How to idesntify "inorganic" links
-
I am intending to remove spammy link of my website http://cellspyexpert.com/ which has been ranking well but I noticed a sudden drop in its ranking. I took a lot of care while building links, I tried to get links from relevant high authority websites with high page rank. I used profiling and guest blogging method only and never participated in any link scheme but received following message in google webmaster tools "
Google Webmaster Tools notice of detected unnatural links to http://www.cellspyexpert.com/"
I got this message on 19<sup>th</sup> Sep and ranking dropped on 6<sup>th</sup> Oct
1- Is this EMD issue?? I am pretty sure it is not because of EMD (Exact match domain) as I have been using phrase match, brand name+phrase and other anchor texts. I used exact match also but only 2%.
2- If it is bad quality, inorganic link issue?? Then I am intending to remove inorganic links so that I could send reconsideration request but facing problem in detecting inorganic links.
Please advise!!
-
Uhhh, how much alcohol? I have a reasonably stocked wine cellar.... Good point re JCPenny.
Best to you,
-
**Is there a way to tell whether or not a penalty was caused by a webspam report to Google? **
Of course! Where there is a will, there is a way.
The question is, are you determined enough to find the answer by bribing Matt or another member of his team with enough alcohol / money / goodies to get them to violate their NDA? I have seen them share in a general manner they have taken action on sites based on spam reports, but I can't recall any example where they have said "we have taken action on your site based on a spam report".
If pressed for an example, I would use JC Penney's. According to the public story, a NY Times reporter called Google to inquire about JC Penney's amazing performance in Google. You could view this as a spam report.
Thanks for the kind words Robert.
-
Ryan,
I do not believe I have seen this laid out more clearly or succinctly. The most important part that most seem to gloss over in this quest of reconsideration is your statement, ..."** forums are full of angry site owners sharing stories of how they submitted 10 Reconsideration Requests and all 10 have been denied**."
If you rush to get site reconsidered, you are slowing yourself down. You might as well do it all first and not be unhappy because you did no research on links, got two or three you saw as bad (or knew were bad) removed and ask for reconsideration. Without documentation (proof you did all in your power to have the links removed) of what you have done, what reasonable person would believe you did it?
"It does beg a question for me:
Is there a way to tell whether or not a penalty was caused by a webspam report to Google?
Thanks for great response.
-
**Is this EMD issue?? **
No. You do not have a EMD.
Clearly you have an issue with unnatural links. Those links should be located and removed. The process involves three main steps:
1. Compile a comprehensive list of ALL known links to your site. That does not mean simply downloading the links Google shows as that often represents about 50% of the links to your site. It also does not mean using Google + OSE as that still is not enough. I generate a report using Google + Bing + OSE + Majestic + AHREFs. This report consistently finds enough links to remove a manual penalty or relieve a Penguin issue.
2. Visit every linking site and properly identify each link as organic or manipulative. This task sounds much easier then it is. It requires training and experience. A large percentage of SEOs are simply not calibrated to look at a link the same way Google does. In other words, they cannot properly identify a manipulative vs organic link.
If you identify manipulative links as organic, then Google is unlikely to honor your Reconsideration Request. If you identify organic links as manipulative, you are damaging your site.
3. A comprehensive Webmaster Outreach program needs to be implemented to contact every site providing a manipulative link and requesting the removal of the link(s). This involves sending emails to the site's WHOIS email address, the email address found on the site, and using the Contact Form on the site. At times you need to call sites, use regular mail or chase site owners down via social networks. You need to take any and all reasonable actions to remove the link.
For each of the above steps, you need to thoroughly document your actions if you are dealing with a manual penalty. You need to prove the above steps were taken. For example, when you send an email to the WHOIS email address, a copy of that email needs to be saved as a pdf or text file, uploaded to a file server and then a link to that message should be placed in a spreadsheet. This example is simply one of many.
The process takes a massive amount of time by properly trained personnel. I have examined numerous software tools designed to automate the link identification process, and they all fail quite badly in my experience. That is why the forums are full of angry site owners sharing stories of how they submitted 10 Reconsideration Requests and all 10 have been denied.
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 Can I Safely Establish Homepage Relevancy With Internal Keyword Links?
My website has roughly 1000-2000 pages. However, our homepage is lacking relevancy as to what it is about. One way that I'd like to tackle this problem, is by updating many of our pages with internal linking. I often hear, use exact keyword links with caution, but have assumed this mainly referred to external backlinks. Would it be a disaster to set up our single most relevant keyword on about 300 pages and point it to our homepage? There are breadcrumbs on our site, but the home link uses an image (It's a picture of a house, if you're curious.) Am I better off just to change that to our most relevant keyword? I could use any advice on internal links for establishing better homepage relevancy. Thank you!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | osaka730 -
If I am getting links on competitor websites, is it safe to assume those competitors are doing this to hurt our SEO?
We have received a few notification from Google Webmaster Tools and Moz that our competitors have "mentioned" our page on their website. This is incredibly odd as you wouldn't think they'd want to do this. Further, when I go to the page that we are supposedly mentioned on, the link to our site is not on the page. What is going on? Thank you in advance for your insights!!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | brits0 -
Have you heard of a service called "Autocomplete Engagement?"
One of our clients was approached by a company selling a service they're calling "autocomplete engagement," which they're claiming has the ability to manipulate the auto-suggest feature of Google. They are not selling content, or technical SEO, and claim that the average "SEO guy" cannot garner the results they can. My questions are: a) has anyone heard of this tactic, and b) can it really be done? c) if it can be done, what can a company do to manipulate that information beyond a strong technical SEO and content strategy?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | RachelEm0 -
Inbound Links Inquiry for a New Site
For a site that is only one to two months old, what is considered a natural amount of inbound links if you're site offers very valuable information, and you have done a marketing push to get the word out about your blog? Even if you are receiving backlinks from authority websites with high DA, does Google get suspicious if there are too many inbound links during the first few months of a sites existence? I know there are some sites that blow up very fast and receive thousands of backlinks very quickly, so I'm curious to know if Google puts these kind of sites on a watchlist or something of that nature. Or is this simply a good problem to have?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | WebServiceConsulting.com0 -
It's not link buying, but...
Which of these strategies, if any, cross the line from relationship building to link buying? Assume all links are do-follow. You're a local business. You give the local Boys & Girls club a few hundreds buck a year. In return, you get a very nice link on their Sponsorship page for 12 months. You send a sample of your product to influential bloggers, for the purpose of a review and hopefully a link back to your website. One of your clients is a college bar. You invite 50 college kids over for a slow evening and stuff them full of chicken wings. Then, you ask them to please review and link to the bar on their college wiki. You give a client a free service, in exchange for that client linking to your business on its blog roll. You take a blogger out to lunch, and pick up the tab. Later that day, the blogger writes up an amusing little story for the blog, and links back to your desired website. In your email newsletter, you put out a request to your customer base, "Please link to my website, and I'll provide you a special 20% off coupon."
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | ExploreConsulting1 -
Suggestion for Link Directory Script?
I own a subscription to PHP Link Directory but was wondering if anyone could suggest an alternative link directory script/software/service to PHPLD. Thanks!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | fergusonconsulting0 -
Unnatural Link Notification - Third Go Round, specific questions
Hi all, I'm posting what is sure to be a common question, but I can't seem to find much information by searching Q&A over the last month so thought I'd throw this out there. There's a lot of 'what do I do??' questions about 'unnatural link notification', but most of them are from first timers. We're pretty far along in the process and it feels like we're going nowhere, so I was hoping to pick the brains of anyone else who's 'been there'. We have a client that we inherited with an unnatural link profile; they were warned shortly after we took them on (around March was the first warning). We compiled an apologetic letter, specifically identified a previous agency who >was< doing bad things, mentioned things would be different from now on, and provided a list of links we were working on to remove based on WMT and OSE and some other sources. This was submitted in early June. Traffic on the main keyword plummeted; ranking went from top 5 to about mid-page 4. We got hit with that same rash of Unnatural Link warnings on July 23 that everyone else did and after looking around I decided not to respond to those. We got a response to the reinclusion request submitted in June above, saying the site was still violating guidelines. This time I went all out, and provided a Google docs spreadsheet of the over 1,500 links we had removed, listed the other links that had no contact info (not even in WHOIS), listed the links we had emailed/contact formed but got no response, everything. So they responded to that recently, simply saying 'site still violates guidelines' with no other details, and I'm not sure what else I can do. The campaign above was quite an investment of resources and time, but I'm not sure how to most efficiently continue. I promised specific questions, so here they are: Are the link removal services (rmoov, removeem, linkdelete, et al) worth investigating? To remove the 1,500 links I mentioned above I had a full time (low paid) person working for a week. Does Google even reconsider after long engagements like this? Most of what I've read has said that inclusion gets cleared up on the first/second request, and we're at bat for the third now. Due to the lack of feedback I don't know if their opinion is "nope, you just missed some" or "you are so blackhat you shouldn't even bother asking anymore". One of the main link holders is this shady guy who runs literally thousands of directories the client appears in thanks to previous SEO agency, and wants $5 per link he removes. Should I mention this to Google, do they even care? Or is it solely our responsibility? Thanks in advance for any advice;
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | icecarats0 -
Partners and Customers logo listing and links
We have just created a program where we list the customers that use our software and a link to their websites on a new "Customers" page. We expect to have upwards of 100 logos with links back to their sites. I want to be sure this isn't bordering on gray or black hat link building. I think it is okay since they are actual users of our software. But there is still that slight doubt. Along these same lines, would you recommend adding a nofollow or noindex tag? Thanks for your help.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | PerriCline0