HELP - got the following message - Google Webmaster Tools notice of detected unnatural links
-
Hi All,
While trying to grow we used several freelancers and small companies for guest blogging, article submissions etc.
We lost about 90% of traffic from our peek at December.
We don't know if it is related but we got the following message last week:
"Google Webmaster Tools notice of detected unnatural links to www.domain.com"Is it related (getting this message after two months of losing traffic)?
What to do????
(P.S
We fired most of the companies we used months ago since we noticed they used bad methods. We didn't believe it can hurt us - just thought it would be useless...)Please Help...
-
Hi there,
A lot of people have been receiving these warnings for blog network use and other low-quality/paid links. I wrote about it on the blog recently. My advice is to do your best to remove the links that are clearly low-quality - Google is telling you directly to clean things up, and may hit you with a penalty if things don't get better.
-
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com.au/2008/07/requesting-reconsideration-using-google.html
I did see a interview with a google staffer, who said thet they have never come accross a case when a compeditor had did such a thing, but most claim it so.
I would assume it ws one of the people you hired.
-
The thing is that we didn't hire "professionals" until we were very highly ranked and were "busy" of work and had to outsource it. We tried several companies and freelancers and within a couple of months stayed only with the best one but it seems that the damage was done.
I always thought that what they did can't hurt me but rather won't do any good.
Otherwise, what prevents me from hire these guys to "promote" my competitors?
Who knows, maybe someone did it to me?Do you know what is the proper way to ask for reconsideration?
Thanks
-
I have seen this particular warning on a website with over 9,000 inbound links and 2,000 inbound linking domains. When going through various link reports what I noticed were a lot of SPAM sites pointing to the website that the owner had no control over.
Here's my take - I think this is just a warning and certainly nothing to lose a ton of sleep over. Google must certainly know that there's no way you or I can be in complete control of inbound links. If Google worked that way it would be all too easy to crush your competition. If a competitor gets pissed that you just took them over on Page1, Rank 1 what's to stop them from loading up black hat SEO tools and going to town on your domain?
My advice is to continue building ethical links that conform to Google's guidelines. If you are already doing this, there's no way you can control the other links in most cases so ignore the warning. I think Google just wants you to be aware of it so that if you ARE building the bad links yourself you stop doing it and wasting time/money on it.
-
Bingo!!
I think it certainly is, but sorry i have no idea how to go about fixing this as you cant just remove them.
To be honest, it is a good thing for those that had to compete with you honestly.
I cant be too harsh on you, as they temptation to get easy links is great, but so are the risks.
You could try asking for reconsideration, if you are flagged, but there is no way Goolge is going to give you your link juice back.
-
Hi!
It may very well be a direct correlation of your previously mentioned link building methods. You mentioned guest blogging - this is one of the best ways to build links if done to reputable sites, so that might not be the cause..
Could you go into more detail on some of the other techniques they used? How many links, how long of a period they were build, and perhaps a live example of something they did? We should be able to tell based off of that info.
Thanks,
Casey
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
-
Getting too many links on Google search results, how do I fix?
I'm a total newbie so I apologize for what I am sure is a dumb question — I recently followed Moz suggestions for increasing visibility on my site for a specific keyword by including that keyword in more verbose page descriptions for multiple pages. This worked TOO well as now that keyword is bringing up too many results in Google for these different pages on my site . . . is there a way to compile them into one result with the subpages like for instance, the attached image for a search on Apple? Do I need to change something in my robots.txt file to direct these to my main page? Basically, I am a photographer and a search for my name now brings up each of my different photo gallery pages in multiple results, it's a little over the top. Thanks for any and all help! CNPJZgb
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jason54540 -
Webmaster tools: which one do you use? Yandex Yay or Nay?
I usually verify websites on Google and Bing Webmaster. How important it is to verify on Yandex Webmaster if Russia is not one of the targeted locations?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | selectitaly0 -
URL Value: Menu Links vs Body Content Links
Hi All, I'm a little confused. I have read a number of articles from authority sites that give mixed signals over the importance of menu links vs body content links. It is suggested that whilst all menu links spread link juice equally, Google does not see them as favourably. Inserting a link within the body will add more link juice value to the desired page. Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks Mark
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Mark_Ch0 -
Unnatural links to your site—impacts links
I got message in my Google webmaster tool: Unnatural links to your site—impacts links Does anyone knows the difference between "Unnatural links to your site—impacts links" and "Unnatural links to your site" Thank you Sina
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SinaKashani0 -
Why are bit.ly links being indexed and ranked by Google?
I did a quick search for "site:bit.ly" and it returns more than 10 million results. Given that bit.ly links are 301 redirects, why are they being indexed in Google and ranked according to their destination? I'm working on a similar project to bit.ly and I want to make sure I don't run into the same problem.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JDatSB1 -
Google's Structured Data Testing Tool? No Data
I'm stumped as to why some of the pages on my website return no data from Google's Structured Data Testing Tool while other pages work fine and return the appropriate data. My home page http://www.parkseo.net returns no data while many inner pages do. http://www.parkseo.net Returns No Data http://www.parkseo.net/citation-submission.html Does Return Data. I have racked my brains out trying to figure out why some pages return data and others don't. Any help on this issue would be greatly appricated. Cheers!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | YMD
Gary Downey0 -
Got a site in Google news, now what do I do?
I have been working on a site for 7 months, publishing articles each day. The site is dedicated to the niche that I am in. It was accepted in to Google news 1 week ago and I am now getting 3 times the amount of traffic. Its great news but I am now wondering how beneficial it is for me. I sell business management advice and really need to generate leads. Thats how I increase my business Any ideas how I could use this Google news site to do this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JohnPeters0 -
Google penguin penalty(s), please help
Hi MozFans, I have got a question out of the field about www.coloringpagesabc.com.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MaartenvandenBos
Question is why the rankings and traffic are going down down down the last 4 months. Costumer thinks he got hit by google penguin update(s). The site has about 600 page’s/posts al ‘optimized’ for old seo:
- Almost all posts are superb optimized for one keyword combination (like … coloring pages) there is a high keyword density on the keyword titles and descriptions are all the same like: <keyword>and this is the rest of my title, This is my description <keyword>and i like it internal linking is all with a ‘perfect’ keyword anchor text there is a ok backlink profile, not much links to inner pages
- there are social signals the content quality is low The site to me looks like a seo over optimized content farm Competition:
When I look at the competition. The most coloring pages websites don’t offer a lot of content (text) on there page. The offer a small text and the coloring pages (What it is about :-)) How to get the rankings back:
What I was thinking to do. rewrite the content to a smaller text. Low keyword density on the keyword and put the coloring pages up front. rewrite all titles and descriptions to unique titles and descriptions Make some internal links to related posts with a other anchor text. get linkbuilding going on inner pages get more social signals Am I on the right track? I can use some advise what to do, and where to start. Thanks!!</keyword></keyword> Maarten0