Competitor using "unatural inbound links" not penalized??!
-
Since Google's latest updates, I think it would be safe to say that building links is harder. But i also read that Google applies their latest guidelines retro-actively. In other words, if you have built your ilnking profile on a lot of unnatural links, with spammy anchor text, you will get noticed and penalized.
In the past, I used to use SEO friendly directories and "suggest URL's" to build back links, with keyword/phrase anchor text. But I thought that this technique was frowned upon by Google these days.
So, what is safe to do? Why is Google not penalizing the competitor?
And bottom line what is considered to be "unnatural link building" ?
-
Here's a pretty comprehensive ideas of various link building tactics you can try:
-
Thanks Mike!
Would love to fill out that spam report - but I think I'm gonna go with the solution below - the domain in question has a lot of natural links, but no keyword specific links in directories - whilst the other site is built solely on directory links -
Hopefully a few directory links will push the balance in our favour!
-
Thanks Takeshi!
I guess my next question is how do I obtain authoritative links? Thanks!
-
With Penguin, you want to keep keyword anchor text links to below 30-40% of your total link profile, or you might get hit with an unnatural link warning. Directory links are still fine, as long as you use them in moderation.
In general, the stronger your link profile, the more tolerance Google will have for spammy links. Every large site is going to end up with thousands of spammy links pointing to them, through no fault of their own. The question is whether you have enough authoritative links to counteract these negative links.
-
I know that it gets aggravating when you're doing the right thing and your competitors are cheating with seemingly no repercussions, but trust me when I say that they will get swept up eventually. Here is a list of unnatural link building tactics.
If they are doing any of these, they will get sodomized by Google (probably sooner than later).
If you want to be proactive there is a Spam Report Form that submits websites to the Google Web Spam Team. I can't say how well your Karma will do afterwords, but go for it if you want.
<a>https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/spamreport</a>
Sickem!!!
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
-
Spam Score & Redirecting Inbound Links
Hi, I recently downloaded a spreadsheet of inbound links to my client sites and am trying to 301 redirect the ones that are formatted incorrectly or just bad links in general (they all link to the site domain, but they used to have differently formatted urls on their old site, or the link URL in general has strange stuff on it). My question is, should I even bother redirecting these links if their spam score is a little high (i.e. 20-40%)? it already links to the existing domain, just with a differently formatted URL. I just want to make sure it goes to a valid URL on the site, but I don't want to redirect to a valid URL if it's going to harm the client's SEO. Also not sure what to do about the links with the --% spam score. I really appreciate any input as I don't have a lot of experience with how to deal with spammy links.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | AliMac260 -
I was penalized by Google? What do you think i have to do?
Id like some help, My site had a rank fall and I think I was penalized by Penguin, I compared running a 'Full SERP Report "and I see no reason for me to be in 4th place in the SERP.The Facts: I have a higher: Page Authority, # of Root Domains Linking to the Page, Domain Authority, # of Root Domains Linking to the Domain, MozRank, MozTrust My mT/mR is 0.955 against: #1->0.983 #2->0 #3->1.023 (but my mozrank and moz trust is higher My website is: https://www.soprojetos.com.br/ this occours since Nov 2015. I have 99 external links against: #1->15 #2->0 #3->11 Link to OSE:https://moz.com/researchtools/ose/links?site=www.soprojetos.com.br&filter=&source=external&target=page&group=0&page=1&sort=page_authority&anchor_id=&anchor_type=&anchor_text=&from_site=What I think:I guess a have to Disallow some links that some crazy Real Estate Websites made to my website, but i'm afraid to do this, and id like an oppinion about why my website is not ranking first to "plantas de casas" and "projetos de casas" anymore, my competitors are not so well seen on google as me (according to moz) (sorry for my bad english i'm brazilian) Thanks in Advance
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | aneebelo0 -
Google Panda and Penguin "Recovery"
We're working with a client who had been hit by Google Panda (duplicate content, copyright infringement) and Google Penguin (poor backlinks). While this has taken a lot of time, effort and patience to eradicate these issues, it's still been more than 6 months without any improvement. Have you experienced longer recovery periods? I've seen sites perform every black hat technique under the sun and still nearly 2 years later..no recovery! In addition many companies I've spoken to advised their clients to begin right from the very beginning with a new domain, site etc.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | GaryVictory0 -
Is it ok to ask for a non reciprocal link
hey guys, got mini discussion question. With rapgenius.com getting penalized today, it raises some questions about linking. What they did is definitely not ok. A link scheme involving their own affiliate network is against Google guidelines for sure. So is it ok to ask for a non reciprocal link if there is no incentive involved and no money changes hands? ie. Someone writes an article related to your article topic, or they reference you without a link. Then uou email the webmaster requesting a link... They add it. Is this against the guidelines?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Anti-Alex0 -
Do inbound links from forums hurt our traffic?
We have a manual action against us on Google webmaster tools for unnatural links. While evaluating our back links, I noticed that forums with low page rank/domain authority are linking to us. Is this hurting us?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | imlovinseo0 -
Black linking exploitation
Hi all After watching our ranking for some primary keywords drop on Google from page 1 to 20 and then totally off the charts in relatively short period I've recently discovered through moz tools that our website along with other competitor sites are victims to black linking (may have the terminology wrong). Two primary words are anchor linked to our domain (www.solargain.com.au) being sex & b$tch through over 4000 compromised sites - mostly Wordpress - many which are high profile sites. Searching through the source code through half a dozen compromised sites I noticed that competitors are also linked using other derogatory terms, but the patterns indicate batch or clustered processing. The hacker has left some evidence as to whom they are representing as I can see some credible discussion forums which contain negative feedback on one particular supplier also among the links. Although this is pretty good evidence to why our ranking has dropped there are some interesting questions: A) is there any way to rectify the 4000 or so black links, mass removal or other. (Doesn't sound feasible)
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | mannydog
B) some competitors who dominate organic ranking through better optimization don't seem to be affected or apparently affected as much as our site at least. Which questions how much we are affected as a direct result from this hack.
C) is there action or support for industrial espionage?
D) can you request from google to ignore the inbound links and would they not have a duty of care to do so? I'm fairly new to this ugly side of the Internet and would like to know how to approach recovery and moving forward. Thoughts ideas very welcome. Thanks in advance.0 -
Feedback on link building idea
We came up with this idea at work for a client but before I initiate it I was wanting to get feedback on if this would be considered whitehat and alright to use. It is for an ecommerce site. On the order confirmation and thank you page (not email cause they are on some old system that does not send out emails) we are wanting to put a thank you for your order message and continue with a statement about how they can save money on future purchases with a link that takes them to a page with info on how to do so. That new page will have info about linking to the site from a blog or website. And will say if you link back to us and send us an email with that link as proof we will give you a promo code for your next purchase. Is this alright?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | webfeatseo0 -
Thought on optimising the perfect keyword location link
My site works a bit like a directory, so say I have a page called "Ice Cream Vendors" - on that page I would talk a bit about Ice Cream Vendors, then I will have a list of Ice Cream Vendor Locations. My list of locations can be quite big depending on the product and the amount of locations they occur in - when you click a location, it goes to a page showing all "ICeCream Vendors" in that location. So Currently I will have a table on the page a bit like this: ICE CREAM VENDOR LOCATIONS
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | James77
New York
Miami
Las Vegas This is all perfectly nice, simple and usable - BUT it is not producing perfect keyword links - for perfect keyword links the list should be like this: ICE CREAM VENDOR LOCATIONS
New York Ice Cream Vendors
Miami Ice Cream Vendors
Las Vegas Ice Cream Vendors Now I have my perfect anchor links - BUT it looks rediculous and is NOT user friendly. So What do I do?
1/. Build it for users and not have perfect anchor links, and loose in SEO?
2/. Build a perfect SEO links and make it less usable and looking spammy? OR 3/. Deliver the search engine the perfect SEO links, and the user the userfriendly version? In this I mean I could do the following:
SE's (and screen readers I think would see):
ICE CREAM VENDOR LOCATIONS
New York Ice Cream Vendors
Miami Ice Cream Vendors
Las Vegas Ice Cream Vendors Users would See
ICE CREAM VENDOR LOCATIONS
New York
Miami
Las Vegas Now in my view I am doing nothing wrong - I am mearly giving the user the most userfriendly version and I am giving the SE more information on the link, that the user doesn't need. So - In my view I am doing something that is honest - but what are your thoughts?? Has anyone tried to do this? Thanks0
