Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Odd backlinks from yahoo news
-
Can anyone explain what this backlink does? The original content was syndicated on Yahoo News from Mashable. At first glance it appears to be a straight up follow link from Yahoo to Mashable, but upon closer inspection I saw this in the code.
went public just three months ago
Here's the article on yahoo news: http://news.yahoo.com/facebook-zynga-generates-12-revenue-them-175509319.html
I've rarely seen backlinks from yahoo for any content partner let alone follow links. The us.lrd.yahoo.com in the hyperlink makes me highly suspicious.
-
Thanks Michael! That was quite insightful : )
-
Hey Mike Fan,
What you're looking at there is called a data reference link (that ylt= attribute gives it away). In short, it is indeed a followed link and would pass any authority you'd expect from a plain old link. The big difference is in how it's used.
The _ylt type variables are data packets. They contain specific base64 encoded data. The link could be a login, referential data, tracking data, or even spyware. The main point is someone making that link wants to keep track of who's doing what with it. On large sites, it's actually more common than you'd think for tracking purposes.
In short, this link is probably fine, even if it's a little scary looking in the page source. When a site that famously no=follows uses a followed link, you better believe they're going to track what's going on when they do.
Mike
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
-
Google News and Discover down by a lot
Hi,
Technical SEO | | SolenneGINX
Could you help me understand why my website's Google News and Discover Performance dropped suddenly and drastically all of a sudden in November? numbers seem to pick up a little bit again but nowhere close what we used to see before then0 -
Backlink quality vs quantity: Should I keep spammy backlinks?
Regarding backlinks, I'm wondering which is more advantageous for domain authority and Google reputation: Option 1: More backlinks including a lot of spammy links Option 2: Fewer backlinks but only reliable, non-spam links I've researched this topic around the web a bit and understand that the answer is somewhere in the middle, but given my site's specific backlink volume, the answer might lean one way or the other. For context, my site has a spam score of 2%, and when I did a quick backlink audit, roughly 20% are ones I want to disavow. However, I don't want to eliminate so many backlinks that my DA goes down. As always, we are working to build quality backlinks, but I'm interested in whether eliminating 20% of backlinks will hurt my DA. Thank you!
Technical SEO | | LianaLewis1 -
If I get spammy backlinks removed is it still necessary to disavow?
Now there is some conflicting beliefs here and I want to know what you think. If I got a high spam website to remove my backlink, is a disavow through search console still necessary ? Keep in mind if it helps even in the slightest to improve rankings im for it!
Technical SEO | | Colemckeon1 -
Help: domain name change and Google News
Hi. I work for a regional news source, and our (separate) Spanish-language news publication recently changed its domain name. The publication lost its Google News inclusion. Most of their traffic came from Google News, so traffic tanked. They're trying to get back in. They reapplied but didn't get approved. They're now in the 30-day waiting period to reapply again. The website is run by a third-party company, which handled the domain name change in April (2015). That company has been running their site for a couple of years. Our in-house devs' hands are tied on helping, because we (at the mother company) don't manage their site. This third party has not been responsive. The Spanish pub folks have reached out to me to help them prepare for Round 2 of reapplication. I'm the mothership in-house SEO, but I've never experienced this situation before. Because everything seems to be in order besides the ham-handed changes, my best advice to them so far is: You'll have to wait until Google gets to know you again, unfortunately. Does that sound right? Any pointers out there for bringing their best possible A-game to the next round?
Technical SEO | | christyrobinson1 -
Links from PubMed (nlm.nih.gov) not appearing in backlinks for articles
Content from our medical journals gets indexed by the National Library of Medicine / PubMed on a monthly basis. The link to the full article appears in the upper-right corner on PubMed, yet I'm unable to find PubMed (nlm.nih.gov) backlinks in the reporting tools. Example:
Technical SEO | | aafpitadmin
Article Title: Respiratory Syncytial Virus Infection in Children (allintitle query)
Article URL: http://www.aafp.org/afp/2011/0115/p141.html
PubMed URL: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21243988 The PubMed link is to http://www.aafp.org/link_out?pmid=21243988 ,
a 301 redirect to the article, http://www.aafp.org/afp/2011/0115/p141.html Any idea why this link isn't appearing in backlinks? This isn't just for one article, we have roughly 2,000 articles from 1998 to the present. Articles from the past 12-months are access-restricted, and after 12-months the articles become public.0 -
Backlinks that we have if they are 404?
Hi All, Backlinks that we have if they are 404? Open site explorer shows 1,000 of links and when I check many are 404 and those are spammy links which we had but now the sites are 404 I am doing a link profile check which is cleaning up all spammy links Should i take any action on them? As open site explorer or Google still shows these links on the searches. Should we mention these URL's in disallow in Google webmaster. Thanks
Technical SEO | | mtthompsons0 -
Google News URL Format
Hi, We are currently redesigning our gaming website (www.totallygn.com) and one of our main goals is to get listed by Google News in future. Looking at the Google News URL requirements "The URL for each article must contain a unique number consisting of at least three digits." How does the above affect SEO structure? I was planning on using a format such as www.totallygn.com/xbox-360/360-reviews/fifa-12-review how would this compare to something like? www.totallygn.com/xbox-360/360-reviews/fifa-12-review234 Thanks in advance for your help
Technical SEO | | WalesDragon0 -
Can hidden backlinks ever be ok?
Hi all, I'm very new to SEO and still learning a lot. Is it considered a black hat tactic to wrap a link in a DIV tag, with display set to none (hidden div), and what can the repercussions be? From what I've learnt so far, is that this is a very unethical thing to be doing, and that the site hosting these links can end up being removed from Google/Bing/etc indexes completely. Is this true? The site hosting these links is a group/parent site for a brand, and each hidden link points to one of the child sites (similar sites, but different companies in different areas). Thanks in advance!
Technical SEO | | gemcomp1230