Ignore these external links reported in GWT?
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Taking a long, Ace-Ventura-like breath here. This question is loaded.
Here we go:
- No manual actions reported against my client's site in GWT
- HOWEVER, a link: operator search for external links to my client's website shows NO links in results. That seems like a very bad omen to me. OSE shows 13 linking domains, but not the one that's listed in the next bullet point.
- Issue: In Google Webmaster Tools, I noticed 1,000+ external links to my client's website all coming from riddim-donmagazine.com (there are a small handful of other domains listed, but this one stuck out for the large quantity of links coming from this domain)
- Those external links all point to two URLs on my client's website. I have no knowledge of any campaigns run by client that would use this other domain (or any schemes for that matter)
- It appears that this website riddim-donmagazine.com has been suspended by hostgator
- All of the links were first discovered last year (dates vary but basically August through December 2013)
- There have not been any newly discovered links from this website reported by GWT since those 2013 dates
- All of the external links are /? based. Example: http://riddim-donmagazine.com/?author=1&paged=31
- If I run that link in preceding bullet point through http://www.webconfs.com/http-header-check.php, or any others from riddim-donmagazine.com those external links return 302 status.
My best guess is at one time the client was running an advertising program and this website may have been on that network. One of the external links points to an ad page on the client's website.
(web.archive.org confirms this is a WordPress site and that it's coverage of Bronx news could trigger an ad for my client or make it related to my client's website when it comes to demographics.)Believe me, this externally linked domain is only a small problem in comparison with the rest of my client's issues (mainly they've changed domains, then they changed website vendors, etc., etc.), but I did want to ask about that one externally linked domain.
Whew.Thanks in advance for insights/thoughts/advice!
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Not back during the fall of 2013, but more recently there's been a change, and it's likely because of the website vendor switch.
Will the links eventually disappear from GWT? If so, do you know the timeframe?
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Since it's suspended, google will recrawl and discover the link and gone and you should be in the clear. Did you experience a drop in rankings?
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