Remove Bad Links Or Build New
-
Hello,
After deeply assessing our back links we have come to the conclusion that we have too many links that have been devalued and also some spammy looking links....
Our next question is do we remove these bad links and start a fresh or do we just build new white hat links??
Thanks,
Scott
-
There is no real point in removing links. Links that have been devalued simply don't pass the benefit onto your site. The only real reason you would attempt to remove links is if you have been penalized by Google, but even then I would be dubious at removing links as Google can see that you are able to remove links - hence making it look unnatural.
-
Has it penalized you, or just the links got devalued? Are you ranking for brand KWs? If so, don't waste time - keep building.
-
Remove if you can but certainly start building new natural and genuine links to counterweight any previous negative signals on your website's link profile.
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 we Nofollow Social Links?
I've been asked the question of whether if we should nofollow all of our social links, would this be a wise thing to do? I'm not exactly getting a clear answer from search results and thought you guys would be best to ask 🙂 Thanks in advance.
Technical SEO | | JH_OffLimits0 -
Referencing links in Articles and Blogs
Hi I am wondering if the <sup>tag in html is picked up by google as a reference point?</sup> I.e when you put a superscript in word it puts a small number next to your sentence. Then you have a list of reference at the end of the blog/article does google recognise this?
Technical SEO | | Cocoonfxmedia0 -
Backlink Profile: Should I disavow these links? Auto-Generated Links etc
Hello Moz Community, At first I wanted to say that I really like the Q&A section and that I read and learned a lot - and today it is time for my first own question 😉 I checked our backlink-profile these days and I found in my opinion a few bad/spammy links, most of them are auto-generated by pickung up some (meta) information from our webpage. Now my question is if I should dasavow these links over webmasters or if these links shouldn't matter as I guess basically every webpage will be picked up from them. Especially from the perspective that our rankings dropped significantly last weeks, but I am not sure if this can be the real reason. Examples are pages like: https://www.askives.com/ -Auto-Generates for example meta descriptions with links http://www.websitesalike.com/ -find similar websites http://mashrom.ir/ -no idea about this, really crazy Or we are at http://www.europages.com/, which makes sense for me and we get some referral traffic as well, but they auto-generated links from all their TLDs like .gr / .it / .cn etc. -just disavow all other TLDs than .com? Another example would be links from OM services like: seoprofiler.com Moreover we have a lot of links from different HR portals (including really many outdated job postings). Can these links “hurt” as well? Thanks a lot for your help! Greez Heiko
Technical SEO | | _Heiko_0 -
Using the Google Remove URL Tool to remove https pages
I have found a way to get a list of 'some' of my 180,000+ garbage URLs now, and I'm going through the tedious task of using the URL removal tool to put them in one at a time. Between that and my robots.txt file and the URL Parameters, I'm hoping to see some change each week. I have noticed when I put URL's starting with https:// in to the removal tool, it adds the http:// main URL at the front. For example, I add to the removal tool:- https://www.mydomain.com/blah.html?search_garbage_url_addition On the confirmation page, the URL actually shows as:- http://www.mydomain.com/https://www.mydomain.com/blah.html?search_garbage_url_addition I don't want to accidentally remove my main URL or cause problems. Is this the right way this should look? AND PART 2 OF MY QUESTION If you see the search description in Google for a page you want removed that says the following in the SERP results, should I still go to the trouble of putting in the removal request? www.domain.com/url.html?xsearch_... A description for this result is not available because of this site's robots.txt – learn more.
Technical SEO | | sparrowdog1 -
Site removed from Google Index
Hi mozers, Two months ago we published http://aquacion.com We registered it in the Google Webmaster tools and after a few day the website was in the index no problem. But now the webmaster tools tell us the URLs were manually removed. I've look everywhere in the webmaster tools in search for more clues but haven't found anything that would help me. I sent the acces to the client, who might have been stupid enough to remove his own site from the Google index, but now, even though I delete and add the sitemap again, the website won't show in Google SERPs. What's weird is that Google Webmaster Tools tells us all the page are indexed. I'm totally clueless here... Ps. : Added screenshots from Google Webmaster Tools. Update Turns out it was my mistake after all. When my client developped his website a few months ago, he published it, and I removed the website from the Google Index. When the website was finished I submited the sitemap, thinking it would void the removal request, but it don't. How to solve In webmaster tools, in the [Google Index => Remove URLs] page, you can reinclude pages there. tGib0
Technical SEO | | RichardPicard0 -
Find broken links in Excel?
Hello, I have a large list of URL's in an excel sheet and I am looking for a way to check them for 404 errors. Please help! Adam
Technical SEO | | digitalops0 -
Tracking Links Tool
I think someone may be trying to harm my site by adding spammy links so I want to track the links going to my site on a daily basis. Any tool suggestions? Majestic SEO is great for getting an overall picture of my links, but is not updated daily. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | theLotter0 -
Which version of pages should I build links to?
I'm working on the site www.qualityauditor.co.uk which is built in Moonfruit. Moonfruit renders pages in Flash. Not ideal, I know, but it also automatically produces an HTML version of every page for those without Flash, Javascript and search engines. This HTML version is fairly well optimised for search engines, but sits on different URLs. For example, the page you're likely to see if browsing the site is at http://www.qualityauditor.co.uk/#/iso-9001-lead-auditor-course/4528742734 However, if you turn Javascript off you can see the HTML version of the page here <cite>http://www.qualityauditor.co.uk/page/4528742734</cite> Mostly, it's the last version of the URL which appears in the Google search results for a relevant query. But not always. Plus, in Google Webmaster Tools fetching as Googlebot only shows page content for the first version of the URL. For the second version it returns HTTP status code and a 302 redirect to the first version. I have two questions, really: Will these two versions of the page cause my duplicate content issues? I suspect not as the first version renders only in Flash. But will Google think the 302 redirect for people is cloaking? Which version of the URL should I be pointing new links to (bearing in mind the 302 redirect which doesn't pass link juice). The URL's which I see in my browser and which Google likes the look at when I 'fetch as Googlebot'. Or those Google shows in the search results? Thanks folks, much appreciated! Eamon
Technical SEO | | driftnetmedia0