Can changing our links page make our rankings drop through the floor?
-
Hi all,
When I first started at my current job, most of the link building (aside from submitting to free directories left, right and centre) was replying to every spammy reciprocal email and adding them to our links page!
Now we're all a bit wiser about such matters (thanks SEOMoz!), I want to get our links page turned into something actually useful. My plan was to get it neatly categorised, with recommendations, cut out unrelated links that would be useless to visitors and call it something like "Our Friends"
I thought this might be useful for future link building efforts, but in its current state, it's a complete mess.
However, I am worried about cutting out a lot of links if they have been reciprocal ones. Are the sort of sites that would be sending typical spammy link exchange emails for window installation in NY likely to notice our UK education site taking away their link six months later and take away ours? If they do, will losing links from these sites harm us? Perhaps more importantly, is my plan a terrible idea in the first place?
Look forward to hearing from y'all!
-
I would personally remove the page(s), but you could also do the following if you are afraid of losing links from partners linking to your site when they see their links are no longer there.
a) nofollow or javascript all of the links
b) noindex, nofollow, noarchive the links page(s)
c) block the links section in robots.txt
at a quick glance or to a non SEO person it would appear that nothing has changed, in reality you neutered all of the links - you should definitely do something to protect your site.
-
Thanks everyone, those are some really useful bits of advice!
Salman - that's a nice way of looking at it. I bet that will help me persuade my boss to let me do it as I'm sure he'll worry otherwise!
Aaron/Kieran - I've got a feeling that they are definitely not good links and there's some dodgy looking stuff popping up in Open Site Explorer. Content's going to be a big part of our future strategy, though I've been interested in how well competitors with poor content have been ranking in comparison and wondering if we are being penalised somewhere. Our recent focus has been much more on improving on site SEO and generating better quality content rather than blindly plugging away on low quality links and we've been steadily climbing rankings since I started that.
EGOL - Thanks for the link! Similar to what Aaron was saying, it really does emphasise having a good quality well-built site over supposed "easy" linkbuilding. Plus, it certainly makes me feel rather less guilty about removing them!
Thanks very much for the feedback everyone!
-
a little off-topic, but relevant
A post made by link trader Maluk nearly ten years ago but still relevant today... (today you would add "nofollow" and scripted links to his complaint....
http://forums.seochat.com/google-optimization-7/warning-ref-link-partners-5513.html
-
Hi Amy
_will losing links from these sites harm us? _
If you are worried about the link quality just put them into Open Site Explorer to see their weighting. If they are spammy then delete.
_Perhaps more importantly, is my plan a terrible idea in the first place? _
If you know/feel/think that your link list is spammy then I would delete them and so it is a good idea. This SEOMOZ link is worth a read as a refresher course on the topic if you haven't seen it already. http://www.seomoz.org/blog/link-building-101-the-almost-complete-link-guide
Good luck with your efforts
-
Salmen is right... I'll add that not only is a link from a spammy site bad, but reciprocal linking can also downgrade the value of a link since it seems forced, which it is.
I hate to sound so cliche, but if you can come up with content people will link to and share without having to trade links with them, then you will get the most SEO benefit.
However, you are definitely headed in the right direction and if linking to your friends is helpful to your audience... do it!
-
The plan is actually good and you should have done it from the start.
Consider link worth from spammy site as 0.2 as compare to a link from great resource as 8.
so if you loose 40 links from spammy site, and gained one link from good site it will be balanced or more beneficial.
Don't worry about loosing your reciprocal links if you intend to work on the plan of gaining more links from reputable sites!
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
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
-
How much time wait to do Link Building to a new page?
We launched a new page 2 weeks ago, and we want to know how much time should we wait to do Link Building and how many links should we try to generate to not get penalized by Google. Thanks! EDIT: Thanks to all for you answer! Very helpful!
Link Building | | carlostinca0 -
Inbound Links from Broken Pages
Hi all, We have a client who has a lot of inbound links from external pages that are broken/404. The 404 pages are EXTERNAL and linking to my client's pages, but their domain still has authority and their home page (and other pages) still load. My question is: what should we do about this? Do we detox those links, or are they still sending some juice given that they have domain authority, despite the fact that the pages linking to my client are broken? So in other words: - My client is: yyyy.com - They have a link from vvvv.com/services, which is a broken page - So what should we do about this? Thanks all! Gavin
Link Building | | strategemilabs0 -
If i get link pointing to a specific page , will that link add up to the count of linking root domains too ?
If I create a fresh link pointing to specific page on my site, apart from adding a number to "page linking root domains" does it also add up to root domain linking ?
Link Building | | Techbate1 -
2 links going to same domain but different pages
Hi, How is the link juice distributed when you have 2 links in the same article but they go to different pages on the same domain? I know some say if 2 links go to the same page in an article then only the first link passes juice. Would it be better to have 2 articles each having 1 link or 2 articles each having 2 links?
Link Building | | activitysuper0 -
Correlation between Page Rank of the Home Page and Internal Pages?
I have noticed that Domains with high page rank for their home page also tend to have high page rank for their Internal Pages irrespective of the Quality of the Internal Pages Is there any direct correlation between the "Page Rank of the Home Page" and "Page Rank of the Internal Pages" and, if Yes, then to what extent?
Link Building | | KaranBatra1 -
What is the best way to make sure competitors or others aren't buying links on my sites behalf to penalize us?
Is there a good way to do this? Does the Open Site Explorer have an ability to screen by when the link was found, or help by picking up on potentially shady links? Thanks much..
Link Building | | jim_shook0 -
Can indirect linking be valuable?
I have a client who is using a SEO company (Hubshout, delete name if necessary) to boost traffic to their website. They are doing this by publishing articles and submitting them to article directories, then they use their own sites/blogs (which are valueless, PR and MozRank of zero) to point to these articles and they say that this helps boost there rankings. How? They are not linking to the clients websites, creating artificial links from their own websites to article directories instead of the clients website. Are they trying to boost the value of the article or trying to boost their own websites? How does this help out the client? It is similar to three way linking but is not.
Link Building | | Michael_Rock0 -
Free link on a Paid Link Blog
Hi there, I have been doing some outreaching, and managed to have a blog post accepted on a authority blog. They included links to my website, and I was very pleased with the placement. However, having browsed through the site, I was worried to see that they openly admit they allow 'reviews' of websites, with backlinks included, for $50 per review. I am worried I might be penalised without actually doing anything wrong. I did not pay for my link, but the link has been placed on a site which openly admits they accept payment for links. Should I be worried? Should I ask them to take it down? To date I have been told countless times by bloggers I am outreaching that if I pay $10, $50, $100 etc I can write a blog post. I have never accepted because of the risk of penalization. Now, unwittingly, I am linked to from a paid link site with a blog post that would look like I have paid for it because of the placement and style of back link. What do you think? Thanks,
Link Building | | giveacar0