Should I report unnatural links via Webmasters?
-
We have a client who fired their last SEO firm for backlinking. The company has the actual emails and evidence that it found. On July 19, 2012, they received a notice in Webmasters that "unnatural links" had been detected to their site. The notice states that they should request reinclusion, but Matt Cutts is saying something different:
https://plus.google.com/u/3/109412257237874861202/posts/gik49G9c5LU
My client wants to ensure that they are NOT impacted, so should they notify Google anyways?
The notice in Webmasters reads:
Dear site owner or webmaster of….
We’ve detected that some of your site’s pages may be using techniques that are outside Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.
Specifically, look for possibly artificial or unnatural links pointing to your site that could be intended to manipulate PageRank. Examples of unnatural linking could include buying links to pass PageRank or participating in link schemes.
We encourage you to make changes to your site so that it meets our quality guidelines. Once you’ve made these changes, please submit your site for reconsideration in Google’s search results.
If you find unnatural links to your site that you are unable to control or remove, please provide the details in your reconsideration request.
If you have any questions about how to resolve this issue, please see our Webmaster Help Forum for support.
Sincerely, Google Search Quality Team
-
We do not see any penalties at this point.
-
Has the site been penalized or no? If not don't report anything. If yes then you need to clean it up and file for reconsideration, don't just assume that Google will lift the penalty you need to be pro-active.
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
-
Social Links through Link Shortners. Does it count?
We use link shortner services like Bitly, Goo.gl, etc. Does the post used while making use of such link shortner services counts as a social signal. Or should we post the complete website url pointing to each page while posting on social sites. Secondly, should we write a new description while posting on Social sites or just copy paste a few lines of original posts?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | welcomecure0 -
Is a scholarship seen as buying links?
We work in the student loan debt industry, so providing a scholarship for our viewers makes total sense for our business. Would links to this page be seen by Google as buying links? Does this fall anywhere into gray-hat tactics? My gut tells me no because helping people with student debt is what we do. The scholarship really synergizes with our business model, but who knows..?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DemiGR0 -
Advice on Link Removal Services
Hello everyone, Due to the Penguin update my site unfortunately took a bit of a hit. A little while ago I submitted all of our questionable/bad links to the disavow tool, however I still wante to go back and delete any and all problematic links that are still out there. Ive looked into many services, however I haven't been too impressed. Removeem - The email addresses they provided weren't always valid, and their email tool didn't always deploy correctly - a lot of cross referencing and was not saving me any time. Link Detox - Free trial was a bust. They show you 10 links on the free trial, however for me, 9 of the 10 were all the same. Couldn't get a good feel of their system. Rmoov - Their tool is one where you upload your own links, and they help manage everything, however they DONT allow you to email through their system, so Im not sure how this helps my process if I have to do everthing manaully anyway. A lot of sites I see are also a full service approach that charge you based on how many links they remove, and this can get quite costly. I have also contacted:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Lukin
Link Delete - No reponse from multiple email requests
Linkquidator - No response
Infatex - No response My questions to all of you are: Is there any company out there that you recommend that provide a self service tool [online or desktop driven]? Is this even an avenue I should explore, or should I compile my own list [as 3rd party algorithms are not always accurate] and reach out to sites manually? Is disavowing good enough and Im just spinning my wheeles trying to now get them all removed? Thanks!0 -
Consensus on Paying to Remove Links
Hi all, For discussion... I am painstakingly working my way through a link profile, highlighting 'unnatural links' and contacting webmasters to try and get the links removed - I haven't got as far as 'disavow' or a 'Reconsideration Request' I have found a large number (around 150) of links from http://www.bookmarks4you.com and when I have attempted to contact the site for link removals I have had a payment request in order to do so. Now the amount being requested is low and so it may be worthwhile, however, I wondered what the consensus was with regards to this sort of demand? I know I could simply add the links to my 'disavow list' but for the sake of a small payment, I could get rid of them much quicker! Also, the majority of sites that I am contacting only have a contact from as opposed to an email address that I can use directly - what I am doing is taking a screen print of each contact form in order to have proof that I am actually doing the 'hard graft' as opposed to simply adding sites to a disavow list - is this a worthwhile exercise? Many thanks Andy
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TomKing0 -
Does Google WMT download links button give me all the links they count
Hi Different people are telling me different things I think if I download "all links" using the button in WMT to excel, I am seeing all the links Google is 'counting' when evaluating my site. is that right?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | usedcarexpert0 -
Do outbound links matter?
The value of inbound links is clear but do the number of outbound links matter when it comes to SEO and search engine rankings?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | casper4340 -
Links to Facebook pages
I would like to ask if anyone has any knowledge regarding linking to a company's facebook page. I have built a few links to a client's facebook page in an effort to have it rank better in SERPs. I just learned that unlike twitter and linkedin, it is apparently not possibly to directly link to facebook pages. At least it is not possible from a search engine's perspective. If you follow any facebook page link while you are not logged into facebook, you are redirected to the facebook home page. I can't think of any way around this obstacle. I'd love some clever solution such as providing a URL which includes a basic dummy facebook login but there is nothing I am aware of to achieve this result. Does anyone have any ideas on this topic?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RyanKent0 -
Footer Link
Hello, Some of my hosted clients don't mind if I put a footer link on the bottom of their website. I would like to put a footer link that looks like Seomoz's - http://imgur.com/GrC8y Basically it would look like so: "Powered by "my company name". The world's #1 "keyword" provider (LOGO goes here) Here are my questions: 1. Would this hurt or help my rankings? 2. Should the logo be hosted by my clients so that a different ip is hosting my logo (where my image name will get picked up)? Or is it best to host it myself? 3. If my company name and keyword are getting linked, is that one link too many? 4. Is it a good idea to use a different keyword so that other keywords get picked up by SERPs, or should I set myself up on one keyword ? Thank you so much! Shawn
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Shawn1240