Would 37,000 footer links from one site be the cause for our ranking drops?
-
Hey guys,
After this week's Penguin update, I've noticed that one of our clients has seen a dip in rankings.
Because of this, I've had a good link at the client's back link profile in comparison to competitors and noticed that over 37,000 footer links have been generated from one website - providing us with an unhealthy balance of anchor terms.
Do you guys believe this may be the cause for our ranking drops?
Would it be wise to try and contact the webmaster in question to remove the footer links?
Thanks,
Matt
-
Hi
continue optimizing and do not assume it will get back to where it was before.
I see some of the site I optimize stuck in new positions and only a very slow movement upward.
I guess it takes a lot of work to move up again
-
When you say a "waiting game", do you mean weeks? Months?
We've now returned to page three for the keyword.
-
Hi Tom
this may be a waiting game.
I would assume this link is not the only reason for the drop in ranking.
continue with your site review. get busy creating content and clean any other unnatural inbound links.
-
Just an update on this; after removing the footer links we're still seeing a downward movement for one of the most competitive keywords that we were ranking on the first page for.
As I mentioned in my last message, a couple of days ago it dropped to third page and now it's on page 8! Should we be looking at a reconsideration request even though we didn't receive an actual warning from Google?
-
We've now managed to remove the footer links that were incoming from the website I mentioned.
Any advice on the next stage of the process? Or is it just purely a waiting game? Should we submit a reconsideration request? Will we be able to see any immediate changes?
To give you an idea of the scale of the ranking dips; the site was originally floating around 6/7/8 for a competitive keyword but has now dropped to the third page.
-
Hey Tom,
That's great. Just the sort of confirmation I was looking for.
I'll get on to the process of removing these links now.
-
Hey there
That's really an unnatural amount. And if it looks unnatural it's always in line for a penalty.
Has a commercial anchor text been used? Or is it brand? Even if it's brand, it's still a grotesque amount of links, while many of the pages linking to your client's site may be from low quality pages. If it was a commercial anchor text, partial or exact match, then I'd be in little doubt this would cause the penalty.
I'd get the links removed ASAP, or ask the webmaster to make the links nofollow, although that may not suffice now the penalty has been put down.
If this coincided with the penguin update, the likely thing is that you won't see a recovery until the algorithm refreshes - unless we hear otherwise from Google - which is pretty frustrating. A manual penalty can be appealed any time with a reconsideration request, of course.
Hope this 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
-
Help - Losing Ranking on Plural Keywords in Google
Help! I'm losing keyword rankings for certain keywords - but still ranking well on others. The trend I can see is that we're losing rankings on plurals, so this page https://www.key.co.uk/en/key/platform-trolleys-trucks Used to rank well for: platform trolleys
Algorithm Updates | | BeckyKey
platform trucks
flat bed trolleys But now only ranks well for platform trolley flat bed trolleys platform truck I have seen a large number of keywords drop out - they're not hitting traffic massively yet, but conversions are dropping - help! I;m struggling to find the cause!0 -
Drop in Organic Traffic
Hi all, last Thursday (1/31) our organic traffic and conversions fell off the map, going from 15% of our traffic to just over 5%. We've started creeping back up, we were nearly 7% yesterday, but I'm wondering if anyone else experienced an extreme drop in traffic or any advice on what we should be doing next. We are currently building links from University and government organizations and are always creating fresh content on our blog and website pages. One thing that we thought of is this timeline corresponds with when we created a Google + local listing for our company. Is there any possibility we stopped appearing in as many national search results since we have a local listing? Our domain is www.dishcostsless.com. Any advice would be very helpful. Thank!
Algorithm Updates | | PlanetDISH0 -
How to increase Alexa Rank?
Hi All, I have a website mexat.com and continuously my Alexa rank decreasing before a month my website Alexa rank was approx 3500 but now it is 4,487 so I am worried about that and want to get Alexa below 2000. So please suggest me what I can do to get good Alexa rank. I am waiting for your valuable feedback. Thanks Mike
Algorithm Updates | | afycon0 -
Awarding badges to bloggers as a link-building strategy?
Hello - In the past, doing "Blog awards" and subsequently offering winners' badges with links and anchor text embedded has been something that worked very well for a client. However, we are now noticing that the badging strategy does not seem to be producing the same results for us. We are only reaching out to quality blogs in particular niches - e.g., Top Fashion Blogs, Top Health Blogs, Top Design Blogs, etc. Most blogs that post the badges are in the PageRank 3-5 range. Has anyone else engaged in badging strategy and noticed that the success rates are declining? Could it be that in-text, contextual links are given much more weight than sidebar links? (The badges are most typically posted in bloggers' sidebars). Any insight would be appreciated, thanks!
Algorithm Updates | | brmckenna0 -
Yoast SEO plugin and Weak Links
The plugin has what I thought was a great feature. My main site is often scrapped and I thought 'well at least we're getting a Link out of it' - due to the RSS feature of Yoast's Wordpress SEO plugin (you can add a link to the bottom of your RSS feeds). Now Google is talking about Links from weak/crap sites and how they may impact your rankings. So - with this in mind.. Do we want links from scrappers? Are we now better off discontinuing the usage of this feature? I imagine there may be varying opinions on this so I'll open it as a discussion... thanks
Algorithm Updates | | TheHockeyWriters0 -
Half my ranks have gone missing
I have a site that was rankly very highly for gaming walkthrough phrases. I was ranking #3 for the phrase skyward sword walkthrough Then it began to drop, despite me building more links (non spammy links) through guest blogs and emailing people requesting they just link to it from their site. I went in and added more text to the page and it went up a few places but is now gone from the first 5-10 pages. This has also happened to all of my walkthrough related ranks. My other ranks are still there but these accounted for a large portion of my traffic and is very odd. My on-page grade is near if not perfect my page Some insight would be nice
Algorithm Updates | | webfeatseo0 -
Are multiple domains for my website hurting my Google ranking?
Hello, I currently have two domains showing up in google search: shwoodshop.com shop.shwoodshop.com These domains are currently ranked in the #2 and #3 spot, however my page is much more trafficked than the current #1 ranking. I am wondering if the fact that I have two domains competing for the #1 spot is hurting my search ranking. If so, what is the best way to remedy this issue and get back my #1 spot? I'm rather new to SEO and teaching myself as I go, so I appreciate the feedback!
Algorithm Updates | | shwoodshop0 -
Selling same procucts from more than one website
I would like to know whether it's ok to sell same products from 2-3 websites. Design and URL structure will be different but same e-commerce platform. Would google penalise or drop the rankings, etc. How google deall with this sort of thing? If problem arises how can we get around it? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | Jvalops0