External Backlinks - Should I remove/disavow external blog posts done by SEO company?
-
Last year my company hired an SEO company to build backlinks for targeted achor text keywords. It turns out that they wrote average to below average blog posts that had content related to my business, but that were placed on odd websites, not related to my business. They did this for about one year before I fired them.
Should I try to get each of those blog posts removed and then disavow them? If the external links back to my site are nofollow then it is my understanding that I don't really need to worry about them...is that accurate?
Is it too risky to keep any external backlinked content alive when it is on a site that is unrelated to my business?
-
Hi AJ,
I would compile a list of the stuff they made
I would then take a look at the sites. Odds are, some are actually good sites with good traffic.
You should be able to get a few good ones at least. You can opt to change the content. Keep those and remove the links on the rest.
IF they had unlinked brand mentions, just remove those mentions as well. No need to take down the whole thing
If you want, you can actually replace the links and point it to one of your employees blogs, a social property or somethin' that isn't really ranking or has nothing to lose - Just being honest here because simply repurposing it instead of scrapping a whole year's worth of your "investment" is always better in my eyes.
-
Low quality content on irrelevant sites, I guess this is enough information to make a decision about removing those posts (or atleast links from the posts).
The process will be same, contact the bloggers and see if they are willing to remove the post (or atleast a link from the post) incase yes awesome and in the case of NO, just include the link in the disavow file and submit it to Google Webmaster Tool.
Hope this helps!
-
You might contact the firm that placed the links and see if they can remove them. If they were done in profiles or by creating accounts with passwords, hopefully they can remove them. It can be very difficult to get links removed and time consuming if you must do it by contacting the webmasters. And most of them will not respond. But Google does state they want you to attempt to clean up the links. Have you checked GWMT for warnings? Even without warnings you can be penalized by algorithms. A lot of info on that here on Moz worth reading.
I am sure you will get great advice here, but those links are not doing you any good and should be removed and disavowed. You are correct that the nofollows won't hurt, but I would want all the spammy links gone if it were my site. It is not so much that links on sites unrelated to your business are necessarily bad, but those that are clearly manipulative (like anchor text) are pretty obvious to Google. Nuke 'em all.
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
-
Backlinks
I hope you are doing great, I'm really sorry if its off-topic .I have been building lots of backlinks to my website but when I decided to check on moz it show small amount but in ahrefs it show a lot what is the difference?. Page for reference: coffeemarto.com
Link Building | | Amanza0 -
Is it better to have backlinks from domains with medium DA, UR, using same language and good relevancy, or backlinks from domains with high DA, UR but using another language and with less relevancy?
Dear all, while I understand that quality backlinks with high DA, UR, same-language and relevancy would be best, would backlinks with high DA, UR but less relevancy and using languages other than the one used in my website be something good? Or would they do more harm than anything else and still be outcompeted by backlinks with lower DA, UR but same language and/or more relevancy? Thank you Frank
Link Building | | Frank_Smith0 -
Do .ac.uk (UK education / university sites) count in the same way as .edu backlinks
With regards to link trust are backlinks from .ac.uk (wiki on .ac.uk) count in the same way as .edu backlinks ?
Link Building | | jpeg801 -
"Fake" backlinks indentified on Webmaster tools. How to remove them?
Hi…We noticed a huge number of “fake” links to our site a couple of months ago through Webmaster Tools. After identifying that, we tried to disavow the links, but it hasn’t worked. It looks like a registered domain that has duplicated our entire site. All links are coming from worldstudy.concretecorp.com.br and when you go to it, it redirects to our site. These crazy links keep increasing (over 637,000 now!). What would be our options to get rid of them? Thanks
Link Building | | tango1230 -
Backlinks and Domain Authority
Hi there, I have a question on backlinks. I have seen conflicting stories about it, and hoping someone with a vast amount of experience will be able to help me (If you could please be so kind). Now I understand the difference between 'no-follow' links and 'follow' links. I have accumulated quite a few 'no-follow' links through things like Facebook, Youtube, Twitter etc. I understand that they won't feed my site authority or trust; or anything of that sort (I do work on content too, and have gotten a few follow links, don't worry). Now I have seen conflicting answers to the actual importance of them. Some things I have read are saying that SEs completely ignore them (NFL), and they don't even consider them a 'link', but rather a user tool to further the experience of the reader on your site. Which is fair enough, but then people are turning around and also saying that Google relies heavily on them, and they only make up 5% of the internet or something. I have even read something saying they are the only ones worth getting (I know that is bs, but they must have a reason behind this thought?). If someone could enlighten me as to a 'ideal' ratio, and also any little known authoritative sites I could look at submitting content to. I am in the plumbing business, and doing my own sites, so I'm no expert. Also, what are the importance of comment links? I don't go for them, but don't know if I should? Sorry for the mouthful, but I would really appreciate help on this matter. Kindest regards, Kyle The Plumber Bro's The Electrician Bro's
Link Building | | Kyle_James0 -
Is it good to post same content of my web page to different articles and blogs
Hi! Actually, i would like to create links equity. may i post the same content to different blogs and article directories and link back to my web page. is this cleaver/correct idea which give some result? Thank you.
Link Building | | Webworld_Norway0 -
Does posting on blogs with anchored backlinks do you any good?
My current strategy: I am ranking for keyword and site: Immigration Consultant I access the Fresh Web Explorer and search my keyword, then find the blogposts with High Authority where I can post using HTML and include my link in my signature, or sometimes the post has a link associated with the username. Now my question is this, does this count? will google even crawl the comments? can I aid the crawling process somehow? Any advice on creating relavent back-links is much appreciated. Thank you
Link Building | | thealika
Nikita0 -
Blog Commnets
Since they are nofollow, are blog comments worth while making in a link-building campaign? Seems to be some controversy about the amount of value nofollow links add.
Link Building | | waynekolenchuk1