Preparing for Penguin: Remove, Disavow, or change to branded
-
For someone that has 80 root domains pointing to their domain and 10 of them are sitewide backlinks from 10 PR4+ sites. All paid for. All with the same main keyword anchor text
Should I advise him to remove the links, dissavow the links, dissavow then remove or just change to branded anchor text for the 10 sitewide links. Another option is to just keep one link (preferrably editorial) from each site.
The only reason not to pull them off right away is that the client could not sustain his business with a drop in sales. These are by far the strongest 10 root domains. Eventually, when he has enough good backlinks these are all coming off.
There was a huge drop in sales for this site last fall, but it recovered almost completely by changing keyword stuffing and adding ecommerce content.
Looking to keep his sales and also prepare for this years updates.
-
Hey Bob, if those links are topic-related and aren't delivering you any traffic I agree with Thom in his huge and detailed answer. Swap it to an editorial article to an improtant page of your site would be my pick.
-
You're exactly right on what I meant when I referred to relevancy, Bob. Doesn't need to be exactly the same niche, but a reader would immediately understand why these two sites might be talking about each other.
So yea, I'd say trying to replace the sitewide with an editorial link to a relevant page on your site (same criteria) is probably the best/safest way to try to hold onto some of that ranking juice.
Glad you found it helpful - appreciate you letting me know.
Paul
-
I spoke to the owner. There's only 4 in question and one nofollow now
On the 4, I looked and they're not generating traffic. I'm unclear what you mean by relevant in this case. They are generally related to our niche as, for example, an informational clothing site (backlink provider) is related to a store that sells socks (our site)
We have 81 linking root domains and one nice piece of content if that helps.
What do you recommend for these 4? I'm guessing swapping for an editorial link is your recommendation, but due to not exact niche relevancy, I'm wondering if you'll suggest removal.
Thanks for the awesome advice, btw
-
You're in a delicate spot, Bob. I'd say your plan should be to "hope for the best, but plan for the worst".
Obviously, as you indicated, you're going to need to do something about those links as that link profile is just begging to get hammered.
You could clean them all at once, take the traffic hit, and then try to build back as quick as possible, but if the site is doing well now, it seems a shame to take such a hit.
I'd suggest putting a clear, well-prioritized, well-funded plan in place to start building link-worthy content and promoting it in ways that earn those backlinks as quickly as possible. (This work is going to have to be done regardless, so not like it's a temporary expense).
Then, for every 6 or 8 new quality incoming links, clean up one of the 10 problematic links. This will look natural to the SEs (as it is natural) and hopefully won't attract the attention of the slappers while you're working through the process.
Best case scenario, you'll get through offsetting all the problem links without getting hurt by a penalty or algo update.
In order to be ready in case of the worst-case scenario, (Google slaps the site with a penalty a week from now), you should also immediately build a confirmed contact list of the webmasters in control of the problematic links. (I mean an email or phone number that you've confirmed actually gets a response from a human). That way if you get hit before you can clean up naturally, you can get those problem links dealt with immediately and can show Google what you've done in a quick reconsideration request.
Also, document the process as you work through attracting the new links, so you can be specific about what you've been doing in that direction, should a reconsideration request become necessary
As far as how to deal with the problem links - do not submit a disavow!! That is a last-ditch process if there's no other way to get links removed, which is not your case. (Plus the disavow process could attract unwanted attention. Yea, I'm cynical like that
I'd actually suggest a mix of tactics for those 10 sites, depending on different circumstances:
- If a site's links are generating quality traffic, just ask that they be no-followed.
- If using the no-follow approach on a number of the sites, also see if they can mix up the anchor text, making sure to include at least some branded (as you hinted)
- If the main value of the links is for juice, and the site is relevant to your own, ask that they be swapped for a legit editorial link or two. A couple of the strong, new, link-worthy content resources you've just built will help here. (And will probably be stronger than a sitewide anyway)
- If the links aren't generating quality traffic and aren't relevant to your niche, just get them removed.
Does that approach sound like it might work?
Paul
-
Hi Bob, normally I would advice to remove clearly paid links or limit them to the homepage but your case seems quite different.
You said that those links are not only helping this site for their SEO purposes but that those links are driving him sales. In that case I imagine that those links are receiving clicks so they're actually highly related. I think that google will (or maybe it's actually) look at CTR of your backlinks. If they're trafficked they're high value also for the users so I will maintain them. However if you've generated them quicker than the normal you may consider use them as nofollowed links driving traffic to their site and ask those sites to write a post speaking about your company's services. In that sense you may push in a branded or url based link and still have the traffic from those links. I f you are able to get value and traffic from those links I woul dnot remove them, and for sure I won't ever disavow anything if you haven't received any warning from google.
Maybe you may consider to point them in a spreadsheet so if you receive a warning you'll always be able to disavow them and ask for a reconsideration.
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
-
Doing URL change losses SEO ranking or not?
Hi Webmasters, I would like to move shipwaves.me to shipwaves.aeHowever, our website is concentrated on middle east countries and moreover, we have though .me is middle east [United Arab Emirates} and later with SEO advice, we have taken .ae.Besides, our confusion is if the website move from Shipwaves.me to the new domain shipwaves.ae this makes our SEO ranking loss or not?some of our keywords has been started showing on various search pages. So, anyone knows about this concern, please let me know.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | LayaPaul0 -
Weird Links Should I Disavow?
I have noticed some weird backlinks in Google Search console and Referals for Google Analytics. For example a reddit page I have never commented on or been on has referred over 900 visitors. The page has no relevance to my site whatsoever, when I check the source code I cannot see the link, so perhaps its been removed. Also seeing links in Google Search Console from sites that are just domain name for sale type pages, and sites/pages that don't seem to exist anymore, or which redirect to others. All of these links have disappeared as well, nothing in source code . And numerous pages that used to link to 404's on my site, many domain name for sale type pages, another which makes my bitdefender plugin go crazy. And seeing common referral patterns in Google Analytics, i.e. numerous /try.php pages on different domains that presumably used to link back but which now redirect to another site. I cannot say there are thousands of these, but I guess they are causing more harm than good. My instinct is to I go through all the links I can and disavow, the link types described above, but am I safe to do so? And is it a good idea or a waste of my time? NB: I haven't built any of them.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | GrouchyKids1 -
Killed by penguin 3
So with the update to penguin 3.0 last week we notice that some clients have been significantly hit by the update. How do we rectify the situation for the poor links that are on the site. We have used open site explorer and Google webmaster to try and identify which are the bad links to try and remove. Now we can spot that some inbound links are from directories that may be perceived as low value/spam, but could not be sure what is affecting the ranking. The vast majority of these links are historical prior to inheriting this client recently and so do not have any logins to remove the links (if there are logins). These appear to be placed by teams outsourced in India. We would suspect that no site owner would spend the time removing links from the site any way. How do we recover from the penguin hit. Is it just a case of trying to identify ones that we suspect could be perceived as spam and ask for these to be disavowed by Google? Do we contact all the sites to ask them to be removed and/or do we just push ahead with more engaging white hat methods of social SEO? Are we likely to recover in the short term or be permanently hit. The site is for a small business with no more than 800 monthly hits so this fall from grace off very good front page positions is going to hit our client very hard even if the sins are from a previous business. Any thoughts and suggestions PLEASE HELP
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | smartcow0 -
Does this graph look like a Penguin 2.0 hit?
Hello,Does the attached graph look like a Penguin 2.0 hit? Keep in mind that on our eCommerce site most purchases are from return customers. I forgot to add here that we cut a bunch of paid links in May 2013 as well. We quit cutting paid links when our rankings dropped - we thought it was the paid links. We currently have 30% paid links. Penguin 2.0 was on May 22. ga2.png
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BobGW0 -
Penalized by Penguin 2.0
I believe our site has been penalizes by Penguin 2.0. Our impressions in Google Webmaster are down and our traffic in Google Analytics also took a hit. Both of these occurences took place right when Penguin 2.0 was unleashed. What are the steps I need to take to regain my ranking? Is disallowing all the links I think maybe spammy the first thing to do?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | joebuilder0 -
What has been updated on part of Google Penguin 2.0?
I am looking for more details of Google Penguin 2.0 update. Is any information from SEO experts?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | gbavadiya1 -
Why won't my home page rank for branded terms?
Hello, I've been trying to figure out what factors are causing my home page not to rank for my branded terms. The site is www.lipozene.com and after the late April Google algorithm our rankings have disappeared off the map for the term "lipozene". Different element of the site show up in organic rankings, including our shopping cart (http://shop.lipozene.com) as high as page two. However, the home page is not ranking organically. On Yahoo & Bing we have never dropped out of the number 1 spot. We did engage in some link building activities, however we've removed nearly all of the links that were created by our SEO guy. I did NOT receive any notifications from Google regarding their link policy. If you search for lipozene.com we rank #1. Any thoughts on what we're missing thats causing us to not rank is greatly apprecaited. Thanks!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | lipoweb0 -
How much pain can I expect if I change the URL structure of the site again?
About 3 months ago I implemented a massive URL structure change by 'upgrading' some of the features of our CMS Prior to this URL's for catergorys and products looked something like this http://www.thefurnituremarket.co.uk/proddetail.asp?prod=OX09 I made a few changes but din't implement it fully as I felt it would be better to do it instages as the site was getting indexed more thouroughly. HOWEVER... We have just hit the first page for some key SERP's and I am wary to rock the boat again by changing the URL structures again and all the sitemaps. How much pain do you think we could feel if i went ahead and optimised the URL's fully? and What would you do? 🙂
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | robertrRSwalters0