What do you do if you have been hit by recent Google updates but cannot remove the links?
-
We have a potential new client who did their own SEO about 6-7 years ago.They ranked really well for years then obviously recently got hit.
Some of the links they have are shocking, directories, articles sites etc. They did not use links farms but the links do not look great at all. The problem is they do not have log ins to remove these links manually themselves. Asking for a reconsideration with Google will not get us anywhere due to more recent link building issues we are trying to resolve.
They have sent removal requests at least 10 times to these sites but no response. Has anyone overcome these types of issues previously and can give any tips?
This would be a good client for us so keen to see what I can do to get them on-board.
-
like the 404 idea I will try that one.
Not done any work yet trying to get them on as a client. But I want to be sure we can 100% help, no point taking the project if its not going to improve much for them.
Any one else got any experience with this please chip in. Surely there must be loads of people who cannot get links removed, they can't all lose there online business due to this.
-
I haven't had much experience with this problem, but here are some things I would try.
- First, keep track and document all attempts to remove links. Website, contact dates, emails, etc.
- Offer to pay each webmaster $20 to remove the link. Money talks and will often get you a response.
- Consider 404ing the pages that the bad sites link to. Move your content to a new page. Do not 301 it. Of course, you will lose any legitimate links you have earned. Perhaps you can contact those sites to update to your new URL.
- Disavow links in Bing Webmaster Tools
- If you've put in a lot of work on #1 above, and had some success with #2 above, submit a reconsideration request with Google.
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
-
How long does it take my links to get indexed by Google?
How long does it take my links to get indexed by Google? Also Is it possible to get my links indexed faster?
Link Building | | EugeneMot0 -
Reddit LInks
Are Reddit links worthwhile? I hear they are sometimes follow and sometimes not follow. Also what about links verses self links? I'm pretty handy with reddit so I can probably make content that would actually be upvoted a lot. Let me know, thanks.
Link Building | | RafeTLouis1 -
If you discount a subscription when the client links to you, does that classify as a paid link?
For example, we all subscribe to MOZ, but if we received a 25% discount on our subscription if we linked back, would that be considered by Google as a paid link, or would it be seen as a sales tool / promotion?
Link Building | | JonathanSmith0 -
01 November 2013 - A possible Google's update??
Hello Guys! On 01 November 2013, one of our website's traffic has been dropped by more than 70%. We had added plenty of domains to the disavow tool, I am just wondering if its a Google's update or the disavow tool has destroyed the site? Any ideas? 9p3sN3p.jpg
Link Building | | TheSEOGuy10 -
Root Domain Link for Affiliate's Link
It seems my affiliate link: http://www.hrmsplugins.com?partners=21 is not being considered as a "root domain" backlink when this link is used on their website. Is there a reason for this?
Link Building | | delphia0 -
Google index broken link ?
Hi .
Link Building | | tuananh0688
This is my site http://blog.addme.vn . It published about 3 weeks ago . I have some problem with google index : When my site published about 3 days , submit site map on google by google webmaster tool . Google index all link summited .But i found dublicate content with link and i edited all structure links and sumited again.
Now when google search on you see 2 link old and new . But link of old site map has broken .How to solve this problem .0 -
Can high SERPS and/or social signals minimize Google penalties and a back linking removal question
As I am continually sizing up my competition in the SERPS I have scanned their sites with a fine tooth and comb. I have found that these sites practice in the very things that I have practiced in the past and have removed thinking that may be some of the reasons I was hit with Penguin. Some of these factors are: Link Scheme with sites they own (C Blocks) Content for Search Engines (Keyword rich text) Exact anchor text in back linking profile Yet even though my competition practices in these methods (One site even places exact anchor text in the footer and header of every page for one of their other forum site) they seem to have not even been touched with any of the recent updates. In fact it seems their ranking have increased. In scanning these sites the only major difference that I have been able to see between them and I is that their SERPS are higher than mine and they have way more social signals than me. One site has about 73k facebook likes where I only have about 300. My question is Can Google ignore penalties for sites that have higher SERPS and /or social signals that would effect another site that had lower ones? My other question is related to back links My main site has links from another site I built a long time ago (Pre SEO and not knowing what I was doing) somewhere in the 73k range. Obviously a HUGE signal to Google that this might be spam and I am aware. I have removed the links from that site but unfortunately the average crawl rate per day is very low so it is taking a very long time for Google to find those pages and re-crawl them to find the links gone. Since that site I have than has those links pointing to my main site has very low traffic I am totally willing to kill that entire site with a 404. Can this help speed up the removal of those links from that site? I figure since the site no longer exists all links from that site will be removed almost immediately from my main site. Any thoughts?
Link Building | | cbielich0 -
Too many links - How to address without removing them?
Hi, When a page has too many links (over 100) due to the number of monthly blog archives for example, is it possible to use a code (like no index but just for one link) that would prevent Google from counting the link? Or not in which case the only options would be to leave the extra links or to delete them. I do not want to put a no index at the page level but more at link level by preventing SE to follow the least important links but keeping them active for users. Thank you, David
Link Building | | DavidSpivac0