Spam links - which link is most damaging to my rankings.
-
I have just started using Open Site Explorer and discovered a lot of spam links to my website.
(I have mostly ranked on page for many years one but in the last two weeks ranking have dropped to page two)
The links have Anchor Text such as Scam - Dishonest - Drugs. Most of the of the links are "nofollow".
Will links with "nofollow" affect my ranking and if so which of the links should i priorities to remove?
Do I look at Link Equity - Domain Authority - Page Authority or other criteria?Many thanks
Ronny -
Thanks - Bruce
-
Thank you - I think i will try to remove as many as possible, and then disavow other they cant remove.
-
I would disavow them also. Matt Cutts commented on this a while ago and recommended in essence " any doubt" disavow.
Do this via GWT. (edit Added) Google Webmaster Tools
Bruce
-
Now technically No-follow links should not affect your site however I'm not convinced that they are not used as some sort of signal plus if they supposedly are not used they shouldn't matter if you remove them (especially if they are doing you site harm). remember though if you remove follow links its a good idea to also counter the removed links by creating fresh links so you don't have a a deficit.
Short answer - No-follow like shouldn't affect your rankings. (but you can still remove them if you think they are harming you)
good luck.
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
-
How are these links being displayed?
How does one markup their site to get the small sitelinks to appear in SERP listings as seen in the example image below? jJiQYy3
Technical SEO | | SelectHub0 -
Updating inbound links vs. 301 redirecting the page they link to
Hi everyone, I'm preparing myself for a website redesign and finding conflicting information about inbound links and 301 redirects. If I have a URL (we'll say website.com/website) that is linked to by outside sources, should I get those outside sources to update their links when I change the URL to website.com/webpage? Or is it just as effective from a link juice perspective to simply 301 redirect the old page to the new page? Are there any other implications to this choice that I may want to consider? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | Liggins0 -
Linking to AND canonicalizing to a page?
I am using cross domain rel=canonical to a page that is very similar to mine. I feel the page adds value to my site so I want users to go to it, but I ultimately want them to go to the page I'm canonicalizing to. So I am linking to that page as well. Anyone foresee any issues with doing this? And/or have other suggestions? Thanks.
Technical SEO | | ThridHour0 -
Developing a link profile.....
So we are a brand new site looking to establish a link profile of earned links vs. manipulative link building practices and have received some conflicting information. Our goal is to provide users and webmasters of relevant websites with useful content about the areas and topics we cover and let them decide to link to us. We have been advised by some parties that in order to develop a base set of links we should enter our website into directories. Now I understand entering it into some of the main directories such as BOTW and Yahoo etc, but please offer your thoughts on smaller less official directories. Thanks in advance. Scott
Technical SEO | | jackaveli0 -
If I get a natural link for a great site and I have my keyword with anchor text in this link, how should I proceed?
If I get a natural link for a great site and I have my keyword with anchor text in this link, how should I proceed? I need to contact the site and ask to remove the link or request the removal of the anchor text and leave only the site URL? Or yet do not I need to worry about this issue?
Technical SEO | | soulmktpro0 -
How to defend against link cloaking
Hi, I own a website where recently a lot of backlinks have been going to my old domain that 301's to my new domain. During the past 2 months I have noticed a massive amount of links pointing to my old domain. When I go to look at the links and go to the page all I see is a search bar which to me this seems like link cloaking. I am not sure what I should do. Obviously I am not doing the link building and someone is targeting anchor specific keywords from multiple domains that all look the same. My question is should I report it myself in google webmaster tools before I get hit with a filter or penalty, or would this force them to penalize me. And if I do get caught up in a penalty I would not know how to fix this since I doubt the webmaster is linking to me out of the kindness of his heart. Any advice? Thanks
Technical SEO | | dreamfire0 -
Too Many On-Page Links
Hello. My Seomoz report this week tells me that I have about 500 pages with Too Many On-Page Links One of the examples is this one: https://www.theprinterdepo.com/hp-9000mfp-refurbished-printer (104 links) If you check, all our products have a RELATED products section and in some of them the related products can be UP to 40 Products. I wonder how can I solve this. I thought that putting nofollow on the links of the related products might fix all of these warnings? Putting NOFOLLOW does not affect SEO?
Technical SEO | | levalencia10 -
How to find links to 404 pages?
I know that I used to be able to do this, but I can't seem to remember. One of the sites I am working on has had a lot of pages moving around lately. I am sure some links got lost in the fray that I would like to recover, what is the easiest way to see links going to a domain that are pointing to 404 pages?
Technical SEO | | MarloSchneider0