar to say - the BBC with an external link? Thanks!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Jaybeamer0 -
Guest post linking only to good content
Hello, We're thinking of doing guest posting of the following type: 1. The only link is in the body of the guest post pointing to our most valuable article. 2. It is not a guest posting site - we approached them to help with content, they don't advertise guest posting. They sometimes use guest posting if it's good content. 3. It is a clean site - clean design, clean anchor text profile, etc. We have 70 linking root domains. We want to use the above tactics to add 30 more links. Is this going to help us on into the future of Google (We're only interested in long term)? Is 30 too many? Thanks.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BobGW0 -
IS there such a thing as a Link Juice Viewer?
Hi, I am managing the tech and SEO for an ecommerce site with a big mega menu with over 140 cats/subcats and well, I know that my link juice is diluted and am thinking of cutting back on the categories but in the meantime. Is there a link juice visualizer? How can I see in a visual format how linkjuice is flowing through the site? Thanks
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | bjs20100 -
Is Guest Blogging the Next Link Buying
I like the guest blogging idea for two reasons. One, it builds links, and two, it allows me to add content to a lot of blogs that are really interested in growing a lot of good content. But I often read articles that give credit to another article, that give credit to another article. I have been offered plenty of documents for client blogs, but I am worried that at some point in the future Google will decide all this guest blogging is similar to link trading and selling. What does everyone else think of guest blogging?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | HandsomeWeb1 -
I've done some link building on my website... why is google showing this?
Hi guys, it seems Google is going crazy as always, basically sometimes i'm ranked first page sometimes i'm not there, not sure if it's because of my link building and Google is indexing the links. At the moment in IE i'm top 3-4 for this keyword however the Title tag is not what I set it to be it's basically taking the product name then adding something after it. (I know google sometimes changes to what they want if they feel its more relevant but it isn't in this case) Not sure if this is normal for my keyword to keep appearing then dissapearing in Google. I noticed in FF my keyword isn't there but in IE it is. I've logged out of my Google account deleted all history/cookies etc. Even checked on my friends computer. Hope this makes sense and i'm not going crazy!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | InkCartridgesFast0 -
Feedback on link building idea
We came up with this idea at work for a client but before I initiate it I was wanting to get feedback on if this would be considered whitehat and alright to use. It is for an ecommerce site. On the order confirmation and thank you page (not email cause they are on some old system that does not send out emails) we are wanting to put a thank you for your order message and continue with a statement about how they can save money on future purchases with a link that takes them to a page with info on how to do so. That new page will have info about linking to the site from a blog or website. And will say if you link back to us and send us an email with that link as proof we will give you a promo code for your next purchase. Is this alright?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | webfeatseo0