Can I get harmed by an inlink?

[mozalbin]

Hi! I'll jump right in to my question.

There's a webpage with the following stats:
PA 80, mR 4.70, mT 5.00. Pagerank ZERO.

Now, these are some beautiful stats for every webpage, except for the pagerank. The reason to why the pagerank is so low is that the inlinks to this site is partial spammy (hidden links and other bad naughty black-hat stuff that I hate). (It's not my webpage, I don't even know whos webpage this is..)

I happen to have a backlink from this page. A clean dofollow, in-content link to my site. The total amount of external links on this page is five and there's no spam on the page or hidden anywhere else.

My question #1:
Is this particular inlink to my site harmful? Will I get penaltized for getting a backlink from this site? I mean, Google have figured out the spam factor of the links to the page that is linking to me. But I'm innocent, the link to me is just lying there... (Why or why not?)

My question #2:
IF (and only IF) the link to my webpage is harmful. Are links from my page harmful? (Why or why not?)

Thank you very much for using you awesome knowledge to answer this

[irvingw]

Scan the URL with this link vetting tool

http://www.bad-neighborhood.com/text-link-tool.htm

if it's got tons of bad associations (people they are linking to and people who are linking to them are linking with)I would suggest getting your link removed.

Use this tool before reaching out to a site you want to get linked on too, this way you know what you're dealing with

[dittoeffect]

Ya dropping out of the index really sucks. I've had some a few sites drop out of index due to offending google and its lame to have to wait 10+ days to get them back. For some people it takes way longer or they don't ever get the penalty removed and give up.

Good post about understanding backlink profiles for anyone who doesn't know already. Really old info that has been around for a while though quite important to keep in mind. Haven't looked at the learn SEO section but that would be good to have floating around for people to see.

[AnthonyYoung]

Malicious attacks can both reduce site rank and prevent it from achieving future rank... it really depends on the the severity of the offense in the eyes of google. Getting demoted in the rankings is definitely not as severe as being dropped from the index. Neither outcome is desirable.

BTW: Check out this article from Michael Gray directly responding to the article I mentioned previously by James Lancaster in SEJ: Understanding Your Backlink Profile.

[dittoeffect]

I wrote a reply then the page died and i lost it :(.

I hope no one does that case study to try and find out. Really no one should ever want to haha.

Ya I really do agree with what you have posted so far. All the skeptics do ask for proof. I was mostly asking because you stated: " You have to test. Then test again. This is only way to gain meaningful and actionable knowledge." So for you to believe what you are telling me I assumed you have proof besides possibly being misinformed(from experience and otherwise) as I may also be.

In your opinion do you think that such a malicuous attack could reduce rankings for an already established site (eg lose its long held first position for many keywords) or just that it would hurt future growth?

I am curious about what kind of penalty there would be to better understand this.

Good thread so far :).

[AnthonyYoung]

HaHa, LOL

All the skeptics ask for proof... My interaction with this thread and elsewhere is not to encourage or divulge how to operate a malicious link campaign but to quash the myth that Google says it can't be done. More double-speak from Google from a prior post:

If you find unnatural links to your site that you are unable to control or remove, please provide the details in your reconsideration request.
If you have any questions about how to resolve this issue, please see our Webmaster Help Forum for support.

Sincerely,
Google Search Quality Team

I work in the lead generation business and have witnessed first hand publisher sites that have been burned by such attacks. I've witnessed publishers inadvertently burn their own sites b/c of the velocity and volume of link growth (usually with 100% identical anchor text).

No one is going to write that case study and nor should anyone publish it IMO.

[dittoeffect]

Indeed, I did not look at the order of the thread. I have a friend who would love the way you talk haha. He loves to bring up the Dunning Kruger effect too.

I have read both threads as well as was familiar with the JC Penny incident since it occurred and looked into why after it did. JC Penny was the ones who got themselves penalized in this case.

Since so far all that has been presented in this thread has not been supported with a case study I would be happy to hear from those who have tested including yourself. Would you mind sharing your personal tests or at least posts that directly speak of tests?

Edit: My experience with SEO has given me a current 3k+ visits a day in less than a year of learning. As well as a great deal of research into penalties and fixing penalties for clients. I am seeking facts not trying to suggest I know best if there is more evidence out there. Specific tests are appreciated. To me it seems insanely easy to create a penalty for any site if what you are suggesting is true and would be a major flaw exposed in google's ranking algorithms far worse than promoting oneself to game the results.

[dittoeffect]

Indeed, I did not look at the order of the thread. I have a friend who would love the way you talk haha. He loves to bring up the Dunning Kruger effect too.

I have read both threads as well as was familiar with the JC Penny incident since it occurred and looked into why after it did. JC Penny was the ones who got themselves penalized in this case.

Since so far all that has been presented in this thread has not been supported with a case study I would be happy to hear from those who have tested including yourself. Would you mind sharing your personal tests or at least posts that directly speak of tests?

[AnthonyYoung]

If you read the entire thread (from the aforementioned article) and know which voices to trust then you'll have a better sense of what is good info and what is bad info. Jason Lancaster, the writer of that story, made bad assumptions w/o any support. I dare say he's a victim of the Dunning-Kruger effect.

Unfortunately, there are too many misinformed 'experts' that either want the attention or lack the experience or both. The 'good answer' above was chosen well before an actual discussion thread had time to materialize.

If you read previous comments in this thread you will see that my answer is nuanced and qualified in meaningful ways. My response also has a staff endorsement (I mean, if we're putting our endorsement phalluses on the table Also, just reading something doesn't make it true. You have to test. Then test again. This is only way to gain meaningful and actionable knowledge.

Be well my friend.

[dittoeffect]

so you are saying you could just beat all your competitors with a malicious link campaign?!

what is stopping anyone from just sabotaging any site then?

the good answer chosen for this is the same as mine and thumbed up a few times:

"

Short answer is no.  It would be all to easy for black hat SEO's to knock down the competition by setting up links like these to competators.  Google wouldn't allow such activity as it would make their SERPs all to easily gamed.

I wouldn't worry about it.  Just keep link building high quality links from trusted sites and you should be totally fine."

I would be interested to learn more about this as the info in those posts is kind of limited.

JC Penny happened to lose out on a lot of its traffic because it lost links that used to be valuable after having been found out that the links they had acquired broke the rules.

Google is far to easy to game if a malicious campaign really could hurt current results though it would make sense to me if malicious links seemed to provide a boost which was then lost after the links are determined to be malicious.

I don't think my comment deserves a thumbs down when the good answer chosen is the same, I thumbed yours up for adding valuable points to my comment though

[AnthonyYoung]

This is simply wrong. Never take what Google says at face value. Please read the following article from SEJ and then the comments from heavyweight SEOs who've been in the business for a while:

http://www.searchenginejournal.com/lets-kill-the-“bad-inbound-links-can-get-your-site-penalized”-myth/32426/

Unless your site has incredibly strong authority and trust metrics with hundreds of thousands or even millions of inbound links (like CNN, or WSJ) then it is absolutely possible for it to be harmed by a malicious link campaign with adult oriented anchor text (for example). This has been tested and proven.

[dittoeffect]

Question number 1: No

There is a good rule of thumb:

If a competitor can do it to you then it is not harmful to you.

Here is why: There are many sketchy places you could get links to a competitor which would then give you control over their reputation without their say.

Question number 2: Also no but sometimes yes! (read below)

This one is a little different. Getting a link from a questionable source is not bad for you as described above, however if you reciprocally link back to that source then you may be vulnerable to being penalized by google if the site linking to you has been penalized. It is your responsibility to make sure you do not vote to bad neighbourhoods.

To further answer question 2, if you are reciprocally linking to a bad neighborhood and also linking out to another site your outgoing link can only be harmful if that site reciprocally links back to you.

So as long as your follow the answer above for question 1 then there will be no trouble

Hope this helps.

[Svetoslav]

Hi Derek,

I deal with a site which has a lot of low quality links. The owner decided it is a good idea at some point and got a bunch of links despite their quality. What I notice is that this works while the site is still small. Correct me if I'm wrong on this one. Not all sites are treated the same way and it definitely depends on the local Google version we are using. You will be surprised what still works on Google.bg. Things that would never get a site off the ground on google.com or google.co.uk.

Regards,

Svet

[adriandg]

whoa, your title is so long it broke the layout. lol.

[SEO-Doctor]

Yes just looking at an email in webmaster tools right now

Dear site owner or webmaster of ....

We detected that some of your site's pages may be using techniques that are outside Google's Webmaster Guidelines.
Specifically, look for possibly artificial or unnatural links pointing to your site that could be intended to manipulate PageRank. Examples of unnatural linking could include buying links to pass PageRank or participating in link schemes.

We encourage you to make changes to your site so that it meets our quality guidelines. Once you've made these changes, please submit your site for reconsideration in Google's search results.

If you find unnatural links to your site that you are unable to control or remove, please provide the details in your reconsideration request.
If you have any questions about how to resolve this issue, please see our Webmaster Help Forum for support.

Sincerely,
Google Search Quality Team

[AnthonyYoung]

Are you asking if we use content from article sites, etc? I'll try to answer as best I can but fel free to correct me if I've misinterpreted your question.

We have sites that use syndicated content but I am moving all new properties away from this practice and developing 100% original copy, etc in light of recent Panda updates.

[AnthonyYoung]

No, I'm not suggesting that at all. My company chooses to build sites with longevity. However the lead gen space is rife with churn and burn operations and all the scalliwags that go with the territory. We have indeed lost sites to pirates but we've rehabilitated sites too.

A lot of groups get into the tit-for-tat snitching on each other that ends up hurting all parties involved (in the eyes of Google)... most of our sites have enough authority, trust and age that makes it easier to fend off attacks. Developing new sites is generally a daunting task and an acquisition is usually a smarter move that starting from scratch.

[ClickValueMedia]

Thanks for that Anthony, I apprecaite your reply. I'm not a black hatter either but when I got started online I started building sites for myself and did all the usual link type stuff, articles, blog posts, comments, profiles etc ( you know the drill ), and as you mentioned I ranked these sites and they have maintained their rank.

I've since moved to doing SEO for other people so now I am much more concerend and aware of building links from these types of sites. The last thing I want to do is damage my clients site, even though I have successfully used these types of sites on my own websites.

So, as a director of search, can I ask if your you and your tem use links for web 2.0 properties/article sites etc?

D

[seanmccauley]

Sorry to butt into the conversation again though your comment;

I don't engage in black hat tactics. I'm Dir of Search Marketing for a lead generation company and so must protect our properties from such attacks.

Are you suggesting that  not engaging in black hat tactics protects you from black hat attacks. A sort of Do no Evil and no Evil will be done onto you?

(I do understand that competitors in a vertical can get upset if a competitor indulges in a lot of black hat seo to leapfrog them, then a tit for tat situation can evolve and descend)

[AnthonyYoung]

It is extraordinary and thankfully it's an exception not the rule. Although Google claims that it is not possible for a malicious attack of this type to be successful, I've witnessed it first hand. Also, one just needs to read through the forums to a get sense of what is possible.

Be well!

[AnthonyYoung]

Hi Derek -

Great question and thanks for engaging. First of all, let me say clearly that I don't engage in black hat tactics. I'm Dir of Search Marketing for a lead generation company and so must protect our properties from such attacks. It can be a very dirty business.

I've had many discussions with other professionals in our field and it appears that Google's web spam team (which is quite small, relatively speaking) doesn't have the bandwidth to police all market verticals at once and they can't rely on doing this algorithmically with 100% accuracy. So there are gaps in coverage, etc. They'll generally go after verticals that have had a large number of FTC complaints, abuses, etc. A lot of dark corners such as 'payday loans' are generally left alone... do a search and look at the link graphs for the entire 1st SERP... pretty amazing stuff.

I agree with you that there is a lot of bad information put out by the woefully misinformed. You can still rank sites using inbound links from forums and low quality sites (generally in concert with manipulated anchor text) with no problems. Some neighborhoods are worse than others - I dont know your site so can't really do anything more than speculation here. The kind of attacks I am talking about are highly targeted and with a very specific goal in mind: to burn your site.

[ClickValueMedia]

Thanks anthony, It's amazing to think that it's possible to do that with companies spending so much on SEO and online reputation management.tey can then be targeted by links from known spam  c blocks. It's an interesting topic that I'd love to get m,ore clarity on.

D

[AnthonyYoung]

It's not so much that it is an oft used tactic but more in how the tactic is executed. It is precise in how it is accomplished. Placing inbound links on rotten c-blocks known for spam, spam rings, or malware hosts; placing paid links (i've known folks who have gotten hammered with just 10 paid links) on well-known txt link brokers, etc. All your competitor needs to do is find a sleazy corner of the internet to target you and it can be flagged by google with astonishing speed. There are black hat forums that post this sort of targeting information.

[ClickValueMedia]

Hi Anthony,

Just curious how you know this? for me I've never understood or agreed with all the mentions on here ( an other sites ) about being penalized by Google. It's like SEOs are afraid to create a link on a site that other marketers use for links ( article directories etc ) for fear of being "penalized". It's crazy to think that. Worst case scenario is that they are discounted ( I think you still get a little bit of juice ), even from abused methods like blog comments or forum profiles etc.

I have a personal site that's about 3 years old and been on the 1st page of G for 2.5 years that has nothing but links from "low quality neightbourhoods"

D

[seanmccauley]

As this is a tactic often used by black hat SEO, how can Google know when to penalise?

[AnthonyYoung]

It is certainly possible for a site to be harmed with manipulated inbound links from bad neighborhoods. It is a trademark tactic emplyed by black hat SEOs against competitors. Granted, a handful of links wont make a difference but a concerted effort on a negative link campaign can and will get your site hammered. This is especially true in highly contested market verticals such as insurance, credit scoring, mortgage, etc.

[mozalbin]

If someone reports the site that sold links and the one that bought links?

In this scenario, no links are bought. I'm keeping my business out of that.

**Thanks for the good answer Garry Pickles! **

[mozalbin]

I can see the logic in that so I'm going to believe you. Thanks for the good answer

[seanmccauley]

Gareth

Do you have experience of sites being penalised on this fashion?

Thanks

[SEO-Doctor]

Just one bad link would not harm you, but it IS possible to damage a site with bad links.

[seanmccauley]

I note you state So unless you have done any known link building with paid links I don't think you have anything to worry about

That is the question I have.. How can Google tell whether you have paid for any bought spammy backlinks or your competitor has organised these backlinks to get you penalised??

[adriandg]

Short answer is no.  It would be all to easy for black hat SEO's to knock down the competition by setting up links like these to competators.  Google wouldn't allow such activity as it would make their SERPs all to easily gamed.

I wouldn't worry about it.  Just keep link building high quality links from trusted sites and you should be totally fine.

[onlinemediadirect]

I asked a similar question related to this issue. It was from a slightly different point of view where I was worried about spam attacks. The logic being if a competitor could try and get a site delisted on google by posting lots of spam links. The kind of replies I received all mentioned that at the end of the day you can't effect or control who or what links to your site.

So unless you have done any known link building with paid links I don't think you have anything to worry about. It is probably just a matter of time but as Rand says page rank isn't everything...