Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

Your browser does not seem to support JavaScript. As a result, your viewing experience will be diminished, and you have been placed in read-only mode.

Please download a browser that supports JavaScript, or enable it if it's disabled (i.e. NoScript).

How do you remove unwanted links, built by your previous SEO company?

White Hat / Black Hat SEO

763

clairerichards last edited by

We dropped significantly (from page 1 for 4 keywords...to ranking over 75 for all) after the Penguin update. I understand trustworthy content and links (along with site structure) are the big reasons for staying strong through the update...and those sites that did these things wrong were penalized.

In efforts to gain Google's trust again, we are checking into our site structure and making sure to produce fresh and relevant content on our site and social media channels on a weekly basis.

But how do we remove links that were built by our SEO company, those of which could be untrustworthy/irrelevant sites with low site rankings? Try to email the webmaster of that site (using data from Open Site Explorer)?
1 Reply Last reply
Reply Quote 0
clairerichards last edited by

Never mind! I see many responses to my same questions already on the forum! I will do some research on my own!
1 Reply Last reply
Reply Quote 0

Got a burning SEO question?

Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.

Start my free trial

Browse Questions

View

From

Sorted by

With category

Explore more categories

Related Questions

SEO Tactics - All in the Game?

Hey Mozzers Hoping to get some opinions on SEO at a small business level. We're engaged in SEO for a number of clients which are small businesses (small budgets). We stick to strictly white hat techniques - producing decent content (and promoting it) and link building (as much as is possible without dodgy techniques/paying huge sums). For some clients we seem to have hit a ceiling about with rankings anywhere between roughly position #5 - #15 in Google. In the majority of cases - the higher ranking clients don't appear to be engaged in any kind of content marketing - often have much worse designed websites - and not particularly spectacular link profiles (In other words they're not hugely competitive - apart from sometimes on the AdWords front - but that's another story) The only difference seems to be links on agency link farms - you know the kind? Agency buys expired domains with an existing PR - then just builds simple site with multiple blog posts that link back to their clients sites. (Also links that are simply paid for) Obviously these sites serve no purpose other than links - but I guess it's harder for Google to recognize that than with obvious SEO directories etc?... It seems to me that at this level of SEO for small businesses (limited budgets, limited time) the standard approach for SEO is the "expired domains agency link sites" described above - and simply paying bloggers for links. Are the above techniques considered black hat? Or are they more grey-hat? - Are they risky? - Or is this kind of thing all in the game for SEO at the small business level (by that I mean businesses that don't have the budget to employ a full time SEO and have to rely on engaging agencies for low level - low resource SEO campaigns) Look forward to your always wise council...
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | wearehappymedia

0
Disappearing Links Black Hat ?

I have seen reports of Black hat spamming with dodgy links but we have another issue with a clients site. The site had a small number of solid following links about 60 which had been in place for years and in the past few weeks all but those directly under their control have ceased to link. At the same time a very aggressive competitor has entered their market which is owned by the officers of an SEO company. Could it be that they have somehow disavowed the links to the site to damage it how do we find out? there are now just 10 following links?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Eff-Commerce

0
SEO companies that own linking properties

Hi everyone, I do some SEO work for a personal injury attorney, and due to his profession, he gets cold-called by every digital marketing company under the sun. He recently got called by a company that offers packages that include posting in multiple directories (all on domains they own), creating subdomains for search listings, and PR services like writing and distributing press releases for distribution to multiple media outlets. The content they write will obviously not be local. All this and more for less than $500 a month! I'm curious if any of you have any experience with companies like this and whether you consider them black hat. I realize I'm asking you to speculate on a very broad description of what they offer, but their linking strategies sound risky to me. What experiences have you had with companies like this? Do you know anyone who has ever gotten a penalty using these tactics? Thanks, in advance, for sharing your thoughts.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | ptdodge

0
Dealing with links to your domain that the previous owner set up

Hey everyone, I rebranded my company at the end of last year from a name that was fairly unique but sounded like I cleaned headstones instead of building websites. I opted for a name that I liked, it reflected my heritage - however it also seems to be quite common. Anyway, I registered the domain name as it was available as the previous owner's company had been wound up. It's only been in the last week or two where I've managed to have a website on that domain and I've been tracking it's progress through Moz, Google & Bing Webmaster tools. Both the webmaster tools are reporting back that my site triggers 404 errors for some specific links. However, I don't have or have never used those links before. I think the previous owner might have created the links before he went bust. My question is in two parts. The first part is how do I find out what websites are linking to me with these broken URL's, and the second is will these 404'ing links affect my SEO? Thanks!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | mickburkesnr

0
Suspicious external links to site have 302 redirects

Hi, I have been asked to look at a site where I suspect some questionable SEO work, particularly link building. The site does seem to be performing very poorly in Google since January 2014, although there are no messages in WMT. Using WMT, OPenSiteExplorer, Majestic & NetPeak, I have analysed inbound links and found a group of links which although are listed in WMT, etc appear to 302 redirect to a directory in China (therefore the actual linking domain is not visible). It looks like a crude type of link farm, but I cant understand why they would use 302s not 301s. The domains are not visible due to redirects. Should I request a disavow or ignore? The linking domains are listed below: http://www.basalts.cn/
http://www.chinamarbles.com.cn/
http://www.china-slate.com.cn/
http://www.granitecountertop.com.cn/
http://www.granite-exporter.com/
http://www.sandstones.biz/
http://www.stone-2.com/
http://www.stonebuild.cn/
http://www.stonecompany.com.cn/
http://www.stonecontact.cn/
http://www.stonecrate.com/
http://www.stonedesk.com/
http://www.stonedvd.com/
http://www.stonepark.cn/
http://www.stonetool.com.cn/
http://www.stonewebsite.com/ Thanks Steve
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | crescentdigital

0
Looking For SEO expert

We are looking for very competent and expert to handle the SEO for a plastic surgery clinic in Toronto Canada. Does anyone knows who are the best people in that field.. I am looking for the best of the best .. any suggestions or recommendations? Thank you
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | SinaKashani

0
Which SEO companies offer Penalty analysis?

I'm having a hard time finding a (good) SEO company which specializes itself in Penalty analysis? Any recommendations? I only found Bruce Clay, but they charge 8,000$ :)...
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | wellnesswooz

0
Help for a complete SEO newbie!

Hi all, I've just joined seomoz today to try and further my very young education on SEO. My major problem is i need my site to rank high in local search engines but feel that none of the customers read much of the content as i am a landscaper and feel they just search "landscaping in Newcastle" and are immediatly looking for a contact number to arrange a free estimate. I dont do any online sales, its just to generate leads. I've spent alot of time building a better site than my local competitors but they still out rank me on alot of keywords i.e. "Driveways in Gateshead" My question is do i keep adding more and more content hoping this will work long term or do i link build with anchor text etc or both? I cannot believe they still out rank me when i feel i have more links more anchor text and a load more origional content and images. I think it may be that my site is still under 1 year old. I feel i am boucing from content to link building then trying something else without any real knowlegde of what i really should be doing or what should be the priority at this young stage for my site. I have managed to get on page 1 of google for most of my keywords in local searches ( obviously not national) but still feel its been more down to luck and effort than actually knowing what i am doing when it comes to site and offsite optimization Any help, tips etc would be greatly appreciated. Many thanks John
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | totaldriveways

0