Links in the independent.co.uk
-
So I was doing some research in OSE and come across links in different articles on the independent.co.uk. There are more than three but I have included three below. Do a find for "blinds" on the articles.
What I find interesting is that each article has a different author. Which probably rules out a friend doing a favour. As far as I can see, of all the many different types of advertising programmes the Independent has, this is not one of them. Which begs the question, how are they getting these links?
What do you think?
-
Thanks Ryan, my "conspiracy theory radar" lit up when I come across those links.
I think i'll call the newspaper today.
-
Kevin,
It took me a bit but now I understand your concern. Each of the three listed articles uses "blinds" as anchor text to provide a link to http://www.roller-blinds-direct.co.uk/.
It is definitely odd. As you mentioned, the articles are written by different authors. I did a search of the site and found other articles with the term "blinds" used where there is no link involved. I was curious to determine if a site wide replacement was being used for the term. That is not the case.
What is also odd is the context is not related to window blinds in each case.
Use #1 "The blinds were down at the Ashcroft home" - In this instance at least the reference is to window blinds.
Use #2 "the elegance of the crinum's swan-necked trumpet flowers blinds you to any fault in the foliage department." - The reference has nothing to do with window blinds and is clearly an inappropriate use of text linking.
To answer your question, yes it is suspicious. It is possible, but unlikely, the site is selling links in this manner intentionally. It is far more likely that a single employee with access has made these changes under the table.
If this is a competitor you can proceed by notifying Google you suspect the site of buying links and offer the evidence. I would suggest making it a bit clearer by stating specifically the term "blinds" is being used as anchor text within the following articles even when the usage has no relation to window blocks and is taken out of context. Google may find other similar issues on the site and penalize the site's links.
Another approach you can take is to contact the newspaper directly. I would suggest not using the website as the person who receives your report may also be the one selling the links.
The above is all based on adopting the belief that your view is correct. Personally I do agree with you completely. Others may view us as conspiracy theorists
Good luck.
-
It's the website of a major UK national broadsheet newspaper Ryan. I'm not doubting the quality of the website.
The links are not relevant to the discussion, it would not be classed as a further reading resource.
Am I the only one who finds these links strange?
-
The site seems quite respectable with an impressive DA of 90, and over 55k facebook fans.
I looked at the first article. It is an in depth article written 2 years ago by an award-winning author who seems to have respectable credentials. This particular page has 19 likes, 9 tweets and OSE shows a total of 5 links which share identical anchor text, apparently from the article's title.
The second and third article only show 1 linking domain each.
The main site is alexa ranked in the top 1000 of all site world wide. At a glance these links appear completely natural to me.
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
-
What is the relationship between inbound links and linking domains?
In doing competitor research, there's a specific competitor that has fewer linking domains, but dramatically more inbound links. How do these two relate to each other? I do have a higher domain authority and more internal followed links with them having more internal nofollow and external (both follow and nofollow) links. I'm trying to understand how they can have 3.7k linking domains and 4.8 million inbound links while I have 4.1k linking domains and only 601k inbound links. What really defines an inbound link and what's there relationship between inbound links and linking domains?
Competitive Research | | grayloon0 -
How can I estimate annual traffic for this deep link?
I need to estimate the traffic patterns for the last year at a minimum...preferably 2 or 3 years for this deep link: http://www.amazon.com/Boating-Water-Sports-Outdoors/b/ref=sa_menu_btwt?ie=UTF8&node=3421331 I have ran a url comparison in open site explorer against amazon.com but want to put some traffic estimates around this. Is there a tool in moz to do this?
Competitive Research | | mm9161570 -
Rankings & Linking Root Domains
How are the Linking Root Domains under Keyword Rankings being found? We've noticed for many of our key terms that big brands like Amazon, eBay, Home Depot, etc. only list 1 linking root domain, while much smaller competitors in our industry have hundreds. Clearly big brands are going to get more links than a company most people haven't heard of and the idea that these companies only have 1 linking root domain to a specific subcategory on their site is not believable. What's going on here?
Competitive Research | | Kingof50 -
Why such a difference in external followed links details?
I love using seomoz and have done for a few years. I am no SEO expert, but like to think I can get away with making out I know what I'm on about! I use opensiteexplorer regualrly and usually enjoy delving deeper into it's metrics, but one thing is bothering me (before I start with this, please forgive me if I am missing something obvious - you may have to point it out in your answer!) So I run a comparison of a few sites and pay attention to the external followed links section. On checking this number at root domain level, company A has 12,666 external followed links. So I want to dig a little deeper as to the qulaity of those links and click along to the inbound links tab, here I select the following: "followed & 301" > "only external" > "all links to this root domain" > leaving the results ungrouped Downloading this table I only have results for 3,416 links - why such a big difference to the previous 12,666 or am I missing something here? Would just like a bit of clarification 🙂
Competitive Research | | iThinkMedia0 -
What's the difference between 'external links' and 'linking domains to this domain' in my report?
I'm looking at a competitor analysis report. The number provided for 'external links' is 150. The number for 'external links to this domain' is 4860 and 'linking domains to this domain' is 232. What are the differences between these numbers?
Competitive Research | | lthompsonon0 -
In my competitive campigans have less ranking and points according to your analysis, how can i form external links or large links ???
in my competitive campigans have less ranking and points according to your analysis, how can i form external links or large links ???
Competitive Research | | bullionguru0 -
Competitive Link Research Tool is not working
I receive a busy message each time I try. This has been out of commission the last several times I've tried it.
Competitive Research | | cmiller0 -
Does SEOMoz (or anyone) offer a measurement of "overlapping" links between 2+ domains?
I'm trying to judge how much incremental value we'd see from 301'ing an old domain vs. revitalizing the old domain's content. My gut feeling is that most of the links to the two sites are from the same set of websites so it wouldn't add much value to 301 the old domain. I've seen the opposite of this done with Competitive Link Analysis (e.g show links that you don't have that your competitor does have). Is there a tool available that can take 2 or more sites and tell me for instance - 72% of the inbound links or linking root domains are the same?
Competitive Research | | Jeff_DomainTools0