Is Brand name anchor text on a widget Spam
-
We have partial match penalty in WMT on one of our smaller sites.
There are a few (less than 10) instances of widgets linking to us using our Brand Name as the anchor text. Would this fail a reconsideration request do you think?
The widget links without the no-follow attribute.
-
Thank you Tom - I like it - if in doubt, take it out.
We will contact the businesses with the widget and ask them to remove. If we can't get hold of them, do you think disavow will be satisfactory before filing a reconsideration?
Additionally, I have read recently there is an option to remove URLs from within WMT (a section called "optimisation.") But I cannot see this - and wonder if I have misunderstand.. (It looks to me the only section in WMT regarding link removal is an option to remove pages from within your own website from the index?) Is there a section in WMT to remove inbound links from third party websites?
Thanks indeed for your help
-
Hey Simon
So, the anchor text itself won't be seen as spam, as it's a brand name. So there won't be any "anchor-text" trigger here.
Having a follow link in an embeddable widget has been identified in the past as an unnatural link scheme by Google. Of course, that doesn't mean that it doesn't work - in fact it continues to do so for big websites who abuse it on a much bigger scale than just 10 times.
However, that doesn't mean that it would not trigger a penalty for you. If your question is implying that you are filing a reconsideration request because you currently have a penalty, I am quite confident that Google would want you to remove those widget links (and for you to testify that you have done). When it comes to reconsideration requests and link audits - if in doubt, take it out.
I feel any frustrations that you may have as it can often seem to be one rule for the big boys and another for everyone else. But my advice here would be to remove those links, as much as it pains me to say.
Hope this helps.
Tom
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
-
Moz bar not working on https://www.fitness-china.com/gym-equipment-names-pictures-prices
Moz bar not working on our website about gym equipment names https://www.fitness-china.com/gym-equipment-names-pictures-prices How long fix it?
On-Page Optimization | | ahislop5740 -
Do You Add City Name & Key Word For Every Page?
Hello, I'm new to SEO but feel I have a decent grasp on it. However, I had a question pertaining to key words and using my city name in it. For instance, if I am using the key word "herniated disc treatment" do I need to put in my city name behind it or does google recognize that I am already in my city area because of my geo tagging and having it listed on the footer of my site? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! -Scott
On-Page Optimization | | slgray0 -
Brand Appearing in the Meta tilte by default
Hi All, Has anyone experienced the home page meta title indexed with their Brand coming up first before their actual Meta title? I know google overrides the meta title sometimes when the title is not relevant, I understand that. This just started happening 6 months ago. I thought I would leave it to see if it get corrected. but no luck! Any suggestions? Many thanks
On-Page Optimization | | summer3000 -
Include Site Name in Page Titles or not
i would like to ask if it is a good practice or not to Include Site Name in Page Titles. My page is not selling products it is about plagiarism checker tool. i will give one example in one page we are writing about the plagiarism types so the page title is plagiarism types and then is the site name. what is the better practice? Keep it or not? thanks in advance
On-Page Optimization | | anavasis3 -
Replacing text with images
Hello, My client is a "cheap calls" site which is offering calls to around 300 countries in the world. The pages for each country are almost the same, as they are mostly terms and conditions of making a call and explanation of the process how to do it. The copy is quite long (more than 850 words) and the country name is repeated about 26 times in the text. The country name and the phone number is the main difference between the pages, which makes them almost the same. I have recommended to add testimonials to each country and towns within the country, but I am afraid it will not dilute the similarity between the pages enough for Google to stop seeing them as duplicated. Also the client do not exactly rush to publish the testimonials for every country. The rankings are not too bad and all seems fine, but in the long term I know we need to do something. I am not sure if the client would agree to shorten up the copy, as they believe in old style seo with keyword stuffing and bolded keywords but I would like to overcome that problem with exchanging the most of the copy with an image. I would write a new copy for each page making it unique (around 2-3 paragraphs) and the rest would be an image stating exactly the same thing as the copy now to provide the same amount of info to the user. Theoretically it should help to resolve this problem, but would like to check if anyone has done something like that and if it worked/may work. Are they any other implications?
On-Page Optimization | | ThinkingJuice0 -
Category Anchor Text - all the same - should I worry?
I have analyzed several websites and have come across sites that have many backlinks from their category pages and those all have the anchor text of the blog title. Should I worry that categories in WordPress can have different Titles and Descriptions and there are plugins to help with the variation. I haven't found any good recommendations regarding if the anchor text should be changed for categories or how to accomplish that. (I have scoured SEOMOZ for answers but may have missed the answer.) Thanks, Linda
On-Page Optimization | | LindaJo0 -
Changing an Aged Category Name
I am interested in potentially changing a category name on our site, WirelessEmporium.com. This section has been called "Covers & Faceplates" for the better part of the decade. However, changing search trends, PPC data and search volume analysis have indicated that our preferable KW combo may be "Cases & Covers" instead. What are the potentially ramifications of making the switch now? We have a significant amount of age, link juice, etc built up toward our "Covers & Faceplates" section at the moment and all of their relevant URLs. A change would involve 301 redirects, rewriting of URLs, rewriting of all tags, img alt tags, etc.
On-Page Optimization | | eugeneku0 -
Summary of Anchor Text and Hash Tags
This a summary of my understanding of anchor text and hash tags, along with a question. I'm looking for confirmation of my assumptions and an answer to the question. Here we go: Given these two links on a page in order, Google will use the anchor text "first" a) First b) a) Second Given these two links on a page in order, Google will use the anchor text "Second" a) First b) Second Given these three links on a page in order, Google will use the anchor text "Second" and "Third" a) First b) Second c) Third Is this consistent with your understanding of using hash tags to get around the first link rule? Here's my question: If I have the following 4 links on a page, does 50% of the link juice go to Page A and 50% to Page B; OR 25% to Page A and 75% to page B; OR something else? www.example.com/Page-A.html www.example.com/Page-B.html#anchor1 www.example.com/Page-B.html#anchor2 www.example.com/Page-B.html#anchor3 Thanks in advance.
On-Page Optimization | | dvansant0