Proactively Use GWT Removal Tool?
-
I have a bunch of links on my site from sexualproblems.net (not a porn site, it's a legit doctor's site who I've talked to on the phone in America). The problem is his site got hacked and has tons of links on his homepage to other pages, and mine is one of them. I have asked him multiple times to take the link down, but his webmaster is his teenage son, who doesn't basically just doesn't feel like it. My question is, since I don't think they will take the link down, should I proactively remove it or just wait till I get a message from google?
I'd rather not tell google I have spam links on my site, even if I am trying to get them removed. However, I have no idea if that's a legitimate fear or not. I could see the link being removed and everything continuing fine or I could see reporting the removal request as signaling a giant red flag for my site to be audited.
Any advice?
- Ruben
-
*Disavow, that's what I meant to say. Alright, thanks for your insights! I appreciate it.
- Ruben
-
If you feel the link is negatively affecting your site then you can disavow links from that domain using the Disavow Link tool in Webmaster Tools: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2648487?hl=en
But your best is always to try get the link down manually. If it is not affecting you (one bad link in a herd of many links) then I wouldn't worry about it.
-
Hi,
If you have low quality / hacked links leading to your site, I would just go ahead and disavow that site. Don't worry about Google coming along to audit you for this, that isn't what they are trying to do. You need to distance yourself from the site and this is the way to do it.
-Andy
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
-
Google Webmaster Tools show the error in Manual Action while there is no any error in Structured Data Testing Tool.
It is showing error as below Spammy structured markup Markup on some pages on this site appears to use techniques such as marking up content that is invisible to users, marking up irrelevant or misleading content, and/or other manipulative behavior that violates Google's Spammy Structured Markup guidelines. While I see in Structured Data Testing Tool, it doesn't show any error.
Algorithm Updates | | infinitemlm0 -
How Google's "Temporarily remove URLs" in search console works?
Hi, We have created new sub-domain with new content which we want to highlight for users. But our old content from different sub-domain is making top on google results with reputation. How can we highlight new content and suppress old sub-domain in results? Many pages have related title tags and other information in similar. We are planing to hide URLs from Google search console, so slowly new pages will attain the traffic. How does it works?
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Link Removal
Hi - We have been trying to remove bad links for about 12 months. QUESTION: How can be eliminate backlinks from sites are not possible to contact? Background: Contacted as many domain administrators as we could. Not a big change. Some want $$$ Submitted 3 disavow lists (3 months apart from each other). Last list was to remove all links. We still have a large number of Japanese and Chines links directories pointing to us that we cannot contact or don't know how to ask to be removal. One key thing to keep in mind, is that we don't want to change the URL. Thanks, for the help.
Algorithm Updates | | highlandadventures0 -
Should we use brand name of product in URL
Hi all, What is best for SEO. We sell products online. Is it good to mention the brand in the product detail page URL key if (part of) the brand is also in the home url? So our URL is: www.brandXstore.com Is it best to do: www.brandXstore.com/brandX-productA.html of just do: www.brandXstore.com/ProductA.html Thanks for quick answering 😉
Algorithm Updates | | RetailClicks1 -
Does Google or Bing use words in the page title beyond the displayed limit for ranking purposes?
Standard good practice for on-page SEO includes keeping page title length below the maximum that Google displays in the SERPs. But words in the title beyond that maximum can be indexed, even if they don't show in the SERPs for end users. For ranking purposes, is there any value in words beyond the character limit in page titles that are truncated in the SERPs?
Algorithm Updates | | KyleJB0 -
Has Google problems in indexing pages that use <base href=""> the last days?
Since a couple of days I have the problem, that Google Webmaster tools are showing a lot more 404 Errors than normal. If I go thru the list I find very strange URLs that look like two paths put together. For example: http://www.domain.de/languages/languageschools/havanna/languages/languageschools/london/london.htm If I check on which page Google found that path it is showing me the following URL: http://www.domain.de/languages/languageschools/havanna/spanishcourse.htm If I check the source code of the Page for the Link leading to the London Page it looks like the following: [...](languages/languageschools/london/london.htm) So to me it looks like Google is ignoring the <base href="..."> and putting the path together as following: Part 1) http://www.domain.de/laguages/languageschools/havanna/ instead of base href Part 2) languages/languageschools/london/london.htm Result is the wrong path! http://www.domain.de/languages/languageschools/havanna/languages/languageschools/london/london.htm I know finding a solution is not difficult, I can use absolute paths instead of relative ones. But: - Does anyone make the same experience? - Do you know other reasons which could cause such a problem? P.s.: I am quite sure that the CMS (Typo3) is not generating these paths randomly. I would like to be sure before we change the CMS's Settings to absolute paths!
Algorithm Updates | | SimCaffe0 -
"Revisit-after" Metatag = Why use it?
Hi Mozfans, Just been thinking about the robots revisit metatag, all pages on my website (200+ pages) have the following tag on them; name="revisit-after" content="7 days" /> I'm wondering what is the purpose of the tag? Surely isn't it best to allow robots (such as Googlebot or Bingbot) to crawl your site as often as possible so the index and rankings get updated as quickly as possible? Thanks in advance everyone! Ash
Algorithm Updates | | AshSEO20110 -
Using Brand Name in Page titles
Is it a good practice to append our brand name at the end of every page title? We have a very strong brand name but it is also long. Right now what we are doing is saying: Product Name | Long brand name here Product Category | Long brand name here Is this the right way to do it or should we just be going with ONLY the product and category names in our page titles? Right now we often exceed the 70 character recommendation limit.
Algorithm Updates | | mlentner1