Paid Links - remove, report or leave? And how to remove?
-
Bit of an unusual one for me - appreciate your thoughts...
I did an SEO audit for a potential client last week and discovered that 3 of their top 10 strongest inbound links (reported from OSE) are blatantly paid links from those "Link Bid Directories".
The links were created mid-last year, so reasonably recent.
Strange thing is that they have been using a highly reputable SEO agency for several years who do NOT engage in link buying - so I'm pretty sure it is not their SEO agency buying these links. Also - the link anchor texts are the company name - not a target keyword - so I suspect they either:
a) have someone internally in the company who thinks they are "helping" by buying links - or,
b) in my most paranoid fantasies, a competitor is setting them up for a Google smack (very long bow, I know!)
Anyway my questions are:
- If I decide to take on this client, should I DO anything about these links?
These link are almost certainly currently "working" to pass link juice and I don't believe the site has been penalised (yet!) for them. I suspect when these links are switched off, the site will drop in rankings so my thoughts are to just ignore them and proceed with a normal link building campaign in the hope that if (when) the links are killed we will be OK.
-
Is there a "safe" way to report them to Google? By which I mean, let Google know to ignore these links and NOT penalise US for them being there.
-
Is there a way to get the links removed given that we don't control the accounts that created them?
Oh - and feel free to comment on my paranoid fantasies Have you ever seen paid links appear that you KNOW didn't come from you?
Thanks!
Steve
-
Thanks David, Monica and Lewis for your responses - I appreciate your thoughts - and I love how you all so consistently started your responses with "stop worrying" - you're right of course!
I have communicated my discovery to the client and my intended course of action was pretty much as David suggests - run fast and bury those links in a sea of press releases and other high quality organic link-building.
Still scratching my head as to where the links came from - but I need to stop worry about that don't I?
Thanks again!
-
As David says I wouldn't worry too much and Monica makes a good point about communicating this to the client.
Tell the client that your comprehensive audit spotted this potential issue and that you have a recommended course of action to rectify it.
-
Yes, David is right, stop worrying so much. It's only three links. I would be very frank with this client and let them know of the situation, however, but explain how you plan on addressing it by organically creating better links that will pretty much bury any red flags. Any communication you can provide is he best course of action for a healthy client relationship, in my opinion. And if something does happen, there are no surprises. Unfortunately, if the client feels you need to address these links, the only thing you can do is reach out to the sites where the links appear and ask directly to remove them. Good luck!
-
First, stop worrying. It's not that easy to get someone slapped for paid links. Chances are, Google isn't even aware. I doubt the client is the size or notieriety of JC Penney
Second, start link building heavily and getting a large diversification of links.
Third, you need to do some high quality link building and get organic links from better sources. Bury these top 3 links in a sea of even higher quality links that are organic and I guarantee it wont affect a thing.
Get some press releases out there with PRWeb and get some links from large media outlets, should easily replace those links!
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
-
Paid-for featured article on dailymail.co.uk with follow links
Hey Mozzers, Our PR team are paying for a featured article on dailymail.co.uk to increase brand visibility and coverage on a high traffic website. The article, however, is fairly thin content, and it has a couple of follow links back to our own site. From an SEO point of view, how do you feel about this?
Link Building | | RWesley0 -
Backlinks vs External Links vs Referral Links vs Outbound links
Hello all, I was just wondering if you could explain the difference between all the links above? I'm confused as they all seem to be the same or similar and I would just like to clearly know what distinguishes them from eachother. Thanks for your help, Jayne
Link Building | | NCOREGSEO0 -
Link Audit
Reviewing a list of links from webmaster console for a client and there are links to their website which render a page but there' s no mention of the clients website on that page. Why does this happen? Why is Google thinking that there is a link to the clients website yet on the page there is no mention of that clients website. There's no comments etc. I don't understand this and if anyone can shed a light??
Link Building | | AL123al0 -
We are moving to HTTPS and wanted to know if our link building efforts were in vain or will the link juice pass to HTTPS?
We are switching to HTTPS and want to make sure the links we've gotten in the past will still transfer since they are pointing to HTTP? I'd hate to go back through and ask people to please add an s to the link.
Link Building | | bryant25560 -
Internal Linking
OSE only shows me as having 24 internal links on my home page. My internal links and total links are far less than my competitors, some of whom have 1700 on a single page. My site is www.CenterCityTeam.com and an example of a competitor with far more internal links is www.McCannTeam.com. 1) How do I get that many internal links on a page and 2) do I even want to?
Link Building | | frankdefazio0 -
If you discount a subscription when the client links to you, does that classify as a paid link?
For example, we all subscribe to MOZ, but if we received a 25% discount on our subscription if we linked back, would that be considered by Google as a paid link, or would it be seen as a sales tool / promotion?
Link Building | | JonathanSmith0 -
Link Building
Guest blogging, guest blogging, guest blogging. Since I started my career as a "brand manager" I've heard the term "guest blogging" at least a million times. So I've put a fair amount of energy into it and for a long time it worked beautifully, still is in many ways. However, in the last month or two nearly every blog I have contacted about guest blogging has said that "due to an increase in guest blogging request we are now charging a fee of x" so on and so forth. Doesn't paying for links put you at great risk for being deindexed? And can't bloggers get in trouble for this as well? Do they not know, not care or think it doesn't apply to them? And if it's a sponsored post, say I send them $100 of free product and pay them $100 to do it, isn't that just hiring someone to talk about my brand? Why would google punish me for that? Anyway around it? Thank you so much! I look forward to your suggestions/advice/criticism.
Link Building | | WNL0 -
Link Analysis shows no external sites linking to me?
Hi All, I hope you can help. Link Analysis shows no external sites linking to me? but I know for a fact there are. Why is this? I have submitted my site to a few local directories and can see my site is on their site but when I run a Link Analysis it shows that I have no links. Does anyone know why this is? Many thanks, Aidan My site is http://www.theethicalsilkco.com/
Link Building | | aidanlawlor0