Backlink Audit
-
Hello,
I have a quick question for the MOZ readers about my companies current backlink audit. We've noticed many of the backlinks that the Google Webmaster Tool has found come from websites that are no longer in existence or have error messages. Are these websites counting negatively against us or should we ignore them?
Thanks!
Alex Rubin
-
Only if notified of unnatural links would I file a reconsideration request. Focus on building more links and creating new content.
-
If those pages don't exist anymore then they're not going to impact you one way or another.
Unless you've received some sort of unnatural link warning then I would concentrate more on building more good links and interactions than on spending time and resources getting rid of a number of links that you're not sure are hurting you. As long as you are continually building up your content and working to get good links and citations then the site should be moving in the right direction.
Lots of web sites have some "dirty links" and some sites do well in the serps despite outright spamming. A lot of the negative impacts I've seen has to do with tripping some boundary, so if you're working on the good links then you'll be walking back from that line instead of towards it.
-
Thanks for the response Craig! We are not going through a reconsideration request but we feel our site is not performing as well as it should be based on our content and link portfolio so we're hoping by removing some spam links from a past SEO organization we may get a boost in the rankings. Has anyone else seen an increase in rankings by removing spam links even if you technically had not been penalized?
-
If the pages are throwing a 404 or the links themselves are nofollowed, then you don't need to worry about them.
If you are putting together a manual link audit report for Google for a reconsideration request, I would include those links along with a column for link status and either set that as "nofollow" or "page generates 404 error" for those pages depending on the error.
If you're not going through a reinclusion request, then you can ignore those as Google will figure out those pages don't exist.
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
-
Backlink Shows Zero.
My website have a baclinks as shown in other tools but in MOZ backlinks shows zero, WHY?
Link Building | | frank.21
can you check please: https://menscareclinics.com/0 -
Which Backlinks to Disavow?
I am a site owner just getting to learn more about managing things myself after outsourcing SEO to a firm a year back (they stopped all activities about 8 months back). The question I have is about disavowing the low quality links. After collecting all the data from many sites on the basis of this helpful posting - (http://moz.com/blog/ultimate-guide-to-google-penalty-removal), I am now left with around 2,800 back-links. I discovered most of the bad ones using ahrefs and majestic (and Google webmaster did not show many of the bad links). In fact, in the very first place, I realized that there was a spam problem when I saw the anchor cloud on ahrefs which showed many unrelated anchors for my site. I have three questions: **First, **Many URL's are actually from websites which have nothing to do with my line of business and I can sure spot them. What I get confused with is this - I can not say that these sites are downright spam. Some of them look to be good sites for example - a coffee machine vendor (with full business details and a fairly decent looking business), a Nike sports shoes mart etc. But they have nothing to do with my business. So my first question is - What is spam really? Would a back link from a high ranking website in the travel industry be considered spam from the point of view of someone who runs a website for medical equipment, specially if the back-link is from an unrelated anchor text like - "3 nights travel package" (which has nothing to do with medical business). I think I should disavow all the low quality back links with an erroneous anchor but Id like some views on this. Second, I see that in the disavow file, one could either upload a whole domain or a specific URL (could somebody please confirm this). I have some sites which have 8-12 (more in some cases) back links to my site. In most cases these sites are either really bad quality or have nothing to do with my business. I am tempted to disavow the entire domain for such sites instead of going by the URL's. Any views? Third, this is what I'd really like some help with. In case I delete the very pages (on my site) to which these back links point, should I still disavow the pointing domain? Finally: I have not created most of these backlinks. In fact, over the last 2-3 months we have started creating links from good sites in my industry. Most of the anchor cloud is good for me on ahrefs but there are these bad ones to which my question relates. I have not got any manual penalty from Google, though my traffic I think took a hit in the first week of October 2013.
Link Building | | sanar0 -
Is there a difference between .com backlinks and .co.uk?
(We are a UK based business) I am currently looking for sites for guest posting opportunities and I am not sure whether I should prioritize .co.uk sites or go for .com sites. Does it matter? Is more weight given to .co.uk sites if you are based in the UK?
Link Building | | JamesG0750 -
App SEO: do backlinks to your google play app help?
I have an app in the Google Play store and I am trying to improve it in the play store search rankings. I was wondering if back-links to our play store URL help? If so do today's rules around back-link quality matter or its it about volume? Any other advice would be welcomed. thanks
Link Building | | surfeasy0 -
Which page should my backlink lead to?
I used Keyword A for Page A, and Keyword B for Page B. Now Page B ranks on the first page in Keyword A. When I create backlinkS with Keyword A, should I link to Page A or Page B?
Link Building | | joony20080 -
Backlinking post penguin
Does anyone have any effective strategies about how to backlink for a new website. I'm just really cautious of this new penguin update and don't want to submit to too many directories or do anything that will get penalised, seen as the website is new.
Link Building | | AAttias0 -
Backlinks: What are they really and how can I create them.
I am relatively new to the SEO world, and I want to build backlinks linking to our main site. My preferred way to create backlinks is by adding them in my blog comments or forum responses. I am an active participant in a large number of blogs/forums related to our field and I would like to add relevant backlinks in the comments/answers I post. I originally thought that a backlink was just a link, but none of the links that I have added to blogs like that have been recognized as backlinks. https://www.dynaread.com/ Why is this so? I know now that good backlink would be something like: Dynaread is a science based dyslexia remediation program for older struggling readers. However I have no idea how to add this types of links to blog comments or forum pages where there is no link tool. Do I have to do something with HTML? Please explain briefly what a backlink really is and most importantly how I can create them. Thank you in advance for your help! Joy P.S if you have suggestions about some resources where I can learn more about the subject please let me know. I love to learn more.
Link Building | | Dynaread0 -
Youtube Backlink
We've had our Youtube Channel fairly optimized for several months now. Part of that effort includes the link back to our site which is allowed on Youtube. When doing link research I see Youtube links being given credit to competitors but haven't seen Youtube show up in backlinks reports for our site yet. Is there any way to speed this up? Our Youtube page with the link has been indexed and a cached version of the page is in Google's SERPs. If there are any tricks to getting this going that anyone is aware of I'd like to hear it. *The link on Youtube returns a 200 and is followable. I'm using the SEOMOZ tool and Open Site Explorer to do backlinking research.
Link Building | | dgmiles0