Which Links to Disavow!
-
We just took over SEO for a new client who is being penalized for a bad link profile. They've asked Google to reconsider multiple times, and Google still claims that the links are bad.
Because of this, and because I don't have direct access (logins, etc.) to what the former SEO did, I am considering using the disavow links tool. The most obvious links to disavow are a group of almost 1000 links that come from the same forum.
However, when viewing the links on this forum they actually seem natural. People are reviewing the product (ipod cases), both negatively and positively. While this could have been an SEO tactic for link building, I don't want to disavow these links if they're not the problem, even though this domain is the source of almost all the low-quality links.
Another site that has more than 200 links is Askives. Do any of you have experience with links from Askives, or removing these links?
Thanks again!
-
I'm also wondering if anybody has had any experience with askives.com. There are a few sites like that and they must be pretty common among people forced to use the disavow tool... Is there a list anywhere of known sites whos links are viewed as spammy by Google?
Thanks!
-
Thanks for the answer! This is great info.
I've now briefly combed through all 800 linking root domains listed in Webmaster Tools, and it appears that there are thousands of links coming from fake blogs as well, so it looks like my task will be to go through these, one by one, to make sure they really are the links Google is penalizing.
Unfortunately the client doesn't have very many natural links, and I am a bit afraid that his rankings will briefly dip if I disavow most of these. It's possible that some of them are not being penalized.
Anyway, in our efforts to make the Web a better place, it's worth it to our client to go ahead and disavow.
Thanks again for your feedback!
-
Hi Tynan,
This is a sticky issue a lot of webmasters face these days. Although I can't tell you exactly what links to disavow, I can point you in the right direction.
1. What links to look at? First of all, John Mueller of Google recommends starting with the links listed in Google Webmaster Tools, as these are the links most likely to effect your rankings: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UX5i4iuru7k&feature=youtu.be&t=54m28s
2. Third Party Tools: A couple of companies have developed tools to help identify bad links.
- SEOGadget Link Analyser - http://tools.seogadget.co.uk/ (has a great API - highly recommend this site)
- Link Detox - http://www.linkdetox.com/ (haven't used it, but I've heard decent things)
3. Manual Review - In the end, you're own eye is the best tool you have. You want to look for:
- links with keyword-rich, optimized anchor text
- Comment Signature and Forum Signature links (these are different from the more legitimate forum links)
- Sitewide links, such as in the sidebar or footer
- Obviously paid, or suspicious looking links on low-quality sites
Our friend Paddy Moogan wrote a great guide on how to do this step by step. You should check it out.
Unfortunately, I can't tell you for certain if you should disavow those forum links. That said, in my experience, it's better to disavow entire sites using the domain: function, then it is to try to disavow individual URLs. Google is much more forgiving if you over-disavow then the reverse, but in the end you must use your best human judgement.
Hope this helps! Best of luck with your SEO.
-
Are those domains in the Google index?
Have you tried "site:example.com" for the sites you're mentioning?
I haven't had to do this myself but I've heard that that's what you try.
If those sites aren't indexed then they probably are no good.
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
-
Internal linking
Hi, I currently have built my website with internal links to boost my category pages (the ones that are the most important with the most traffic). Is the way to go or nowadays or doesn't it matter what pages you boost. I beleive what I did is some sort of "page rank sculpting" but is it still useful ? or I should I link natural across my website even though some pages will get a boost and some won't ? The link that I have are at the bottom of my content (not in the footer) but at the bottom of the page next to each other ? does they count or is it really bad to have them that way ? I have a blog and I was wondering if when I link from my blog page for example about "Barolo" to my page about "Piedmont" if I should also link from my page about "Piedmont" to my Barolo page or if the link only has to go one way from my blog / Barolo page to my piedmont page to boost Piedmont. Thank you,
Link Building | | seoanalytics0 -
Xyz links
I have a lot of backlinks ending with .xyz, around 20%, and they look very suspicious. Should I disavow these? Here are a few: yourrelicsbargains.xyz fantasticsiteinfo.xyz yourvintagelifestyle.xyz usefuldiscount4u.xyz bestdealsaction.xyz bestmemorabilialifestyle.xyz 59177.net lovecollectorsbargains.xyz
Link Building | | moon-boots0 -
Ecomerce: Would 4 link sections leak too much link juice?
Hello, In my content management for our ecomerce site, I've found that there are sometimes links to sites in our industry that have "helpful links" sections. Several strong sites link directly to these resource sections. There are 4 different topics that fit this trend in our industry. Would it leak too much link juice to make 4 comprehensive link sections and place a link to them on our "Useful Articles" page? Or should I stick to one comprehensive link section? Or perhaps a small link section? Or none at all? Thanks.
Link Building | | BobGW0 -
Are Directory Links a Good Source of Branded Links?
I am trying to increase the number of branded links for a few of my sites since the links are too heavily weighted on anchor text. If so, would you recommend a service like Directory Maximizer?
Link Building | | rise10 -
How many nofollow links should we build to have a natural link profile
Hi guys, As with many link builders we have been building lots of dofollow links for our site, so many that mainly our incoming links are dofollow. Some pages have 99.5% dofollow external links which I know is not very natural. In your experience in terms of percentage how much should you have in terms of nofollow external links in your link profile. I noticed SEOMoz has about 12-13% nofollow external links, shall I go with this figure? Thanks guys. David
Link Building | | sssrpm0 -
How to improve (ASAP) the linking root domain, the followed linking root domains and the linking C-Blocks? Linkbuilding (or whatever) techniques.
I have a small site (.com) like any website in my sector. 30-90 pages. I have no crawls errors. Everythings is fine, just I need to improve my linking root domain, the followed linking root domain and the linking C-Blocks. Example: my competitors have 300 (one of them have 1300) of total links. I have 30. Anyone know some good strategies? techniques? tips? I just dont want to be in a farm directory, I want free links. I'm already running two strategies but it works so slowly. I want something faster at this moment. Also, any recommendation will be thankful.
Link Building | | NicoDavila0 -
Link building
Folks would you recommend i build a link on this site for $30... http://www.web-directory-australia.info please let me know detailed reasons as to your recommendation as I'm a new SEO and learning as much as I can 🙂
Link Building | | PHDAustralia680 -
Links from any country?
My site is aimed primarily at the UK, 90% of the traffic is from the UK and most of my links are from other UK based and UK targetted websites. The content is actually fairly international (apart from certain terms like Plasterboard instead of Drywall, etc). My question is: Should I concentrate on gathering links from the UK, or should I widen my search and try to get links from US and European websites? Are there any particular advantages or disadvantages to keeping links "local"?
Link Building | | Jingo010