Is hotvsnot penalized?
-
Been doing some searches for this directory, we have used them for quite a few links and now it seems as though they do not show up in serps for branded terms and the actual "www.hotvsnot.com" search phrase. Scary! Have a look let me know if you are having the same issue ladies and gents.
-
Yup i just checked again and its definitely been hit. I also have some clients who are ranking very well and they are on this directory, however we are not seeing a negative effect.
-
Nothing wrong with a directory link which is human edited. However we only choose a handful like business.com, best of the web and etc.. we definitely do not spam.
-
Not really an answer to the question but I just googled "hot vs not" in incognito and this page is the second to last result on the first page, which is mildly interesting.
-
We have also used them before, and to date have not seen a negative effect on any site that has links from them. BUT, since Google has been cracking down on paid link sites, we have decided not to add any new site links there. If you have links coming from hotvsnot, I would assume you also have links from other paid directories? Use the MOZ backlink tool to see what all you have floating around out there, as you may need to put a few disavows in place.
-
Its still indexed on a "site:" search so it hasnt been de-indexed and it still has its PageRank so probably not a manual penalty, if it is suffering one. Google really doesn't like these kind of directories though so I'd stay away in the future - just incase.
-
I just typed cache:www.hotvsnot.com and got a blank screen. When I looked at the code, I got information about www.hotvsnot.us and a small amount of content about adult themes. Definitely something fishy going on there.
-
I always thought it was over priced for what you got
-
without a doubt its either been hit or has changed something drastically.
From the image below - its search visibility dropped to basically zero on 16/5 last year so either has been hit (which it looks like), or changed something drastically.
http://imgur.com/QwcJC9v (UK visibility)
http://imgur.com/GGeWvGj (US Visibility)
While the visibility isn't a great factor on its own, when there has been a huge drop like that I suspect its been penalised.
From looking at the list of updates I would say it possibly got hit by Penguin 2.0 http://moz.com/google-algorithm-change or could have been a manual penalty.
But I would stay clear of the website and not pay to put anymore links on their website.
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
-
When will link farms and back sites be penalized or when will the website using them as backlinks be penalized?
After doing some backlink searching on competitors, I see a great deal of competitor's backlinks are obvious linkfarms and just completely unrelated to their field. Also I see a lot of forum comments using links are showing as backlinks, upon inspecting the html element I see they're " no follow " links. Why are they showing up as backlinks with link equity then?
Link Building | | Deacyde0 -
How can I tell if a site is trustworthy and is not / hasn't been penalized by Google?
Hello Moz Community, I'm looking to do some link building for a client and I would like to know if there's a way to find out if a website is trustworthy and is not or hasn't been penalised by Google. Thank you.
Link Building | | CosminC0 -
Can internal links cause Google to penalize me for key terms/phrases?
For example, having a link on many pages (so dozens of links in total) using a product name, all pointing to that product page. Could Google see that as "spammy" and penalize that product page in the SERP's? Note: My product page has been penalized for the search term "Product Name" and there are no external links pointing that page using the product name as a term. This is new with the latest Panda Updates.
Link Building | | absoauto0 -
Should I continue adding new content on the website penalized by Google?
I have a website that is imposed partial action by Google due to unnatural links. We are in the process to clean up those links. At the same time, I want to add more content to the same website. My concern is whether the new content pages will be affected by Google's action as well. Should I wait until we finish the cleanup and get a green light from Google? In addition, will it be worth doing some on-page optimization on the pages that are affected by unnatural links and Google's penalty? Please advise. Thanks. John
Link Building | | pianomother0 -
Linking to sites that link to porn or casinos, my site getting penalized?
I have some link exchanges with some sites to get web traffic but when i ran the bad neighborhood link checker, i found that one site links to some casinos and another site has one link to a porn site. Is this getting me penalized? should i remove the links to these sites? Thanks, Ron
Link Building | | Ron100 -
Redirecting a penalized domain to a new one to remove penalty?
I've got this website that has been hit quite hard by the first Penguin update round. Would it be better to move all my content to another domain and do a 301 redirect? Or should I keep the penalized domain and try to clean up the bad link profile? Also I must say that the website has been hacked last fall and the hacker was able to upload porn stuff in one of the folders. Needless to say, I quickly acquired tons of links from porn and warez. And no, porn and warez has nothing to do with my website's topic. Thank you for your help! Stephane
Link Building | | sbrault740 -
Penalized?
In late November, our site experienced a dramatic loss in serps across several pages. Since this time, we have been trying all sorts of recommendations that included adding the +1 button, adding Facebook like button, differentiation link types and so on. At the time that all of this happened we also noticed a few problems in GWT concerning inaccessible pages, pages not found and other problems. We have come really close to fixing all of the technical problems, our pages load quickly and have even added the +1 buttons. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any improvement. Now people are saying that when our site was built, about 5-years ago, the url's had keywords stuffed into them. Admittedly, they are long but from what I have read making a series of redirects may not be an optimal solution and will take a long time to see any potential benefits. All of the listed url's in the image below have been on the first page in google for the listed search phrase. While they are still indexed, they are very difficult to find. I would like to solicit the help from people with real world experience in diagnosing a problem like this one? Is this an offsite problem, onsite problem, hosting issue or something else? Thank you Untitled-1_1329083648.gif pages_1329084893.gif
Link Building | | jenadams0 -
Will Google penalize for redirects related to a company merger?
Company A is set to acquire Company B. As part of the merger agreement, Company A will be redirecting the linking domains of Company B's website (over 1,000 links) to company A's website. Will Google penalize Company A for redirecting Company B's 1,000 linking domains to Company A's website at one time? If so, would it be better for Company A to redirect Company B's 1,000 linking domains in waves?
Link Building | | 5outhpaw0