Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Hidden Backlinks
-
Hi,
I hope someone can help me with this. We have a competitor who appears to be ranking No1 for a competitive search term with a very lame site and above some authoritative sites. He has been here for some time as well. When we check out his back link profile through OSE, Majestic and Ahrefs they show as only 3 backlinks from no PR sites.
However, someone pointed out that they could be using a link network that is blocking every crawler apart from Google, Yahoo and BIng.
I would like to know if there is a way to confirm this. For instance I know that we can use screaming frog to mimic Googlebot, however, if there a way to reveal the real backlinks to a site like this using any tools.
Thanks
-
You could try searching NerdyData for a search operator like below:
href="http://example.com
Make sure to leave the closing quotation mark out to account for any sub pages.
This may or may not return some different results, it's worth a shot.
-
Thanks for the advice, looks like they are creating a Silo effect and mass linking to the home page. Spotted a few links by using links:http://theredomain.com . To be honest at first because I didnt see the links I just wondered what they were doing so well to rank, but now I know they are not actually doing anything well at all, just guess I will have to sit back and wait.
Thanks
-
I know it's probably matter of curiosity and frustration. You just want to know why. In the end, however, we know what tends to win out over time, a good site that is well optimized and created quality, new content that is remarkable and getting that content in front of people. Oh, and doing an awesome job with your business. So, just focus on what you need to do to grow your own company/website and don't worry so much about your competition. It usually just wastes your time and makes you mad. Not worth it.
Good luck with your site.
-
Oh it's hard to find those types of links. Try what Chris said. You should also try putting just the URL in the google search bar to see what else comes up. There are other tactics you can do but in the end it's worthless because you can't really do anything about it. Even reporting it wont help.
Ive seen plenty of those before the last update, but now most are nowhere after the update so the algorithm has gotten better detecting those "ghost" networks.
-
I suspect that you're not going to find anything else but you could go straight to google and use the link:www.domain.com search operator to see what Google shows as back links. That search won't show you everything but should give you an idea if there's more to the picture than what's showing up in those services.
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
-
Blog post outreach for backlinks
Hi all, My understanding of obtaining backlinks by way of blogpost outreach is that it's best to include several outbound links to related high domain websites within blog post copy (as well as a link to the website you're marketing, obviously) such as this post https://www.scoopearth.com/why-should-you-use-royalty-free-music-for-youtube-videos/ or this one https://small-bizsense.com/how-to-create-quality-content-for-your-business/. However, I've recently read a few articles that suggest that from a human perspective only having one clear link in the copy, such as this post https://www.clichemag.com/entertainment/movies/the-benefits-of-royalty-free-cinematic-music-for-your-videos/, increases the chance of the reader visiting the site in question. I guess the thinking is that if there's only one link to be clicked on it increases the chances of click-thru, as opposed to the reader possibly clicking on another external link that's only there because of current SEO advice. So is it best to follow SEO guidelines and include several outbound links within guest blog posts, or is it better to only have the one link to your client's site (to focus the readers attention on it)?
Link Building | | JCN-SBWD0 -
Backlinks and SPAM
I was doing some back link review of competitors and I have noticed that many of our competition have 300+ do follow back links from Justia.com and an additional 300+ do follow links from law.cornell.edu (they share the same database). The links on Justia are from different pages and they are all going to the root of our competitors site. So the questions are as follows; 1: For the purpose of SEO is this considered SPAM 2: If not SPAM, then does it have a positive effect on the competitions website and should I attempt to emulate for my client. Thanks in advance. -Jeff
Link Building | | FriedmanSimon10000 -
Is there any tool that can automatically generate backlinks for my website?
Hi I need a tool or some kind of service like attracta for backlinks. I need backlinks from high page rank directories blogs etc. Please help me out from where I can purchase backlinks?
Link Building | | nitinkumar92583 -
How to identify spammy website before making backlinks on them
Hi, I search in google but didnt find a proper answer for this! maybe search an incorrect keyword! The question is, How can I find out a website that I'm going to make a backlink on is a spammy website? For example I did this guest bloging on this good website: Best Sure-Shot Organic Pest Control Approaches Every Gardener Should Know | Balcony Garden Web But it seems to be spammy because I use SEO POWERSUIT software that shows this backlink is 20% risk of google penalty! Is it right!? So how can we rest assured for making a quality backlink? I can not think any other way 😞
Link Building | | Shervin0 -
Best Way to Filter Backlinks
When analyzing backlinks and trying to get the same one for another site there are a ton of backlinks to go through. I know that if the DA of the link is then pages on the site might be a good choice like adding an article or something of the sort to the site but as far a the same page goes you can typically only do this with a comment on the page. My question is, given a huge list of backlinks from multiple sites, is there an easy way to analyze the links and determine which ones I can copy without manually checking hundreds of links?
Link Building | | spyke010 -
Trading Backlinks a good idea?
New to the "backlinking" party. Wondering if its 'good practice' to trade links with other websites within a like-industry. We've been receiving a lot of emails from other websites asking us to trade links. Is this a good link building practice anymore? Thanks!
Link Building | | asa-php0 -
Quotations about importance of social media and backlinks
Hi all, I'm looking to put together a presentation on SEO and I'm wondering if anyone knows any good quotes that relate to the importance of having content on your site that people want to use and share. I'm looking for something like this: “Today’s marketing success comes from self-publishing Web content that people want to share. It’s not about gimmicks. It’s not about paying an agency to interrupt others.” David Meerman Scott “The New Rules of Marketing and PR” but ideally something that illustrates in terms of numbers how much more traffic and seo benefits a site can expect from having good guides, pdfs and news stories that people want to share. Thanks so much for any helo you can offer. thanks, David
Link Building | | AnthOrange0