What tools/techniques you use to check if a domain has been penalized?
-
If we think to buy expired or otherwise dropped domains, what tools or techniques you would recommend to check if there has bad SEO history?
We could of course, check with Google itself if the site is indexed and ranks, but I am asking if there is a particular tool out there that would provide more information if a website had been shady.
Thanks so much, guys!
Lily
-
Thanks Lily.
Redirecting old sites is unlikely to give you a rankings boost, especially if they have changed hands and have expired / dropped. You really need to buy them before they expire and don't change two many details.
Think about seomoz.com to moz.com - all the link juice have been transfered, and so it should, its just a rebrand, same servers, so owners, etc. But if they brought so ramdon site and redirect do they deserve the link juice? No, and google doesn't think so either.
-
That's a great explanation, Julian! Thanks for adding up.
Yes, the main idea is to redirect them at some point, that's why I want to be 100% sure they won't harm the rankings.
Lily
-
What are you trying to achieve by buying dropped domains? Are you planning to redirect them to your own sites for link juice? If you do that be very careful, there are lot better ways to get link juice.
To check a domain I would:
- search on google for the website name, e.g. "seomoz" does it rank? (doesnt too much if it doesnt the keyword might be competitive)
- search for the url, e.g. seomoz.com if it doesnt rank number 1 for this i would walk away
- does it have sitelinks under the domain name, if yes thats a good sign
- grab some text from the site and search for it (ensure you are using a clear browser, e.g. no cookie history, so personalised search doesn't kick in), if its a couple of sentences it should rank for that
- grab a few meta titles and search for them, if they dont rank for the complete title there could be a problem
- does the site have page rank - a red flag if it doesnt
- ask the site owner for the last years analytics traffic, the overall traffic graph would be fine
- look at its moz rank, does it seem to match how it ranks, e.g. if very high moz rank but not ranking for the site name there could be a problem
that should do it.
-
-
I was looking more for how to spot shady link profile. A tool for that. Anyway, I guess there isn't such tool. Thanks, guys!
-
Yes, they are for email spam blacklist.
-
These appear to be tools to check if the site has been black listed for email spam. While it's good to check for when buying a domain, it won't tell you if Google has penalised the site.
-
Here are a couple:
If you also want to check if email was blacklisted:
-
Is there a site on the domain at the moment, or has there been one recently?
If there is you could see how well indexed it is (site: command), see if it ranks for it's own brand terms, and even moderately competitive terms.
You can also run the site through opensiteexplorer and see how dodgy the external link profile is.
-
That was a great idea for checking on traffic behavior compared to the algorithm updates! Thanks, David.
However I am asking if I do not have access to Analytics and GWT. If the domain is expiring and I consider buying it. Any ideas for that scenario?
Lily
-
One of the most obvious ways is to compare organic search traffic to the dates new algorithms go live. Checkout the Google Algorithm Change History page. There is even a chrome plugin called Chartelligence that overlays the algorithm change dates over your traffic data.
Also checkout webmaster tools for messages for unnatural link warnings from Googs themselves.
Hope that helps!
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
-
Linking Domain vs Domain authority : Do they related!!!? (Case study)
Hi everyone
Link Building | | serikozay
I just came across a website which I'm working on. As we know DA & PA directly related to each other. I'm building organic links through last year and the result is so odd !
As you see in Pic 1, number of linking domains is naturally increasing. But in Pic 2 DA gets negative impact through this process and decreases!
How are they related anyway? Can anyone helps?
site : didar.me 111.JPG
222.JPG0 -
Can we use Free domains (like .cf / .tk / .gq / .ml / .ga) for backlinks?
many times I Noticed that most of the website use .cf / .tk / .gq / .ml / .ga this domain for backlinks but when I click on this it shows me the error I want to know that how they get a do follow backlink from the Different free domain can I get backlinks from my free domain? if this possible then How? This is my website Pakistan News kindly tell me how to rank.
Link Building | | Zaidazam0 -
Best free or inexpensive backlink audit tools
I was wondering if anyone has any recommendations for free or inexpensive backlink audit tools? Of course I have access to Search Console and to the OSE but it seems they don't offer a complete picture of our backlink profiles. I have previous experience using Link Research Tools for this but this is too expensive for the amount of use we would get out of it so I am looking for (much) cheaper alternatives. I look after 8 websites, however very little active link building was done for these in the past so we are not experiencing any issues due to bad links, but I would still like to get a better picture of our complete backlink profile. I've considered just using a trial of Majestic or Ahrefs for this, but this would only be a one off solution. I would welcome any suggestions. Thanks!
Link Building | | ViviCa10 -
Is there a tool to keep track of internal links?
I am looking for a tool that will help me keep track of internal links. We are working on a website that has roughly 500 pages of unique content. We are at a point where we plan to go through all of those pages and look for natural, internal link building opportunities (as well as pages that may have too many "over optimized" links). It would be really helpful to know the following for each page: 1. URL (we can extract this)
Link Building | | BlueTraffic
2. Meta Title (we can extract this)
3. Target Keywords (we can manually enter these) 4. Internal Links To Other Pages - A field (or fields) where we could manually enter the URL of each page that this page links to (including the anchor text used) Once all of this data is entered, it would be great if this tool could also count how many incoming links each page has (from other pages on the site) or somehow show which pages link to it. This would help to identify pages that have zero internal links. Do you know if a tool like this already exists, or even a spreadsheet with some functionality like this already built in? Thanks,
JC0 -
Link building using a contest
Hello, In the past we have ran many contests with aims such as increase facebook likes, twitter followers, newsletter subscriptions etc but I was wondering if anyone has had any success in gaining links through a content and if so how did you set it up?
Link Building | | RikkiD220 -
Link building / baiting in the Google zoo
I work for a consultancy, and in the past most of our links have been acquired by giving away privacy statements etc for websites, including a link back in the body of the document, and making it a licensing requirement that the link be kept. We're launchinga new site. We want this one to be whiter-than-white, and would appreciate some advice on the following options. Option 1: no links Remove the links from the documents, and don't require links for the use of the documents. Leave a non-linking credit in the documents. Perhaps ask nicely for links from other pages. Option 2: links on other pages Remove the links from the documents, but make it a licensing requirement that users will link to our site from another page on their site. I appreciate that most won't, but some will. Option 3: retain the links Keep the links in the document, using domain name (with and without http and www) and business name anchor text. Option 4: script the links Use scripts to generate randomized links in the documents, so that no two are the same, but with relevant linking text for the most part. We're risk-adverse with the new site, and it will pick up some links "naturally". We're therefore tending toward option 1, on the basis that it may well generate as many links as option 2. Which of these options would you choose? Are there any other options we should be considering?
Link Building | | seqal0 -
Best link research tool
I'm looking at packages to help with link finding, outreach, acquisition and management. But I'd appreciate some views from fellow forum members on the best choice; BuzzStream Link-Assistant Link Research Tools Other? BuzzStream looks pretty promising to me. Has anyone else got any experience or views? Thanks
Link Building | | PeterAlexLeigh0 -
Do http:// links to a http://www. site count the same to Google?
In terms of links to one's site helping your position on Google, if your site defaults to http://www.example.com (automatically adds "www." even if it isn't typed), does Google count links that appear as http://example.com (without the www.) with the same "weight"? Thanks.
Link Building | | celife0