Can competitors pay to have spammy sites link to your website?
-
Is there anything stopping competitors from doing a negative text-linking campaign against your site to purposefully harm your business?
-
First of all, is it a problem for you? Have you seen random spammy links to your site and a drop in SERP? If it isn't, don't sweat it. It would takea lot of time or money for a competitor to create enough bad links to hurt you. Unless you're in a Hatfields and McCoys situation with a competitor, I think it's unlikely.
If you're really worried about it, do a lot of White Hat link building. At least then you have something to balance out a competitor's sabotage.
-
We've heard a lot of nonsense from Google before, stating that this was impossible blah blah, but now they seem to be finally accepting that this does happen.
-
No one is stopping competitors from doing this and it does occur.
Google is discussing a disavow tool that may help filter these links out:
http://searchengineland.com/live-blog-you-a-with-matt-cutts-at-smx-advanced-123513
-
ditto
-
Nothing is stopping someone from doing it........... although paybacks could be rough.
I think 6 drops of Visine in their food would be a good start.
At the least, it would keep them off the computer for a while.
-
No. Anyone can build links to any site.
You can always ask webmasters to remove links, but they are much easier to build than have them removed. If the site is stating false negative information about your site, it might be considered libel and you could try to threaten legal action.
-
Nope, its one of the meanest things someone can do to you, but it does happen.
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
-
Link building for a 'boring' eCommerce site
Hey all, I'm in need of some serious inspiration and I'm hoping one of you generous people can help. We're looking to do a spot of link building for an eCommerce site which I would describe (without putting it down too much) as 'boring'. This isn't our fault per se as the site sells printer cartridges and there's only a certain amount of excitement such a product can create. As a result natural linkbuilding is quite tricky, especially when it comes to creating links to anything other than our homepage. For the past couple of years we have focused on creating good content and indeed have a thriving database of hundreds of helpful articles and videos on the site. These are generating decent traffic (and rank #1 for many different help related search terms) but the problem with these articles is that they don’t convert in to sales at all well. I’m also conscious that it will ultimately end in us developing a link profile which would classify us as a printer repair resource rather than cartridge sales website. I have read numerous guides on Moz but they all tend to focus on products which are a little sexier than those that we sell. Getting someone to share and link to a truly unique product would be incredibly easy compared with asking someone to engage, share and link to the latest Epson cartridge. I started writing articles on some decent quality business blogs however the links given don’t look particularly natural and the link would always be to our homepage. We have the staff and the time but we built a whole host of rubbish links back before Penguin and I want to ensure that we are going to head in the right direction before embarking on something new. If you had a site which was really dull how would you devise a link building strategy that was relevant and, most importantly, natural? Thanks for your help. Chris
Link Building | | ChrisHolgate1 -
More than one link on an external website
Just wanted to clarify my understanding of this... I'm of the understanding that if an external site has more than one link going to your site, then it is only the one link that passes value. If this is the case.... Which is the link that passes value (i.e the first link established or the link that, all factors being considered, is the most valuable for passing authority?) If a second link established on an external website comes from and goes to a different webpage than the first (and is done for the purposes of targeting and boosting a different keyword category/theme), is this then a beneficial practice? If multiple links on an external website all serve to generate solid referral traffic, will this boost rankings, and thereby be a sound practice? Thanks in advance for your help in clarifying this for me!
Link Building | | Gavo0 -
No-index tags-Can they be used in internal linking?
On my site http://villasdiani.com I am using yoast seo plugin and have I am using tags to organize category with villas on self-catering, full board etc but I have them set no-index as I believe they would create only duplicate content for the categories. Is it still ok to use this tags for internal linking? Example: I have a post in my blog which links to category Beach Villas(they are set to be indexed) and I would like to add option also for self-catering villas itself, which is a tag(set no-index) I am not sure if I am getting this right. Thank you very much, Iris
Link Building | | Rebeca10 -
Best way to combat spammy links
Hi folks. A client of mine has taken to building spammy links from commenting on forgein blogs etc. Since hes started this his site has totally dispeared from the SERPS apart from company name searches. I'd be really interested to hear your thoughts on how to bets combat this? Many thanks in advance
Link Building | | EclipseLegal0 -
What are the best back links for a review site?
This is specifically for reviews for web hosting or VOIP services. Very technical. Where should I look for sites to get backlinks from?
Link Building | | Aqua0 -
What are some good easy links to get for new sites?
We are in the process of launching a couple of new sites and while we know it will be a long process to get them to rank, achieving some long-tail keywords would be beneficial. What sites would you recommend for getting some easy links to start with that can help the indexation and ranking process along in the preliminary stages? Or another way to put the question - when you launch a new site, what steps do you go through?
Link Building | | ukss19840 -
Trying to get links to a pdp of an ecommerce site
hi all i am working for a ecommerce site doing seo and i am thinking of starting a blog for one of the brands im trying to rank for on the site and then have some links from the brandreview.co.uk/blog to the pdp page of the ecommerse site that im working for, is this a good way to go about things
Link Building | | Westernoriental0