Is Zemanta Still Safe
-
I have a quick question, I have been watching a conversation on Google+ where someone pointed out that they have found someone using Zemanta (free) but someone have republished the same article over and over to lots of websites. I think they mentioned 12 detected so far. He was concerned that these links would start to be considered spam because they are all identical content on different urls.
I know Zemanta has been lauded as great and safe before, but John Mueller from Google has commented and stated that it could be considered a link scheme and therefore he "would not recommend" that it is used.
Be good to hear some others thoughts on it!
Paul
-
Looking at some Zemanta links in the wild, it doesn't seem too aggressive. Take for example, the bottom of this blog:
It depends on your goals. From a traffic perspective, as long as the links are relevant, it's fine. I can't tell you whether Zemanta will drive traffic to your particular site (I haven't used it), but it's certainly plausible. It probably depends a lot on your niche and the population of sites using the system.
From an SEO standpoint, my gut reaction is that it's fairly low-risk but may also be low-gain. Google could easily recognize these plug-in links and simply devalue them. I doubt a block of four relevant links is going to get outright penalized - it's more likely Google will just see this as a link-exchange of sorts and simply dial down the volume on those links.
That's not to say it's risk-free (we've certainly seen many link networks get hit in the past year), but I suspect that John was speaking in generalities and not about Zemanta in particular. On the other hand, no tool like this should be seen as some kind of panacea for link-building. It's just one piece of the puzzle for getting exposure and traffic.
-
hi guys,
thanks for the link, it seems that your question posted here, and the one in the Google+ conversation are not the same.
i thought you were asking about duplicates, and just wanted to stress that we simply suggest related content, and that what publishers do with them is entirely up to them. if spammers or anyone else takes that content and re-publishes it, it's a problem that we all have online these days.
the lower-quality links question from Rich is different. I have to defend our user base here, their profiles and their editorial control. we are making sure that only real-life bloggers are using our tools, for real-life posts. of course they will be of different quality, but we've learned that 'quality' is actually not easy to define, so we decided to rather focus on authenticity.
and on the other hand, of course seo professionals would prefer to have control over their links, but we will not allow for it, because the choice to publish something or not has to be editorial decision of the author.
i hope i'm not missing something
best, b
-
Hi Marcus,
Well perosnally I have been using it for brand building, but there is also the fact that it links back at the same time. I publish a lot of content so I get a fair few people linking back to me and it has been great but I need to be 100% as I dont want to unwittingly invoke a penalty.
Paul
-
Hey Paul
You have this straight from the horses mouth as it were, not that I am calling John Mueller a horse.
If you take one article, then duplicate it across other sites this is going to be at best pointless and at worst a negative equity.
I am no expert on Zemanta but you could possibly use this as a way to put more content out there as a branding exercise but I would not add links and you still can't get around the duplication issues.
Some questions to ask:
Do they use canonical URLs to the original source?
What are you trying to achieve here? If it is just links, then this is not the droid you are looking for.
Have a look and report back but I would be very careful.
Marcus
-
Hi Bostjan,
It was a comment made by Rich Voller at this discussion on Google+ where he spotted multiple links from a redistributed article while checking GWMT latest links.
I have emailed Rich and actually he has said that he loves Zemanta but wanted more confirmation before turning it back on. I think the fact a Googler jumped in and said it was bad was why he wanted the confirmation.
Rich was saying that a few lower quality links are not a problem in his case as if there were too many he could either contact webmasters to remove links or disavow them.
I see what Rich was saying but I don't always have time to check my "latest links" section too often and I would be concerned that if that happened too many times it could be detrimental to my sites.
Paul
-
hi all,
i'm bostjan spetic, ceo of zemanta,
thank you for the question, i'd love to hear more about that conversation, but the basic answer to your concern is that this problem isn't really tied to Zemanta in any way. If some someone links to you and someone else takes that article and reproduces it on 12 different sites (with that link included) then you cannot do anything about it. You can hope that google correctly notices stealing of content and ignores those 'same' links.
we are an editorial assistant, we take quality of recommendations as our primary concern, and manual editorial control of our users as the key product principle. I am happy to discuss the 'link scheme' question with anyone, because it simply is not correct or fair in any way.
thanks,
best, b
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
-
If I disavow bad links on "disavow link webmaster" will they still show up on my moz reports?
We recently found out we have a lot of bad links linking back to our website from spam sites, I disavowed them through the google disavow link webmaster. On my moz report it still shows the links, is that normal?
Link Building | | Ryan.Cruz0 -
Is directory submission still a valid practice?
Hi Guys, I have few doubts running in my mind on directory submission, do you think it is still a valid practice in link building?. If your answer is "YES", then please correct me.. How submitting to directories is a natural link practice? According to Google, links should not be purchased, it should to be created naturally, but if you see, a lot of high authority directories charging amount from people to index links, why Google not stopping those directories (I mean penalizing) and stopping the people who are trying to get indexed by paying. According to me directories holds only bunch of links to some external domains (I hope I am not wrong), then how submitting to them can bring rankings to me?. Sorry, if I sound stupid in any of my points, but expecting some good answers from you folks.. 🙂
Link Building | | HDDEPT0 -
Safe percentage of sitewide links?
I've read that following the Penguin update, too many sitewide links can be a risk. What percentage of your linking domains are sitewide? What is a good percentage to aim for?
Link Building | | ProjectLabs0 -
Got a warning from Google but rankings still ok.. what to expect?
Yesterday I got THE warning from Google: "Dear site owner or webmaster of http://..., We've detected that some of your site's pages may be using techniques that are outside Google's Webmaster Guidelines. " It seems all my rankings are intact though. Some keywords got higher rankings, other dropped a little bit (-1, -2) but nothing unusual. My question is, since I got this warning, should I expect some sort of penalty soon? I see other webmasters who got their websites de-indexed after getting this warning so I'm quite concerned.
Link Building | | sbrault740 -
Do these strategies still work?
Hey SEOmoz members, I've been out of the SEO game for quite a while now... grew up years ago getting by with directory blasts, article marketing, social bookmarking, etc... I'm currently in the process of starting a few new campaigns. After burning the midnight oil on this site soaking up all the information I can, I realize the game has changed. It's not as simple as it used to be. So for these new campaigns, killer content, social integration, and guest blogging are going to be my main long term strategies. If I'm not mistaken, relevancy should be a key part of the link building strategy. So I guess my question is... article marketing, social bookmarking, web 2.0 creation... can these still be a viable source for high quality links? I do realize that without great content these are all dead ends. But when used correctly and in moderation, can these strategies still produce results? And if so... what are some good resources for finding high quality sites that will positively impact my campaigns? Are there any good article directories out there, or have they all been devalued? Do linkwheels still carry any weight?
Link Building | | SergeantJoe0 -
Backllinks to our site but via redirect (still SEO helpful?)
Hi, A large website may link to us but via their internal redirect mechanism. So it would be somthing like this: [If you select the link, it eventually goes to our site but not from the original page. These links would be placed on lots of pages, but since they would all "pass through" the "redirect" page, it seems not as beneficial from an SEO perspective. Is this reasoning correct? Would google still follow the link and see where it ends up, even though it is via multiple pages? Ideally I'd prefer direct link but how much better is it than the redirect as listed above?](/redirect/rd?site=www.oursite.com/page&trackingparam=111111)
Link Building | | NicB10 -
Beaten to death but still have to ask, low comp area spammy directory links
I have a client that wants to rank for low comp local keywords (i.e. service + suburban area). Would several well written blog posts on relevant blogs be more effective than 100's of low level spammy directory links? I just want to give him an initial base of a few links, aside from submitting to the local search engines such as those in whitespark citation finder..... please keep in mind this would be a low competition area where on-page would probably rank in the middle of the 2nd page.
Link Building | | ilyaelbert0 -
Do you think my homepage can still be optimized ?
Hi all ! Do you think my homepage can still be optimized ? Here is the URL : http://www.proximeety.com Of course I'm not only speaking about the home page but I also think about the pages structure, links, etc. The fact is that my collegues and I are working hard on our SEO since 7 years and the result is that we still see our websites going down in the SERPS during months... What are we doing wrong ? Our opponents don't seem to be more backlinked or more optimized... I personnaly think that there should be a big mistake on our site that penalize us and our SEO but I can't find what it is... Can you help us ? Thank you in advance !
Link Building | | B-CITY0