Links with very bad anchor text!
-
I have a client with an online shop with auto parts in Romania, on google.ro. The site is quite old but it hasn't good links.
The only links (about 700 seen in OSE) the site have are from porn sites/forum/blogs with all kind of obscene words in the anchor text. Those links were placed by competitors, i am sure of that.
Now how Google treats those links? Does he know that those links were not placed by any normal human? Does it gives credit to them or doesn't?
The site is on a very competitive niche and it is not ranking so good.
-
You're welcome
You're right there, those links most likely won't be passing on any link juice or benefit . They could potentially be harmful though as there are not any high quality good links pointing in, though there's also the chance that they won't have any negative effect. Cannot know either way with 100% certainty, just can be sure that some high quality relevant authoritive links will help for sure.
Sounds like you're doing things in the right order; getting your website in shape by addressing the on-site issues that you mention, with focusing on the link building once that is sorted out.
Hope it all works out well,
Simon
-
Thanks Simon for your detailed answer.
I still think that Google doesn't give any credit to those links, because he knows that nobody is that stupid to buy those kind of links to his site. I think Google asks the same question as i do. Why would i buy/place crappy links pointing to my site? What is the logic in it.
I know that if i want to rank high i need lots of quality links, and for the moment it is possible to not rank higher because of those links. I'll see when i'll start to build some links, for the moment i have some big problems on site.
Thanks again.
-
Hi Maldinii
This could potentially be harming, though mainly because you say the only links are from bad sites with poor anchor text. If the website also had a reasonable number of good links, then it wouldn't matter, probably.
This is because Google in particular simply discount irrelevant links from poor websites/websites in a bad neighbourhood rather than penalise a site for having those kind of links. Except for when it's apparent that those links have been purchased as a part of a link building scheme to try and artificially inflate rankings, when both link provider and link receiver are at risk from a penalty.
For some reassurance, have a read of this blog post entitled "What if My Competitors Point Spammy Links to My Site?" and in particular, the section "Defending Yourself from Potential Link Attacks".
Also, view the whole of this video from Rand entitled "I'm Being Outranked by a Spammer" which has some relevant information for you around what I've described here, which is poor spammy links being discounted by Google, so no harm will likely be done purely from having these links. Still need to have some good links coing in though otherwise the overall SEO will be poor and indeed, you probably won't rank highly.
There isn't much that can be done about those unwanted links pointing in, which is a reason why it won't usually attract a penalty purely for having those links.
What you can do is to start some ethical link building, create some great valuable unique content and distribute it well to start attracting some of the right kind of links from relevant authoritive websites.
I hope that helps
Regards
Simon
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
-
Should I disavow these links?
Hi all, I have a ski website that I am currently performing a toxic backlink audit on. I have noted that a lot of the links being flagged as toxic/spammy by the tool I am using seem to be the same/similar sites with different URLs. The sites are vaguely related to skiing (relating to helicopter travel options for travelling to ski resorts) but it is concerning me that there are so many of them and they are being flagged as so toxic.
Link Building | | SolveWebMedia
Do you think it is worth disavowing these? Or contacting the owner to ask them to remove the link? I have included an example of some of the links below. https://www.cannes-helicopters.co.uk/index.php?menuopen=21&showcontent=5
https://nice-helicopter.co.uk/index.php?menuopen=21&showcontent=5
https://monaco-helicopter.co.uk/index.php?menuopen=21&showcontent=5 Slightly different site but same favicon icon:
https://monaco-helicopter.co.uk/index.php?menuopen=21&showcontent=5
https://www.whitetracks-holidays.com/Helicopter_Transfers_Villars_Switzerland.htm Thanks in advance for any advice / help!0 -
Value of Links? What is each link worth?
Morning Everyone, I just had this thought and wondered what everyone's opinions were in terms of link value in monetary terms. We'll assume for the purposes of this that the links come from contextually relevant sites and that the sites in question have got the Moz DA from being high quality and have a good quality incoming link profile. Its a bit of a theoretical question, but i guess imagine if the only way you could get links was to pay for them, what would they be worth to you. This is link value for SEO purposes, they will have in addition value from traffic from good sites, that no doubt varies wildly depending on topic. I assume everyone also agrees on: The first link from a domain is the most valuable High DA sites are worth more than low ones. So could anyone who has an opinion on the link value suggest a monetary value for links. Its really just using a monetary amount to see how best to target my time. Here is my example of what might be expected, but I am hoping people with more knowledge will perhaps correct it. DA Rating First Link 2nd-5th Link 5th-10th Link 10Plus Links 5 $5 $2 $1 $0 15 $7 $3 $2 $1 25 $25 $10 $5 $2 35 $45 $20 $7 $3 45 $65 $30 $11 $4 55 $95 $45 $19 $5 65 $200 $100 $45 $6 75 $350 $120 $65 $9 85 $700 $240 $95 $15 95 $1100 $450 $200 $30
Link Building | | wellandpower1 -
If a bad link domain drops from my site do I regain authority.
Hi Guys, I wanted to know for example if 2 years ago I purchased SEO from some guys that were building links to sites that had very high PR which was important way back when. And now those links are negatively affecting my SEO stopping me reaching position 1 for a term 'replacement keys' and we are stuck in position 2. If the sites were to be reset or domains sold for those sites that were linking in do you think this was remove the penalty on us as a knock-on effect. Thanks James
Link Building | | jameslane880 -
Is it a reciprocal Link ?
Hi, I found a great website and tought its content would be extremely interesting for our clients. I wrote about it on my blog (which has an URL with our website URL in it) , Facebook Page and even in Twitter. Meanwhile, I contacted them and offered to write an article about an interesting subject for them. They accepted and liked it so much that they decided to put 2 links for us on two of their pages. My questions are : Will this be a reciprocal link for Google? Did I make a mistake talking about them on my blog ? Did I «devaluate» the links they gave us?
Link Building | | Caru0 -
Advetorial links
How do you scientifically value advertorial links. I have a site who is willing to buy advertorial in large online sites which will contain links. (I would prefer they invested in content on their own site). The DA on these sites is universally extremely strong. the PA of the examples I've seen is pretty low. The site has strong DA matching it's main competition and is performing pretty well in terms of ranking. Question: how do you value this kind of link in terms of the amount of £ the publications want to charge. Anybody have a formula or a logical process which would provide solid advice rather than don't infringe Google's T&C's which I've already mentioned to them. Any thoughts appreciated.
Link Building | | Shivvyt0 -
Page links vs. domain links
Hello all, I am trying to find out how Google weighs page inbound links vs. domain inbound links. I have a domain with about 100,000 inbound links and am adding a new page to my domain which at this time has 0 links. I will be trying to outrank a competitors page that has 6,000 inbound links to the competitors page, but only has 26,000 inbound links to my competitors domain . Is there a formula or a way to know how Google values a page link vs. a domain link?
Link Building | | digitalops0 -
Anchor text distribution
Hey SEO Mozosphere - Working on a link buying strategy. I know it is wise to target not only anchor text links but also branded text links to keep your anchor text distribution looking natural. However, do you think it would be too risky to ask for branded text links only from low PR sites and focus the more valuable keyword anchor text links on high PR sites?
Link Building | | znotes0 -
Natural Anchor Text distribution for brand = main keyword
Dear folks, I will start link building for my all new site www.buy-hosting.net and would greatly appreciate your opinion about some questions: 1.) How many links would you in my place seed per day? I plan to start with directory links and sincere, useful contributions in blogs and forums, with my URL in the signiture. 2.) Natural anchor text distribution:
Link Building | | ie4mac
My brand Buy-Hosting.net ist the same as my main targeted keywords "Buy Hosting". However, I also want to have a natural looking link profile, so I would seed links like "Click here" or "Windows Hosting" or "Webhosting" as well. How would you distribute die Anchor Text Precentage ?
E.g. (60% Buy Hosting - 10% Windows Hosting - 10% Click here - 10% Joomla Hosting - 10% Hosting Reviews)? Does that make sense or is that already spammy? 3.) How many No-Follow links would you seed (in %)?
4.) How many links (in %) would you seed to subpages, instead of the main page? Are there larger margins for Keywords, that eqal the Domain/Brand Name, without being conted as spam? Is there a good article about the natural distribution of anchor texts? Your input is greatly appreciated and thoroughly considered.
Thank you and kind regards0