What to do when majority of results have shady links?
-
So I am doing my back link research for the hosting industry and I am running across two different types of link schemes that make it hard to compete with straight white hat techniques.
I am determined to keep our efforts white hat to retain long term value, but at the same time I am constantly tempted to slowly add links in the more grey ways.
So here are some of the common practices I see a lot of (e.g. 8 of the top 10 sites for top terms use these).
Link Buying/Article Links - You know this one well, their link profile has a 10:1 ratio of keyword links compared to brand name links, and the majority of those keyword links are on nonsensical blogs, or on related "tech" sites but obviously labeled as paid links. - I don't like this much, and have even reported some of these.
"Hosted by" - So the majority of hosting companies out there have pre-built collections of templates for wordpress, joomla, and other CMS systems, and they have taken the extra step of putting "Server Hosting by XXXXXX" in the footer of those templates. This leads to thousands of small sites being hosted with the keyword backlinks. While I understand this, at the same time I would hope they wouldn't get credit for links all coming back from IPs that they own. While they aren't creating these sites they know the majority of users won't change the template (or know how to).
Lastly there are some "Link to us and get discounts" programs going on with customers as well.
So, seeing the linking setup this way, would you try to report each instance you see to Google? If so do you think they would really change anything considering how rampant it is among the results?
Lets hear some opinions!
In the mean time I am going to go work on my awesome content, press releases, and cross-company promotional campaigns ;).
-
I went through a phase of getting really frustrated about seeing competitors succeeding with dodgy link tactics. Then I decided to focus on differentiating our sites from competitors with great content, great usability and outreach into relevant communities. This wasn't just some random mission - I analysed site performance before and after SEO began (we were late adopters of SEO) and realised that we are now converting and generating revenue much more effectively even though we don't yet dominate the SERPs quite to our heart's desire! With 13 retail sites to look after I simply don't have time to start a crusade against competitors employing dubious tactics.
Black hat SEO can help a site to achieve high rankings, but it can't make visitors buy. If you are selling any product you still have to make shopping a comfortable experience, present your products well and most of all gain the trust of your visitors so they will take the plunge and complete an order.
By all means report as you go along if you come across something Google might take seriously, but stay focused on developing and promoting your own site.
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
-
No cache still a good link for disavow?
Hi Yall, 2 scenarios: 1. I'm on the border line of disavowing some websites that link to me. If the page is N/A (not available) for the cache, does that mean i should disavow them? 2. What if the particular page was really good content and the webmaster just has the worse seo skills in not interlinking his old blogs, hence why the page that's linking to me is N/A for cache, should i still disavow it? Thanks
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Shawn1240 -
What is your opinion on link farm risks and how do I explain this to a client?
Hi All, I have a new monthly retainer client who still has a $600/month "linkbuilding" contract with a large national advertising/directory organization (I won't name them but I'm sure you can guess). I just got a "linking" report and it's filled with garbage: Comment spam (on huffington post). Fake G+ Account Links from multiple sites with Domain Authority of 1 (http://encirclehealth.net/, http://livingstreamhealth.co/ , etc). These have no "about" sections, no ads, no products - just blatant link farms. I've told the client that these links pose a danger in Google, that he should get them to remove them, and that he should request a refund. Their rep is pushing back hard and saying there's absolutely nothing to worry about. Am I overestimating how bad/dangerous these are? How would you explain to the client the risks? I've already shared a report and my recommendations with the client but am really just looking for some affirmation of my position that these MUST get removed. Any advice much appreciated!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | PlusROI0 -
Could lots of links pointed to 301 & 302 redirects be a problem?
Hello, We've got hundreds of links found in screaming frog that are pointing towards 301 & 302 redirects. Could this be hurting rankings? We've got very few 404s. A lot of the problem is breadcrumbs of categories pointing to 302s, but the original category pages that are 302ed are not indexed so we may be OK. We can't change the 302 redirects, it's part of the cart. Could all these non-updated hyperlinks be the cause of continual ranking drop in Google? We've gone from the top 3 to the second page for our main terms. Thanks!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BobGW0 -
What is the best link delete service?
Does anyone know what is the best link delete service? I have heard of removem and linkdelete Which one do you think it best? Is there something better out there? Thank you.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | shopwood0 -
Do sitewide links from other sites hurt SEO?
A friend of mine has a pagerank 3 website that links to all my pages on my site on every page of his site. The anchor text of all these links are the title of each page that it links to. Does this hurt SEO? I can have him change to the links to whatever i want, so if it does hurt, what should i change the anchor text to if needed? Thanks mozzers! Ron
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Ron100 -
Attacked with spam links.
Our website was hit with the "Pharma hack", "Google Cloaking Hack", or "Blackhat SEO Spam". and Google showed in the results this website may be compromised. After cleaning out the hack from the website I chacked with the Seomoz tool Open Site Explorer and I found that they hacked 1000 of other websites and created links to my website. They were building a few 1000 links to the website with the clickable text "buy cheap online pharmacy". and more like that. This website www.washington23.com has been hacked and gives over 200 links to your website for pharmacy items. And Google considers this from your impotent links as i can see in webmasters. What can I do about it?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Joseph-Green-SEO0 -
Is it bad to no follow all External LInks at the same time?
I am working on more than 40 EMDs. They are good quality brand sites but they all are interlinked to each other through footer links, side bar links. (and they dont have much of linking root domains) Now Some of those sites have been renovated with new templates and these new sites has very few external links (links going out to our own sites) but some of these old sites has 100s of external links (all these external links of course link to our own sites). But anyways, we are planning to no follow all those external links (links that are linking to our own sites) slowly to avoid penalty? question is, can it be bad to implement no follow to all those links on those sites at the same time?Will Google see it as something fishy? (I don't think so) Also, Is it good strategy to no follow all of them? (I think it is) What you guys think ?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Personnel_Concept0 -
Pages higher than my website in Google have fewer links and a lower page authority
Hi there I've been optimising my website pureinkcreative.com based on advice from SEOMoz and at first this was working as in a few weeks the site had gone from nowhere to the top of page three in Google for our main search term 'copywriting'. Today though I've just checked and the website is now near the bottom of page four and competitors I've never heard of are above my site in the rankings. I checked them out on Open Site Explorer and many of these 'newbies' have less links (on average about 200 less links) and a poorer page authority. My page authority is 42/100 and the newly higher ranking websites are between 20 and 38. One of these pages which is ranking higher than my website only has internal links and every link has the anchor text of 'copywriting' which I've learnt is a bad idea. I'm determined to do whiter than white hat SEO but if competitors are ranking higher than my site because of 'gimmicks' like these, is it worth it? I add around two blog posts a week of approx 600 - 1000 words of well researched, original and useful content with a mix of keywords (copywriting, copywriter, copywriters) and some long tail keywords and guest blog around 2 - 3 times a month. I've been working on a link building campaign through guest blogging and comment marketing (only adding relevant, worthwhile comments) and have added around 15 links a week this way. Could this be why the website has dropped in the rankings? Any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks very much. Andrew
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | andrewstewpot0