Persistent Unnatural Links in Webmaster tools
-
We recently were notified about unnatural links from two websites (totalling a few thousands links each). We went to the websites and asked them to remove the links, which they apparently did.
After this we applied for reconsideration to Google, explaining the situation, however they came back and said we still have links. We noticed there were still links, however there were less than before, and so we once again asked the sites to remove all the links.
Now we are sure all the links are gone as when we click a random link and view the page source there is no reference to our site, however WebMaster tools is not updating the link list, claiming we still have thousands of links.
Do we have to apply for another reconsideration request to get them to re-crawl the sites to get rid of the links, or should it happen automatically?
-
Thanks for the answers everyone. I'm currently going through and making a spreadsheet of the sites who are linking more than 100 times.
Some of the sites I have no idea why there are links or why there are hundreds for them for that matter. We are going to contact them all (if we can find their contact details) and then apply for reconsideration.
Thanks for the tips everyone.
-
I'm guessing that you have other links that you probably think are ok but are unnatural in the eyes of Google. I have found that most webmasters, when evaluating their links tend to be too lenient.
Any link that was built by you or an SEO for the point of increasing your Google rankings is considered unnatural in the eyes of Google. It may have been the two websites you mentioned that set off the penalty, but now that you've got a penalty you've got to come totally clean.
You need to make an attempt to contact each website that has a potentially unnatural link to your site using all means possible - email address from site, contact form, and email from whois data. If you can't get a link removed then you need to show in your reconsideration request a copy of every attempt to get the link removed. That usually does the trick, but it's a lot of work!
-
It's so hard to tell whats natural and what's not in Google's eyes, i think the rule of thumb here is, if you have paid someone to do link building for you question those links and start there, also look out of poor directory submissions too (there are some good directorys) however you know the ones i mean.
Download the links in WMT and start there,
It's an absolute pain in the backside as you will never know what links your removing and how Google views them
Make a Google doc's account, list every single link you can find, Visit every single one of those links and catalogue what has been done, if its been removed note is has been removed , if you have requested the removal note that down too so in your next reconsideration request Google can see you have been actively trying to resolve the issues, and don't forget to link in that Google doc
If you have used a 3rd party who's is getting your link building for you be honest and name them, if you know you have done wrong apologise and tell them it will never happen again,
Never say its a competitor as that is very highly unlikely, you may have 1000's of links so good luck and it wont be easy,
-
Hi eXia,
Yes, you shall again have to apply for the reconsideration. But before applying, make sure clean your overall link profile. You should only have natural links (or should appear as natural, which Google can't detect).
Once you're sure that there are no thin quality, unnatural links, you can again apply for reconsideration.
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
-
Correct Internal Linking Strategy
Hello. So my website currently has 8 pages in total. (Homepage, 5 Service Pages, Contact, About). I currently have about 80 quality RD and my Homepage already ranks #8 for my main keyword, while all Service Pages (P1, P2, P3, P4, P5) are stuck somewhere at #30-60 positions for their target keywords. My internal linking scheme looks like this https://i.imgur.com/2cA529v.png. The Homepage has a sidebar with links to all Service Pages, and each Service Page has the same sidebar that links to each Service Page, but doesn't link back to my Homepage. Contact and About pages can be accessed only via the links in the menu. I don't have any contextual links on my website, so all pages that are important for SEO are linked only via this same very sidebar. All these Service Pages are equally valuable to me, but they don't seem to grow much in Google. The Onpage Score of these pages is better than those of TOP10 competitors, and my content provides more value (I used the Skyscraper Technique). Taking all that into consideration, can you please tell me what might be wrong? Why Should I build more quality backlinks to these service pages instead of the homepage? Should I add contextual links to all my service pages from the homepage? Does my internal linking strategy look good to you? If not, what should I change? Can I hit top #10 with my internal pages for their target keywords if I mainly build links only to my homepage? All keywords that I'm after have low to medium competition. My website has 90 RD in total, and my website's DA is 27. Thank you. 2cA529v.png
Technical SEO | | NathalieBr3 -
Changes to 'links to your site' in WebMaster Tools?
We're writing more out of curiosity... Clicking on "Download latest links" within 'Links to your site' in Google's WebMaster Tools would usually bring back links discovered recently. However, the last few times (for numerous accounts) it has brought back a lot of legacy links - some from 2011 - and includes nothing recent. We would usually expect to see a dozen at least each month. ...Has anyone else noticed this? Or, do you have any advice? Thanks in advance, Ant!
Technical SEO | | AbsoluteDesign0 -
GWT shows 38 external links from 8 domains to this PDF - But it shows no links and no authority in OSE
Hi All, I found one other discussion about the subject of PDFs and passing of PageRank here: http://moz.com/community/q/will-a-pdf-pass-pagerank But this thread didn't answer my question so am posting it here. This PDF: http://www.ccisolutions.com/jsp/pdf/YAM-EMX_SERIES.PDF is reported by GWT to have 38 links coming from 8 unique domains. I checked the domains and some of them are high-quality relevant sites. Here's the list: Domains and Number of Links
Technical SEO | | danatanseo
prodiscjockeyequipment.com 9
decaturilmetalbuildings.com 9
timberlinesteelbuildings.com 6
jaymixer.com 4
panelsteelbuilding.com 4
steelbuildingsguide.net 3
freedocumentsearch.com 2
freedocument.net 1 However, when I plug the URL for this PDF into OSE, it reports no links and a Page Authority if only "1". This is not a new page. This is a really old page. In addition to that, when I check the PageRank of this URL, the PageRank is "nil" - not even "0" - I'm currently working on adding links back to our main site from within our PDFs, but I'm not sure how worthwhile this is if the PDFs aren't being allocated any authority from the pages already linking to them. Thoughts? Comments? Suggestions? Thanks all!0 -
How to fix broken links?
Hi, I use WordPress CMS with Yoast SEO plugin. I have just found out that my 403 errors increased dramatically. It seems that all my tags below of each post are being broken for some reason. When i click on the tags i get the following massage: **403 Forbidden Request forbidden by administrative rules. ** I assume it has something to do with the configuration within Yoast SEO plugin. Dose anyone know how should i fix that? Thanks, Raviv evsGujA
Technical SEO | | Indiatravelz0 -
Too many on page links
Hi All, As we all know, having to much links on a page is an obstacle for search engine crawlers in terms of the crawl allowance. My category pages are labeled as pages with to many "one page" links by the SEOmoz crawler. This probably comes from the fact that each product on the category page has multiple links (on the image and model number). Now my question is, would it help to setup a text-link with a clickable area as big as the product area? This means every product gets just one link. Would this help get the crawlers deeper in these pages and distribute the link-juice better? Or is Google smart enough already to figure out that two links to the same product page shouldn't be counted as two? Thanks for your replies guys. Rich
Technical SEO | | Horlogeboetiek0 -
Linking from and to pages
My website, www.kamperen-bij-de-boer.com, tells people what campingssites can be found in The Netherlands for recreational purposes. In order for a campingsite to be mentioned on our website we ask them to place a link to our website (either using a text link or image link) and then we make a page for that campsite on our website with in the end a link to ther website, e.g. http://www.kamperen-bij-de-boer.com/Minicamping-In-t-Oldambt.html -> they in return link back to us. Since this comes natural will this or won't this be penalized by Google and so on for linkfarming. At this moment we have about 600 camping sites on our website alone linking to us (not all of them) and we are linking to them. Since this can be explained as link trading which is not as good for your ranking as one-way-linking what should be wise? Should i include a nofollow? I already have many links from other sites linking to mine without having to link back, is there anything else i can do with linking to ensure better ranking?
Technical SEO | | JarnoNijzing0 -
Nofollow link passing link juice
Can a link which is nofollwed pass link juice ? Please see the discussion at - http://www.seomoz.org/q/if-multiple-links-on-a-page-point-to-the-same-url-and-one-of-them-is-no-followed-does-that-impact-the-one-that-isn-t
Technical SEO | | seoug_20050