Linking to bad sites
-
Hi,
I just have a quick question. Is it very negative to link to "bad" sites, such as online pharmacies, dating, adult sites, that sort of stuff? How much does linking to a "bad" site negatively affect a "good" site?
Thank you.
-
Anytime, feel free to fire me a private message or add me on Skype. Im always available to offer advice if I can
-
Hi Istvan,
Thank you for the great reply. I understand now.
All best,
- Sal
-
Thank you Matt!
-
Matt, thanks for the credits!
double thumbs up on your statement regarding link building: "remember that link building is always about quality, not quantity."
Gr.,
Istvan
-
Great comment. I would like to reiterate this point.
You cannot control who links to you - this provides you with a safety net but does not make you invincible. You should be OK if there are one or two links which come from spammy sites (obviously if you have 2,000,000 links then you could get away with more than one or two bad links). The issue would come around if you have lots of spammy links or the ratio of spammy links to good links is too high.
As Istvan mentioned, be careful who you link to.
It is more important however to not blast links at your site. If you get too many links in a short space of time then this looks dodgy to Google.
Also remember that link building is always about quality, not quantity.
-
Hi Salvyy,
I always told my team, that if we gain links from bad websites, that is in a some way harmful, BUT pointing out to such sites can flag us. (The same is told by Matt Cutts who pointed out that you cannot influence who is linking to you, but you can choose where to link to).
Therefore my advice would be, if it is not in your niche then don't link to these sites.
Gr.,
Istvan
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
-
Can anyone please explain the real difference between backlinks, 301 links, and redirect links?which one is better to rank a website? i am looking for the help for one of my website
Can anyone please explain the real difference between backlinks, 301 links, and redirect links? which one is better to rank a website? I am looking for help for one of my website vacuum cleaners
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | hshajjajsjsj3880 -
Site architecture, inner link strategy and duplicate or thin content HELP :)
Ok, can I just say I love that Moz exists! I am still very new to this whole website stuff. I've had a site for about 2 years that I have re-designed several times. It has been published this entire time as I made changes but I am now ready to create amazing content for my niche. Trouble is my target audience is in a very focused niche and my site is really only about 1 topic - life insurance for military families. I'm a military spouse who happens to be an experience life insurance agent offering plans to active duty service members, their spouses as well as veterans and retirees. So really I have 3 niches within a niche. I'm REALLY struggling on how to set up my site architecture. My site is basically fresh so it's a good time to get it hammered down as best as possible with my limited knowledge. Might I also add this is a very competitive space. My competitors are big, established brands who offer life insurance along with unaffiliated, informational sites like military.com or the va benefits site. The people in my niche rarely actually search for life insurance because they think they are all set by the military. When they do search it's very short which is common as this niche lives in a world of acronyms. I'm going to have to get real creative to see if there are any long tail keywords I can use as supporting posts but I think my best route is to attempt to rank for the short one to three keyword phrases this niche looks for while searching. Given my expertise on the subject I am able to write long 1000-5000 content on the matter that will also point out some considerations my competitors dont really cover. My challenge is I cant see how this can be broken into sub topics without having thin supporting content. It's my understanding that I should create these in order to inner link and have a shot at ranking. In thinking about my topic I feel like the supporting posts can only be so long. Furthermore, my three niches within my small overall niche search for short but different keywords. Seems I am struggling to put it all into words. Let me stop here with a question - is it bad to have one category in a website? If not I feel like this would solve my dilemma in making a good site map and content plan. it is possible to split my main topic into 3 categories. I heard somewhere you shouldn't inner link posts from different categories. Problem is if I dont it's not ideal for the user experience as the topics really arent that different. Example a military member might be researching his/her own life insurance and be curious about his spouses coverage. In order to satisfy this user's experience and increase the time on my site I should link to where they can find more dept on their spouses coverage which would be in a different category. Is this still acceptable since it's really not a different subject?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | insuretheheroes.com0 -
Do I need to actively disavow links to my site?
I check the "Links to my site" section in Google WMT on a regular basis. In the past couple of months I've been seeing more and more weird links, from pretty spammy domains and even a few from weird Iranian domains. It's Needless to say but I have never bought a link or been involved in any link schemes or the like. Like probably everyone in the Internet, I'm in a competitive vertical, and my competitors probably aren't so scrupulous. The question is, do I actively need to disavow suspicious links? Should I contact the domains and ask to remove them? I have usually just ignored these links, and not wasted time in doing anything with them (since weird automated links are always around) but the proliferation in the last couple months has started to worry me.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Don341 -
Because Goolge chose this link to my site?
I'm better ranked in Google for that link (http://www.vipgoldrj.com/paginas/ensaios.html) and not in (http://www.vipgoldrj.com/), you know you explain why? In all keywords, except that (luxury escorts in Rio de Janeiro) Sorry my english, I'm from Brazil and I'm using Google translator.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WebMaster0210 -
What is wrong with my site?
I could use suggestions/input. My site is consistently being beaten by doorway pages with zero to no content. In fact, on the keyword "lawrenceville plumber" I am being beaten by a KID with a blank wordpress installation. I really need help determining what my issues are and what I can do to help. According to all of the graders, ranks, etc my site is great. I have written tons of unique content, have added a blog unique articles and self-helps. Please help! My site is www.akinsplumbing.net. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | chuckakins0 -
Are External Links Really Bad for SEO?
I have a quality site with good PR and we have very few outbound links. We are always looking for good content since it is a blog, and I get frequent requests from "guest bloggers"–some of which actually provide really high quality & unique content. But, of course, to get their content I have to give them at least 1 link. I have always been taught that external links really hurt your site and that basically 1 outbound link cancels out 1 inbound link because they balance each other out. Is this true? I always wondered why we must get penalized for linking out to good sites? It makes me get very "stingy" with my outbound links, whereas if my site would not be effected, I would want to be more generous. Any suggestions & info would greatly help! Thank you, Afshin
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | applesofgold0 -
Has my site been penalized?
Our site was listed on the first page for the phrase Active SEO on Google.co.uk. We suddenly find ourselves on page 4 overnight and we're not sure what's going on. We have not undertaken an Black hat techniques however the site is fairly new. Anyone have any ideas as to what is going on?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MassivePrime0 -
Multiple sites linking back with pornographic anchor text
I discovered a while ago that we had quite a number of links pointing back to one of our customer's websites. The anchor text of these links contain porn that is extremely bad. These links are originating from forums that seems to link between themselves and then throw my customers web address in there at the same time. Any thoughts on this? I'm seriously worried that this may negatively affect the site.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | GeorgeMaven0