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.
Do shady backlinks actually damage ranking?
-
That is, it looks like a whole bunch of sites got smacked around the penguin/panda updates, but is this by virtue of actually being hurt by google's algorithms, or by virtue of simply not being helped "as much"?
That is, was it a matter of the sites just not having any 'quality' backlinks, having relied on things google no longer liked, which would result in not having as much to push them to the top? That is, they would have been in the same position had they not had those shoddy practices?
Or was google actively punishing those sites? That is, are they worse off for having those shoddy practices?
I guess the reason I ask is I'm somewhat terrified of going "out there" to get backlinks -- worst case scenario: would it just not do much to help, or would it actually hurt?
Thanks!
-
Well, for one, someone mentioned guest-posting. But then, guest-posting where? What if the blog is iffy? Would PA/DA give a solid indication of this kind of thing?
Or, for example, I know to stay away from "buy 40 bajillion backlinks for $3" and such, but what about an offer for an individual backlink from a high PR page, manually added potentially in the context of a guest post? Part of me thinks "okay, seems reasonable", but part of me thinks "if this is being offered then could the fact that it's being offered to others then pose an issue based on the appearance of high volume"?
Also: if there is the potential for "negative" SEO, wouldn't this be easily abusable? What's to stop me from blasting 60000 backlinks to one of my competitors?
-
Yes, Google has a number of penalties that actively hurt or de-indexes websites with shady links.
Just focus on getting backlinks that would be useful to people actually visiting those websites. If a human found your link, would they respect you for it? That's the question you should ask when you build links.
-
Hi Yonatan Stratievsky
I would suggest you to avoid the bad links. I had a site which was hitted hard because the owner use cheap paid links. For me the best links are this which I am extracting from the site explorer. Plus the natural links from the visitors. Another good technique is guest posting.
I hope that this helps
Regards Nik
-
Its all speculation at the moment, so the fear mongering is rampent.
In short, yes, bad backlinks can have a negative effect on your site, but it depends on how well established your site is. Negative SEO is real, but depending on the severity of the dodgy links, google just discredits them and asks you to get rid of them, rather than slapping you with a penalty.
When you say, you are afraid of "going out there" what is is that you are afraid of? Just don't be manipulative, get links on relevant websites and you have nothing to worry about. Just forget about trying to manipulate rankings, build relationships with other webmasters, after all, 1 great link is better than 50 suspect / low value links that take hours to "build"
-
There is a lot I can say on this subject but I am going to sum it up in one sentence.I know it’s a generic answer but that’s kind of a generic question
Google can and will penalize (punish) websites for breaking any of their rules that they deem worthy of doing so.
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
-
Is this campaign of spammy links to non-existent pages damaging my site?
My site is built in Wordpress. Somebody has built spammy pharma links to hundreds of non-existent pages. I don't know whether this was inspired by malice or an attempt to inject spammy content. Many of the non-existent pages have the suffix .pptx. These now all return 403s. Example: https://www.101holidays.co.uk/tazalis-10mg.pptx A smaller number of spammy links point to regular non-existent URLs (not ending in .pptx). These are given 302s by Wordpress to my homepage. I've disavowed all domains linking to these URLs. I have not had a manual action or seen a dramatic fall in Google rankings or traffic. The campaign of spammy links appears to be historical and not ongoing. Questions: 1. Do you think these links could be damaging search performance? If so, what can be done? Disavowing each linking domain would be a huge task. 2. Is 403 the best response? Would 404 be better? 3. Any other thoughts or suggestions? Thank you for taking the time to read and consider this question. Mark
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | MarkHodson0 -
Backlinks in Footer - The good, the bad, the ugly.
I tried adding onto a question already listed, however that question stayed where it was and didn't go anywhere close to somewhere others would see it, since it was from 2012. I have a competitor who is completely new, just popped onto the SERPs in December 2015. Now I've wondered how they jumped up so fast without really much in the way of user content. Upon researching them, I saw they have 200 backlinks but 160 of them are from their parent company, and of all places coming from the footer of their parent company. So they get all of the pages of that domain, as backlinks. Everything I've read has told me not to do this, it's going to harm the site bad if anything will discount the links. I'm in no way interested in doing what they did, even if it resulted in page 1 ( which it has done for them ), since I believe that it's only a matter of time, and once that time comes, it won't be a 3 month recovery, it might be worse. What do you all think? My question or discussion is why hasn't this site been penalized yet, will they be penalized and if not, why wouldn't they be? **What is the good, bad and ugly of backlinks in the footer: ** Good Bad Ugly
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Deacyde0 -
Dfferent domains on same ip address ranking for the same keywords, is it possible?
Hello, I want to ask if two domains which r hosted on the same server and have the same ip ( usually happens with shared hosts ) tries to rank for the same keywords in google, does the same ip affects them or not.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | RizwanAkbar0 -
Does posting on Craigslist damage our SEO or reuptation?
We have a website that's a single person barbershop. She has been promoting on Craigslist, and that is outranking the website in the SERPs. However, the craigslist results showing up are actually expired and don't link to anything. They just seem to be cached by Craigslist. My question is, is Craigslist considered to generally not be a good avenue for directing inbound links for services on your site? Or is it a good strategy to use Craigslist to build link traffic for service businesses? I get mixed responses when I search for this. Thanks eYtdHtg.png
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | smallpotatoes0 -
Are expired domains for Godaddy backlinks already reset by googel ?
When does Google actual reset backlinks to a domain. If i am buying expired domains from godaddy action for linking purpose am i wasting my time.Also if that the case whats the point of buying expired domains with many links pointing to them. If the backlinks to the expired domain still show up under my Google webmaster tool window does that mean Google counts that link?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Ryguy870 -
Article submission, and how to build backlinks for Ecommerce? [HELP]
Hi guys, I have a question, for high quality backlinks apparently you go to these article websites where you submit your site such as Ezine etc etc, however is it just one article you submit to these as it'll look like duplicate content? Also can I have it on my site first? How does it work? Also I run an ecommerce website, how can I build backlinks to each product, theres over 200+ products and 1.6k subcategories. I would like to rank for as many as possible but getting an SEO company to do this would cost to much. Any ideas on how I should go about it?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | InkCartridgesFast1 -
Negative SEO - Case Studies Prove Results. De-rank your competitors
Reading these two articles made me feel sick. People are actually offering a service to de-rank a website. I could have swore I heard Matt Cutts say this was not possible, well the results are in. This really opens up a whole new can of worms for google. http://trafficplanet.com/topic/2369-case-study-negative-seo-results/ http://trafficplanet.com/topic/2372-successful-negative-seo-case-study/ This is only going to get worse as news like this will spread like wildfire. In one sense, its good these people have done this to prove it to google its just a pity they did it on real business's that rely on traffic.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | dean19860 -
Is it negative to put a backlink into the footer's website of our clients ?
Hello there ! Everything is in the subject of this post but here is the context : we are a web agency and we, among others, build websites for our clients (most of them are shops). Until now, we put a link in their footer, like "developped by MyWebShop". But we don't know if it is bad or not. With only one website we can have like hundred of backlinks at once, but is it good for SEO or not ? Will Google penalize us thinking that is blackhat practices ? Is it better to put our link in the "legal notices" or "disclaimer" part of the websites ? What is the best practice for a lasting SEO ? I hope you understand my question, Thnak you in advance !
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | mywebshop0