Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
How do you block incoming links to your site?
-
With the new update to google focusing on link spam and multiple anchor text ? If you have incoming links that you would like to block or make no follow?
-
I guess the only real way is to use site explorer and then contact the site directly... We have been spammed bad by competitors and google is penalizing us.. I have contacted the sites and am waiting for response...
-
Yes, as Ryan said, this is the nature of the internet. Just like you can write about anything, anybody, you can create a link to anybody and just to clarify, the block that Ryan is talking about is essentially that if someone linked to you, you could "technically" setup a block so anybody visiting your website from that link, would not be able to access your website..but it would still get counted as a link from that website to yours.
-
It can't be done with respect to Google's visibility. Anyone can link to you at any time and there is nothing you can do about it.
The main positive action you can take is to earn as many good links as possible so if you get some bad links pointed to your site they will only represent a small percentage of your total links.
I know people hate this answer but we have to trust Google has systems in place to deal with black hat SEO tactics of link spamming a competitor's site.
If you wanted to go to extreme measures, you can block a link from reaching your site in your web server settings. On Apache servers (the most common servers) you can do it in the htaccess file. Once again, this is not recommended but those who are extremely determined to block the links from working can do it this way.
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
-
Do you think profanity in the content can harm a site's rankings?
In my early 20's I authored an ebook that provides men with natural ways to improve their ahem... "bedroom performance". I'm now in my mid 30s, and while it's not such an enthralling topic, the thing makes me 80 or so bucks a day on good days, and it actually works. I update the blog from time to time and build links to it on occasion from good sources. I've carried my SEO knowledge to a more "reputable" business, but this project is still interesting to me, because it's fully mine. I am more interested in getting it to rank and convert than anything, but following the same techniques that are working to grow the other business, this one continues to tank. Disavow bad links, prune thin content.. no difference. However, one thing I just noticed now are my search queries in the reports. When I first started blogging on this, I was real loose with my tongue, and spoke quite frankly (and dirty to various degrees). I'm much more refined and professional in how I write now. However, the queries I'm ranking for... a lot of d words, c words (in the sex sense)... sounds almost pornographic. Think Google may be seeing this, and putting me lower in rankings or in some sort of lower level category because of it? Heard anything about google penalizing for profanity? I guess in this time of authority and trust, that can hurt both of those... but I wonder if anyone's heard any actual confirmation of this or has any experience with this? Thanks!
Algorithm Updates | | DavidCapital0 -
Our Sites Organic Traffic Went Down Significantly After The June Core Algorithm Update, What Can I Do?
After the June Core Algorithim Update, the site suffered a loss of about 30-35% of traffic. My suggestions to try to get traffic back up have been to add metadata (since the majority of our content is lacking it), as well ask linking if possible, adding keywords to alt images, expanding and adding content as it's thin content wise. I know that from a technical standpoint there are a lot of fixes we can implement, but I do not want to suggest anything as we are onboarding an SEO agency soon. Last week, I saw that traffic for the site went back to "normal" for one day and then saw a dip of 30% the next day. Despite my efforts, traffic has been up and down, but the majority of organic traffic has dipped overall this month. I have been told by my company that I am not doing a good job of getting numbers back up, and have been given a warning stating that I need to increase traffic by 25% by the end of the month and keep it steady, or else. Does anyone have any suggestions? Is it realistic and/or possible to reach that goal?
Algorithm Updates | | NBJ_SM2 -
A page will not be indexed if published without linking from anywhere?
Hi all, I have noticed one page from our competitors' website which has been hardly linked from one internal page. I just would like to know if the page not linked anywhere get indexed by Google or not? Will it be found by Google? What if a page not linked internally but go some backlinks from other websites? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Footer menu links: Header tags or list items?
Hi, I would like to know header tags (h5 or h6) or list items ( ) works better for footer menu links for the best linking structure. Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz1 -
If my article is reposted on another blog, using re=canonical, does that count as a link back?
Hey all! My company blog is interested in letting another blog repost our article. We would ask them to use "re-canonical" in the mark-up to avoid Google digging through "duplicate" info out there. I was wondering, if the other site does use the "re=canonical", will that appear as a backlink or no? I understand that metrics will flow back to my original URL and not the canonical one, but I am wondering if the repost will additionally show as a backlink. Thanks!
Algorithm Updates | | cmguidry0 -
Does adding lots of new content on a site at one time actually hurt you?
When speaking with a client today, he made the comment that he didn't want all of the new content we'd been working to be added to the site all at once for fear that he would get penalized for flooding the site with new content. I don't have any strong data to confirm or refute the claim, is there any truth to it?
Algorithm Updates | | JordanRussell0 -
Should I link to competitors?
Hi, I was wondering: we work in an extremely competitive market. There are 6 companies, offering the same service in my country: price comparison in a niche market. The competitors have hundreds of different websites, using iframe-techniques. Would it be helpful for me to link to those 6 competitors, in a piece of content about our company strategies, USP's and overview of the market? From a transparency point of view, i would prefer telling my visitors there are other competitors, which are undoubtedly performing very well, but we perform better on several aspects of the price comparison. On the other hand, my competitors benefit from the backlinks as well. Is my gain bigger than the gain of my competitors do you think? Has anyone tested this once?
Algorithm Updates | | Beekhuizen1 -
What are the good strategies using satellite sites in SEO??
Hello to everybody, We'are thinking about launching a massive amount of satellite websites in order to promote our website. Is it really efficient in terms of link building? Or is the ROI really small due to the amount of time and money needed to create and manage these websites? Thanks a lot!!! Update: Thanks to all of you for all these interesting answers!
Algorithm Updates | | sarenausa1