What is really a bad link in 2017?
-
Hi,
Routine answer is: A link which doesn't provides any value. Tired of listening to this statement where we can see number of back-links been generated with different scenarios. There are still many low DA websites which speaks exactly about a brand and link a brand naturally. So, is this a bad link or good link? Let's be honest here. No one gonna visit such pages and browse through our website; it's all about what it's been doing in-terms of SEO.
Do these websites to be in disavow list?
Beside the context how a brand been mentioned, what are the other metrics to disavow a domain?
Expecting some real answers for this straight question.
If it's a low DA site and speaking about exactly our website- Good or bad? Vice-versa...high DA website mentioned website with less matching content. What is the proportion of website authority and content context?
Can we keep a medium DA backlinks with some Moz spam score?
-
All this ^ and that ^^
-
All of this ^^
-Andy
-
When sites get in trouble for having spammy links it's never because of one or two links. It's always because of a widespread pattern of self-made links that were made with intention to manipulate Google.
When I'm looking at link quality I really don't care what the DA is. I've seen good links from low DA sites and I've seen super spammy links from high DA sites.
I hear what you're saying though...We keep saying that a link is a good link if it's one that has a purpose outside of SEO. And sure, in many cases that is true. For example, when I did the Whiteboard Friday that Andy linked to above (thanks Andy!), that post linked back to my website. That link brings me traffic and has made me some money. It's a great link for reasons that go beyond SEO. But, there are also times where I get links that probably don't have a lot of value outside of SEO and still help me.
For example, for some of my clients we do a lot of HARO responses. If a dentist client of mine takes part in an interview about teeth whitening and he gets quoted along with a link, I suppose there is some value outside of SEO such as branding and good PR, but really...that interview wouldn't have happened if there was no link involved. I'm ok with that though.
So now that Penguin is simply devaluing spammy links rather than penalizing sites, when do I disavow?
-
If a site has a crazy pattern of ultra spammy links I'll disavow.
-
If there is negative SEO, I'm usually not worried but it doesn't hurt to disavow.
-
If a site has a manual penalty (as seen in Google Search Console --> Search Traffic -> Manual Actions) I'll try to remove unnatural links and then I'll disavow.
I'm not going to disavow the odd potentially unnatural link though.
-
-
I don't think there is as much of a need to worry about disavowing as there was before the update from Google, but it is still something that you need to look at on a case by case basis. I don't think you could classify a particular set of criteria to disavow against or ones to ignore.
-Andy
-
Hi Andy,
Thanks for the reply. So you meant you say that Google will take care of all spammy links and we really must not be using Disavow? Then what is the tool about? We can see many cases where SEO experts removing penalty of websites by using disavow tool by devaluing some bad links. (I am not speaking about paid links). How much Google can be accurate in devaluing all spammy links and not hurting any websites? Many SEO experts insists that Disavow must be used. I am really confused about newly generating backlinks and what to do with them?
-
How can you say if a link is a spammy? Any recent example? So as per your opinion we must use disavow.
So what happens when you keep on receiving backlinks from low DA websites? Does such activity improve ranking?
-
I would only disavow genuinely spammy links or links from spammy websites. If it's a genuine website and the link was placed natural and it is on topic to my product I would not disavow purely because it is a small website with a low DA.
-
HI,
First of all, have a watch / read of this Whiteboard Friday where Marie talks all about links and what can work for you.
https://moz.com/blog/what-links-comply-googles-guidelines-whiteboard-friday
In my view, if someone has linked to your site without you asking, then there is never usually a problem, but it depends on the the type of links / quantity of links.
There is too much at play to give a generic answer that will fit everything you ask here. You should look at each site on its own merits, but with the introduction of Penguin into the main algorithm and this now running in real time, there is less of a need to be worried about these kinds of things. There is less of a need to disavow links because Google has improved how it scores these and if it spots a spammy link, is more likely to just devalue 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
-
Multiple similar links without the penguin?
Hi, I´m working with a site where clients proudly will publish a link to us as sort of a sign/partner symbol for using our services. Potentially we could have thousands or at least hundreds of links pointing to us and we could tailor/provide snippets for the links that clients can use on their site. I´m part of a team that just started working with this site and I realize this is a great opportunity that has not yet been exploited. I´m also a little paranoid that this tactic might be picked up by the penguin or that google sees it as black hat if not done wisely ? But links will only come from respectable business sites although ranging from different genres both really big and small.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Agguk
Today links are mostly leading to our frontpage from our clients but I would like to tailor links so that each client could link to a page that is targeted on the keyword/service they have been using (and awarded diploma for) I think this would serve both the client and our SEO better ? I would really appreciate suggestions and comments on how to approach this best! Here is my plan so far, trying to make good/right use of the opportunity without offending google:
-Most links will be through a logo/sign that shows the award/diploma earned through our service.
I think the "alt" -tag should include both our company brand name and the service/target keyword for the page it´s leading to. -We could also provide a short text describing the earned award and our brand name and this whole text would also lead to the same page on our site.
...I guess using only the targeted keyword as anchor -link within the text would be a bad idea? -Where possible I would also like to customize this short text a little for each client (although that will be hard and only possible to some degree). As we provide "link material" for the client to include on their site, would it be wise to have them use an image that is hosted on our site or send them the image so they can publish that instead? Grateful for any feedback on this! Thanks!0 -
Link building - BBB, high quality associations and also botw.org
Hello, We would like to gain some quality links to compete with the competition. We already have about 70 backlinks. We are an eCommerce site. We are thinking of adding the following links: BBB online 2 high quality PR5 associations in our niche (one is $500 and the other is $200) A couple of less expensive but still quality partner listings, probably in the $40-100 range botw.org For current and future Google standards, do you think these will improve things? Do you see anything wrong with adding these? We want a clean link profile for as far into the future as possible. Thanks.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BobGW0 -
Can image links help improve my backlinking profile?
I recently spent some time looking at the backlink profile of a leading UK food & clothing retailer and noticed that a high number of their backlinks for very competitive search phrase's consisted entirely of image backlinks. 50% of the links contained no alt text and other 50% contained a mix of just the targeted keyword or a phase containig one mention of the targeted keyword. Has anyone had any experiance of this type of marketing producing any positive effect on SEO or search engine rankings?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BigJonOne0 -
IS http://ezinearticles.com/ good or bad for backlinks?
Hi Everyone, Is http://ezinearticles.com/ any good to use? Thanks
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | vanplus0 -
Opinions sought on outbound Links page.
Hello Forum, I'm about the remove my outbound Links page at: http://www.pictureframe.com.au/---obs--picture-frames-links.html I think that Google could be assessing this page as a link scheme, ie: I-link-you-if-you-link me. I haven't received any messages from Google about this but I think the page may be devaluing my site. What do you guys~gals think? Thank you for any and all feedback Paul the Picture Framer
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Picframer0 -
Google Sitemaps & punishment for bad URLS?
Hoping y'all have some input here. This is along story, but I'll boil it down: Site X bought the url of Site Y. 301 redirects were added to direct traffic (and help transfer linkjuice) from urls in Site X to relevant urls in Site Y, but 2 days before a "change of address" notice was submitted in Google Webmaster Tools, an auto-generating sitemap somehow applied urls from Site Y to the sitemap of Site X, so essentially the sitemap contained urls that were not the url of Site X. Is there any documentation out there that Google would punish Site X for having essentially unrelated urls in its sitemap by downgrading organic search rankings because it may view that mistake as black hat (or otherwise evil) tactics? I suspect this because the site continues to rank well organically in Yahoo & Bing, yet is nonexistent on Google suddenly. Thoughts?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | RUNNERagency0 -
Is widget linkbaiting a bad idea now that webmasters are getting warnings of unnatural links?
I was reading this article about how many websites are being deindexed because of an unnatural linking profile and it got me thinking about some widgets that I have created. In the example given, a site was totally deindexed and the author believes the reason was because of multiple footer links from themes that they created. I have one site that has a very popular widget that I offer to others to embed into their site. The embed code contains a line that says, "Tool provided by Site Name". Now, it just so happens that my site name contains my main keyword. So, if I have hundreds of websites using this tool and linking back to me using the same anchor text, could Google see this as unnatural and possibly deindex me? I have a few thoughts on what I should do but would love to hear your thoughts: 1. I could use a php script to provide one of several different anchor text options when giving my embed code. 2. I could change the embed code so that the anchor text is simply my domain name, ie www.mywebsitename.com rather than "my website name". Thoughts?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | MarieHaynes1 -
Links In Blog Posts: 1 Paragraph VS. Full Article
Hey guys, I've been using an article network to post unique articles (not spun). Been posting 1 paragraph articles with 1 text link. Just wondering what the main difference would be if I were to post a full article with 2 or 3 text links vs 1 paragraph with 1 text link, besides the fact that you get more links and save more time writing only 1 paragraph. Will the full article with 3 backlinks improve keyword ranks more or not by much? Cheers!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | upick-1623910