Can you disavow a spamy link that is not pointing to your website?
-
We have submitted several really spammy websites to the Google spam team. We noticed they take a very long time to react to submissions. Do you know if it is possible to disavow a link that is not pointing to your website but rather to a very spammy website?
Thanks
-
Hi Marie,
You are absolutely correct. I was confused. Thanks for clearing that up for me.
Carla
-
You may be confused about what the disavow tool does. Sure, you can put any site in your disavow file. You're basically telling Google that if they crawl that site and find a link on it that is pointing to yours to not pass any Pagerank through the link. Google has said several times that they do not use disavow info against the disavowed sites. It is not a spam report.
-
Hi Jessy,
Well I am glad to see that I am not the only person with the same issue. I really delayed the whole submitting my competitors to Google spam but they continue to use black hat techniques. I will let you know if it works.
Thanks
Carla
-
Yes Carla it does make sense and thank you for the explanation.
I too am working in an industry where all of my competitors who outrank me are using blackhat tactics and they haven't been penalized for it at all. It's quite frustrating and I'd be lying if I hadn't considered submitting them to the Webspam team. However I worry that this will somehow come back to bite us later on so I haven't done so and probably never will. Instead I continue building quality content and trying to organically build authority.
That all said, I'd love it if you kept us posted. I'd really like to know how this all works out for you. Even though you are in another country, it might be a great indicator of the potential problems/benefits to this tactic.
Thanks
-
Hi Jesse and Tuzzell,
We have several competitors that use constant black hat techniques. They have been doing this for over 2 years and for some reason the Google Algorithm updates are not taking effect. We have stuck to white hat techniques but are getting a bit impatient. For over 2 years our black hat competitors continue to outrank us. We waited 2 years before submitting them to Google Spam and the only reason we did it was because they have not stopped using black hat techniques. It's a bit frustrating. We are not going on a spam crusade...its more like helping Google do their job and testing the Argentina Google Spam team and learning more about SEO. BTW, we also submitted ourselves to the Google Spam Team about 2 years back to see if our links were in line with Google's policies.
Hope it makes sense...
Carla
-
I can't wrap my head around why you would want to do this and what you seek to gain from it..?
Tuzzell is right, the answer is no.. but I absolutely am dying to know why you are leading the Spam Crusade? (I'm not against it.. nor am I for it.. I'm totally neutral so far just curious why)
-
Short answer no.
To use the disavow tool you need to be logged into webmaster tools, and you need to use the disavow tool under the profile of the relavent site. As such Google will know that any links you are trying to disavow are associated with, and only authorised for, the site you have signed in under.
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
-
How can I stop serious traffic lost on my website
I need help resolving technical SEO issues on my website CamRojud. I have tried allSEO tactics but no improvement yet. Can someone in the forum guide me through please.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Dawodus0 -
Site Footer Links Used for Keyword Spam
I was on the phone with a proposed web relaunch firm for one of my clients listening to them talk about their deep SEO knowledge. I cannot believe that this wouldn’t be considered black-hat or at least very Spammy in which case a client could be in trouble. On this vendor’s site I notice that they stack the footer site map with about 50 links that are basically keywords they are trying to rank for. But here’s the kicker shown by way of example from one of the themes in the footer: 9 footer links:
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | RosemaryB
Top PR Firms
Best PR Firms
Leading PR Firms
CyberSecurity PR Firms
Cyber Security PR Firms
Technology PR Firms
PR Firm
Government PR Firms
Public Sector PR Firms Each link goes to a unique URL that is basically a knock-off of the homepage with a few words or at the most one sentences swapped out to include this footer link keyword phrase, sometimes there is a different title attribute but generally they are a close match to each other. The canonical for each page links back to itself. I simply can’t believe Google doesn’t consider this Spammy. Interested in your view.
Rosemary0 -
Duplicate product content - from a manufacturer website, to retailers
Hi Mozzers, We're working on a website for a manufacturer who allows retailers to reuse their product information. Now, this of course raises the issue of duplicate content. The manufacturer is the content owner and originator, but retailers will copy the information for their own site and not link back (permitted by the manufacturer) - the only reference to the manufacturer will be the brand name citation on the retailer website. How would you deal with the duplicate content issues that this may cause. Especially considering the domain authority for a lot of the retailer websites is better than the manufacturer site? Thanks!!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | A_Q0 -
Do I lose link juice if I have a https site and someone links to me using http instead?
We have recently launched a https site which is getting some organic links some of which are using https and some are using http. Am I losing link juice on the ones linked using http even though I am redirecting or does Google view them the same way? As most people still use http naturally will it look strange to google if I contact anyone who has given us a link and ask them to change to https?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Lisa-Devins0 -
Update: Copied Website
So I discovered a website the other day that is a complete duplicate of ours: justinchina.co.uk This is our website: petmedicalcenter.com . Thanks to help from Erica, I dug in deeper to see why this was happening. It seems that the justinchinca.co.uk which is hosted by GoDaddy has their A Record pointing at our web host. So that being said, our website does not seem to be hacked which is good news. Would this still cause an issue with our Google rankings? Our host, Host Monster said to contact GoDaddy and GoDaddy said that a domain owner can point their URL to anywhere that they choose. Anyway, any feedback would be helpful. Thanks for everyone thus far that has helped me. Brant
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BCB11210 -
Content website of the year 2009 ....
I own a network of travel sites, after all the changes that happened to past 12 months and so. I am really thinking if maybe my sites are worthless. I mean, let's be honest here. I understand what Google is doing. So i ask myself. If I wasn't trying to make a living with google adsense and affiliate sites... Would I still have these travel sites ? well the truth is NO NO... Therefore should i forget about my content site ? It is a punch of useless content. well some interesting information but it is a travel guide like many others online. What do you think? now it is better to focus on your product site or create 1 good websites rather than a network of sites that worked very veryyy well the past 10 years...
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | sandyallain0 -
Affiliate Website Slapping
Hi There I recently launched a very large website - rich in good quality content, nice design and good onsite SEO. The website is a 100 + pages and gives the user informative content. In terms of SEO and linking building - a few guest posts, PR's and directories have been submitted. All links have been relevant and quality. No spam links used at all and the number of links submitted has been very low. Only a handful.. We have seen a significant drop in rankings and I am scratching my head as to why. My worry is that Google has slapped us for having an affiliate link on the website. Each page - except the homepage has one advert on them. The advert includes an affiliate link. Does anyone have any recent experience of affiliate websites been slapped? Can anyone help??? Much Appreciated
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | CayenneRed890 -
Buying Links
Hello, I have talked to many SEO companies about their services and rates. I noticed that all of them will buy thousands and thousands of links once you first join. That is why they always want a start-up fee, so they can purchase the links. I know the best method is doing it the ethical hard way of asking sites to link to them, but I dont have time to do that. I mainly want to know where the SEO companies buy their links from. I am figuring that them buying the links are not negatively affecting the sites or they would lose their clients if they got into black hat links. It must be good inorder for them to keep their clients. I was interested in buying links, but do not know who to trust. Does anyone have a recommendation?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | neeper670