Disavow - Broken links
-
I have a client who dealt with an SEO that created not great links for their site.
When I drilled down in opensiteexplorer there are quite a few links where the sites do not exist anymore - so I thought I could test out Disavow out on them .. maybe just about 6 - then we are building good quality links to try and tackle this problem with a more positive approach.
I just wondered what the consensus was?
-
Thanks everyone.
Well this is an example http://www.hotmarketable4you.com/SpecialReports/PRE30141.html
I had checked lots of these links maybe 2 weeks ago and then had (poor) content on them - but now all seem to be broken so i suspect was a link farm.
And Mike - was more irrelevant rather than "bad" content
Think I'll build links over next few weeks and then evaluate where we are then - hopefully rankings will start to improve
-
I think that the better tactic would be to create new content for those broken links. Unless these links are located on a very bad domain (link farm, etc.), I would just create a new page.
Be careful before you start messing with the disavow tool. The only time I would use the disavow tool is if the link is obviously bad. Like obviously obviously bad (if that makes sense). Many people assume that their ranking tanked because of some algo update and start disavowing links without really checking into it. Just be careful before using that tool and research the hell out of the link before you throw it away.
Here is a good article that gives you the Do's and Don't of using the Disavow tool.
http://www.portent.com/blog/seo/google-disavow-links-tool-best-practices.htm
Good luck!
-
I think if the links are broken and Google has been made aware of such, ie it has recrawled and cached the page (simply add "cache:" in front of the URL for the last cache copy - if the URL itself is broken, check if it is still indexed in Google), then it would know that the link has been broken and shouldn't count it.
If that's the case, I don't think the disavow would have any benefit, unless of course if the link were to return, which could be a possibility.
If the page is cached and that cached version has got the broken version = no worries.
If the URL is broken and the page is no longer indexed = no worries.
If the URL is broken and still indexed = check to see if any other links point to that URL (including the URLs site navigation and/or sitemap, if applicable. If not, should deindex soon. If there are links, I'd disavow.
Just my two pennies, hope it helps!
-
links that don't exist or links to pages that don't exist?
..heck, either way i'd ignore them and focus on phase 2 of your plan. Disavow seems to be a bit overused in my opinion. It's more of a last-ditch effort for penalty recovery IMHO.
and if it's 404 errors you're trying to fix: Google will eventually stop following those after they 404 long enough. Don't even worry about it. (unless they're links you want, then put a relevant redirect in place.)
Hope this was helpful.
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
-
Advise / Help on Bad Link Removals
Hey everyone.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | TheITOteam
Im new to the community and new to backlinks - hence the question to the community today.
I would like help understanding options and work load around back links and removing them.
I have a client with over 8000 back links as a few years ago he paid someone about £10 to boost his rankings by adding thousands of backlinks.
We fear this is having a bad effect on their site and rankings organically as 90% of these back links have a spam score of over 50% and also no follows. My questions to the community (if you could be so kind to share) are:
1. Whats the best way to decide if a Backlink is worth keeping or removing
2. Is there a tool to decide this or assist with this somewhere on the internet? Ive had advise stating if its not hurting the page we should keep it. However, again...
How do I know what damage each Backlink is causing to the domain? I appriciate anyones time to offer some advice to a novice looking to clear these1 -
Link Getting Deleted for Few Days
If a link gets deleted for few days and re-appears... Will Google treat it as a "new link" or give it the same old link-age.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Akshayshr0 -
Diminishing Returns for Links to an Unrelated Page
Suppose I have a new website about cars and I had created a page about something completely not-related - like cupcakes. However, I found that it was very easy to get high quality sites to link to the cupcakes page where as it was very difficult to get people to link to the homepage about cars. If my goal is to increase the SEO for the homepage (which again is related to cars), is there a point where additional high quality links to my cupcakes page is not useful for it anymore? What if I created another page - about frosted cupcakes - which was also easy to get high quality links to?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | wlingke10 -
Link "Building" or "Earning" Which one are you doing? Both?
I'm curious to see how SEO's interpret this section of the Google Webmaster Guidelines on Link Schemes: The best way to get other sites to create high-quality, relevant links to yours is to create unique, relevant content that can naturally gain popularity in the Internet community. Creating good content pays off: Links are usually editorial votes given by choice, and the more useful content you have, the greater the chances someone else will find that content valuable to their readers and link to it. (Source: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66356?hl=en) I'm not asking what you "should" do, but rather what do YOU do... Do you interpret this as: Create awesome content and the links will come? Create Awesome Content and Outreach a bit? Perhaps you don't follow it all and concentrate on building links over content? What do you do and why? Discuss!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BrettDixon0 -
Getting Back Links When I Cannot Add Outbound Links to My Site
I have a collection of websites that I do not control in terms of content or page creation/editing. As a result, I have no way to add links to outside sites on any existing or new pages. Given this, how can I go about finding and requesting other sites link back to our sites/pages if I cannot offer them a link to their site in return? I know that content is a link driver, but I do not control the content, so I cannot develop new content to help drive links. I appreciate any help/advice any experts can provide.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | dsinger0 -
What do you say in your emails to horrible sites to remove your links?
Morning guys, I've the unenviable task of having to rectify poor link building (a previous company's work, not mine) which inevitably means emailing tons and tons of horrible directories with links to the client from as far back as 5/6 years ago. I'm sure many of you are in the same boat so it begs the question: What have you said to these types of sites that is effective in getting them to remove the links? This could even be a two/three-parter: If you've had little joy in requesting removals, have you dis-avowed the links, and what (if any) effect did it have? Thanks, M.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Martin_S0 -
Link directories question
Looking over a clients site and they have a bunch of link directory links that seem very skeptical to me, but the mozrank and authority seem to be ok on the home page. One directory is addlinkzfree and they have the same template and layout as a few other directories this client has. Link page has no juice whatsover, but home page has PA 54, MR 5.04 and root domain is DA 45. At first glance this would appear to be respectable numbers right? But the title of the directory and multitude of links lead me to think its nothing but a link farm. Should I advise the client to run and try to remove links from these type sites even though home page has decent scores? Im of the mindset that anything diredctory with links, free, partners etc in title need be avoided. Would appreciate any backup on this or am I just being paranoid?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | anthonytjm0 -
Huge diifference linking root domains in SEO MOZ and opensite explorer
Hi there, I have fairly large site that has never really been optimised. I think an old forum i hosted has either been spammed or my webmaster at the time used some black hat techniques to get me more root linking domains. I am a newbie and would really appreciate if someone could just quickly look at my donain and confirm that this is a problem and something i should fix before i start my SEO campaign. I am also worried this will negatively effect my domain authority. I dont really want to broadcast my domain so if anyoone would be so kind to confirm the problem so i cant start to research the answer. Thanks v much
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | nimble0