Sudden spike in backlinks - should we disavow?
-
A kitchen remodelling firm in Australia has noticed a big increase in spammy backlinks to their website since April this year. Majestic shows that referring domains and backlinks during that period have gone up from 400 domains (10,000 links) to 1,070 domains (47,000+ links). About 100 are sitewide links.
The vast majority are "follow" links directed at image files on the site - ending in .jpg. Ahrefs now shows the number one anchor text (23%) is a period (full stop) "." Most of the links come from .us domains, eg:
cowboysr.us
blackphoto.us
alldpic.comGoogle Search Console isn't showing any of these links, there's no penalty on the site and there's been no noticeable change in rankings (if anything organic clicks went up over May, June, July) ... so we're wondering what action - if any - should be taken.
Are these links likely to have a negative impact on the site and homepage? Should we disavow these links?
Appreciate any advice. Thanks.
-
Thanks Igor - none of these sites look legit. All have low to non-existent metrics like trust flow. We'll go through the list and disavow.
Any thoughts on what the purpose of these scraped image links are - is this a form of negative SEO?
-
Even if flow metrics on those links are good, the sudden spike is already a red flag for search engines.
If those links aren't organic get rid of them.
I'd get a list of referring domains and bulk check the domain metrics (age, pr, trust flow and etc) and if there's nothing good - get rid of them.
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
-
Backlinks Question
Hi all, i own a small business in an extremely competitive marketplace. I have also educated myself greatly about seo over the past 3 years and currently do my own. The one thing I cannot figure out, for the life of me, is how my two competitors keep beating me in rankings without backlinks. I mean, I have about 3K solid backlinks, mostly do follow, from top notch publications, sites, citations ect. In ahref, it shows that he has almost no backlinks. I cannot crack th third spot, but they dominate with zero backlinks, and the domains are only a bit older than mine. Thoughts on this?
Link Building | | ImeuOkou0 -
Disavow Google Links
Hi Guys, one question from my side: When I disavow domains in the Google link disavow tool, do I have to disavow every subdomain of a main domain.....for example; I want to disavow the following (sub)domains safsad.mydomain.com hapdasd.mydomain.com skdkada.mydomain.com Do I have to disavow every subdomain solely or does it suffice if I disavow "mydomain.com" and when done also every subdomain of this main domain is disavowed too? Thank you in advance. BG
Link Building | | MihaSI0 -
Moz crawling doesn't show all of my Backlinks
I'm trying to make an SEO backlinks and anchors report on my website When using the Link Explorer, I see no backlinks to show while I have create much more backlinks on this website. How to fix the issue? How can I check and correct report of my backlinks? Website is www.poolcleanerspro.com I also need some how to track a keywords?
Link Building | | fassi345621 -
Backlinks from ads on parked domains? Is this possible?
Hello Moz Friends, So as I was researching some competitive backlinks and I noticed a lot of backlinks that a clients competitor has are on parked domains and they appear to be google ads from some point. You know the pages that this page no longer exists, or hey do you want to buy this domain? and it has like 6 google ads on it? Yep those pages. My clients industry is construction and their competitor has links from zombie websites, foreign, websites and more. But the links are no longer on the page. Like when it was crawled, their ad was showing. Does this make any sense and is it usually temporary? Thank you for your thoughts friends!
Link Building | | asbchris0 -
Looking for Resources for Broken backlink Building With My Team
I've been doing some reading on broken backlink building but have not had much success with implementing a fine tuned process with my team. I've already read the moz post about broken backlink building. I've also used the www.<a>brokenlinkbuilding</a><a>.com</a> tool by citation labs but found it to be kind of clunky. Could have just been me though : ). Any helpful resources would be appreciated to automate the process better?
Link Building | | Keith-Eneix0 -
Which number is important for backlinks?
I'm getting very confused. What is the important number regarding backlinks to my site? The Moz number vs. Hubspot grader spits out vastly different numbers. For the particular site I'm trying to improve, I don't have Webmaster Tools installed yet (waiting for webmaster to do as it doesn't have asynchronous code on it). Also apologies for novice question but I remember once being told that offpage SEO and specifically the amount of external backlinks is responsible for 75% of your SERP. Is that still the case?
Link Building | | Bua0 -
Can i help google find my new backlinks quicker?
i have been building links for the past month or so and google has still not added my links. my website has been up and working for 7 years now with 1000's of entries a year and it is mostly indexed. but i cant seem to get my new backlinks to be added. any expert advice?
Link Building | | amoseshet0 -
Purchasing Quality Backlinks
Everyone has differing opinions on buying back links, but it is not my intention to discuss the efficacy of it here nor the morality. I am simply looking for good reliable service that will allow me to purchase quality one way high pr back links. Any suggestions?
Link Building | | TheGrid1