I need de-spam help/advice
-
For one of my sites I am working on I outsourced SEO about 3 years ago. One of the "tricks" the SEO used at the time was to pay for several Blog posts to be "sponsored" by this web site using exact match keywords for the domain.
1 Where do I look to determine the spammy links pointing to this site?
2 Have you had success getting rid of these bad links?
-
The purpose of OSE is to show you links to your site. There is no way to accurately determine which links are organic vs manipulative without visiting the site.
DMOZ links would not be considered as manipulative.
-
Is DMOZ really a spammy link? It's the first one that came up using those filters.
-
Thanks very much for your reply, really appreciated your advise.
Now im going through Paddy blog,
Thanks for your help
-
Ryan,
This is excellent and clear:
"The message Google is sending is very clear: stop building links and start earning them."
As to expecting Penguin to keep improving over time, Google has already said it will, just like Panda.
There are a ton of ways to earn links, the first is to create great content that people want to link to. Look at how Google News works in terms of ranking articles. One of the SEO variables considered most valuable by those using Google News per Search Engine Land survey was cites (links) from other high authority Google News sources. Those sources don't link unless it is quality content.
Great point.
-
The first step is to ensure your site architecture is solid. If your site is unattractive, has broken links, is difficult to read, etc. then fewer people will want to link to it. Set up a Responsive Design mobile site, have a graphic designer improve the look and feel of your site, crawl your site to ensure your internal links are solid, gather user feedback, etc.
Next, you want to build "best on the web" type of content. Your content should be sincerely helpful, original and something readers want to share.
Find out who the influencers are in your niche. Ask them what content they need and give it to them! Each time you are likely to earn a link and be exposed to a new audience. Forget about search engines. The direct traffic value is fantastic.
There are countless articles on the subject of links. I would suggest the above advice is your best bet but if you require more direct tips, then I recommend you learn from a link building expert. Of course, great advice does not come cheap. Make sure you are prepared to pay him in the proper currency.
Otherwise, you can read some of his articles on the topic:
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-power-of-using-lists-for-link-building
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/actionable-link-building-strategies
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-to-build-links-without-fancy-tools
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/eight-link-building-tips-whiteboard-friday
-
thanks i will create a new questions but ,
any tips how to earn links , i do article and infographics.
-
Sharing your experience is great! It is what this Q&A is all about
Regarding your competitor's anchor text, I would suggest not spending a moment of time thinking about it. Fairness is based on perception and none of us have all the facts. When it comes to penalties, we should each focus on our sites and let Google sort out our competitors. It can be frustrating at times, but focusing on others only allows that frustration to build.
63% is still a VERY high anchor text percentage. If that site belonged to a client of mine, I would begin a manipulative link removal campaign. There is simply no way to earn enough quality links in a reasonable amount of time. I have repeatedly seen very fast recoveries after link removal campaigns. I hope this information is helpful.
-
I do Agree with you but to be honest, unfortunately clients dont have patience to wait they would like to get quick results. And to earn link you need to have some help from your client in terms of any incentive but they don't want to spend anytime just like us to get on with things,
I had the same issue with a site in april it was hit by penguin, i then started removing link , and had to request for link to be remove numerous time from sites and then wait for google to get index.
i did it till end of june nothing happen also send a request to google the reply was there is no manual penalty but it could be algorithmic penalty I checked my competitors link profile they were about 70 to 80 % direct keyword anchor then i compare it to mine and it was 63% after the analysis i start working on link building . start creating industry niche research content in our blog then some social activities and focus on guest blogging, but my anchor where all brand name or naked anchor . It work for me the SERPs are improving but still a long way to to go. sorry but im just sharing my experience.
-
That method is likely to cause more trouble then it solves.
Many site owners and SEOs seem to be confusing the Penguin mechanism with the message. The message Google is sending is very clear: stop building links and start earning them.
You are proposing to build links to manipulate the Google algorithm into not detecting the other "over-optimized" anchor text links. I have seen this advice and frankly, it is horrible. Most site owners have far too many manipulative links to "balance out" with legitimate links. Therefore you are building manipulative links without using anchor text to bypass the current Penguin detection system. I would bet a lot the next Penguin will not only continue detecting the original manipulative links (even if you change the anchor text) but also the new ones. Even if I am wrong, then the Penguin update after will. I expect Penguin to be just like Panda. It will keep improving over time.
Remove the bad links. Stop "building" links and start earning them. Site owners who follow the advice to change anchor text or bury the "over optimized" links are going to be hurting really bad, really soon.
-
Another way is to balance your link profile by creating backlinks Using generic , nacked and brand anchor links to balance things out,
-
The worst ever was my first campaign in 2011. My most recent campaign we had about a 60% response rate which was awesome.
-
What kind of success rate do you find you get Ryan? Mine really varies from niche to niche but is nowhere near 80%+
-
lol yup, if you had fun doing 8+ hours of link building, you can enjoy it even more when you have to remove them. #damnthegoogleoverlords
-
If your traffic dropped on April 25th and you know there are bad links pointing to your site, then the likely cause is Penguin. It's always important to understand the exact cause of the drop as Google makes approximately 50 algorithm changes each month. There were also Panda changes in April.
To gain an initial look at the spammy links, simply go to Open Site Explorer: http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/. This tool is part of the SEOmoz tools. For most sites affected by Penguin, you can locate spammy links pretty fast. At the top of the page there are 4 drop down boxes. Set the first three drop downs as follows:
followed+301, only external, pages on this root domain
As far as getting rid of the bad links, I have had a lot of success. The process is very manual and not a lot of fun, but it works. You need to contact site owners and very politely request they remove the links. If the first attempt does not succeed, do not give up. Keep trying.
Best of luck!
-
A lot of things happened in April. There were Panda refreshes on April 19 and 27 and Penguin hit on April 24. I'd be wary about cutting links until you are sure what you are dealing with. You could do more harm than good.
If this is a Penguin issue then no one knows exactly what has to be done to recover. Many webmasters will advocate getting spammy links removed. But the problem is that in order to beat the algorithm you may have to get 85-95% of the links removed and in most cases that is near impossible.
If you'd like me to have a look at your site I do a diagnosis package for a very reasonable fee. I have a good look at your analytics data and webmaster tools to give you an idea of what you are dealing with. You can contact me through my profile page.
-
Good rule of thumb, if you're getting links from:
- .info
- .ru
- .biz
They are usually poor links and should be avoided of removed.
Check your site's links in OSE (Open Site Explorer)
http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/
If they are:
Directory links or article submission links it should be easy to log in and delete them, assuming you were provided with the credentials.
-
The site hasn't received any unnatural links warning. I just know that rankings dropped DRAMATICALLY in April.
I also know that the mozTrust of this site is pretty low compared to the competition. I attribute it to this.
-
Have you been hit with an unnatural links warning? Penguin? Not sure?
It's important to know what you are dealing with before slashing links.
If I'm trying to get an unnatural links warning penalty reconsidered then I generally try to get removed any and all links that an SEO may have made. So, if it's an anchor texted link from an article, 98% of the time it's unnatural. I find though that most website owners are too lenient on themselves when they are trying to decide which links to remove.
I have had success in getting some webmasters to remove links like these - but you won't be likely to get them all.
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
-
Getting Spam Links
Hi There, I am planning to Disavow one spam domain but when check Google cache it shows my client domain name. So if I disavow this spam domain which link Google considered? Please help me. Thanks Satla
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | TrulyTravel0 -
Reducing Spam Flags
I have a personal site that is pretty strong (35 DA) likely from the fact that I have had it for so damn long (like. . . 15 years). So, since it's my own site of course I used it to link to my business site. Sadly, it looks like that site has "five spam flags" . . . which is ironic since it's totally legit. Anyway, what can I do to reduce spam flags? It mentions "low trust", small proportion of branded links, and "large site with few links". Pretty sure it's not the latter, since the site is just a wordpress site I use to share some of my music. (www.damonsongs.net in case anyone wants to hear it . . . ). So. . . 1) can I do much of anything to legitimze the site and 2) am I better off removing the site link I am trying to promote? Insights welcome!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | damon12120 -
New Service/Product SEO and rankings
Hello, fellow MOZers. We are a web design company, and we had SEO as secondary service for years. Due to changes in the company we started pushing SEO as one of our main services about 6 monhs ago. We have separate page , targeting that service, as well as case studies, supportive information pages, even SEO Center, which is like a blog about SEO only. We are not using black hat SEO, doing honest link earning and building, don't use keyword stuffing, everything is by the book. I understand that SEO takes time, especially for a company which has a footprint as web design company, not as SEO company. We are ranking very good for web design related keyphrases, however, we don't see any improvements for SEO related keywords. It always was and is between 25-30 SERP. At the same time, competitors, who are ranking on first page for SEO related phrases are pretty bad looking. Design-wise as well as blackhat-SEO-wise. Everything is keyword stuffed, UX is horrible, prices are ridiculous. So, do you guys have any thought/advise on how we can see results / why we are not seeing results. Links: Google search result: https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=seo%20houston Competitors: www.seohouston.com, www.graphicsbycindy.com Our pages: https://www.hyperlinksmedia.com/seo-houston.php, https://www.hyperlinksmedia.com/seo-houston/
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | seomozinator0 -
How did I get over 1000 backlinks in less then a month? help?
Hi Guys I'm a newbie and just started my website, im wondering if im reading this correctly, i use a tool called my seo tools and its telling me my website zenory.co.nz has over 1600 backlinks, this is scary since the site is only 5months old and i didn't see this till at least today and i check my sites backlinks on a regular basis. However when I check with moz it says I only have 2? I'm a little confused. Any advice here? Much appreciated Thanks
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | edward-may0 -
Traffic Generation Visitor Exchange Systems & Google Algo / Punihsments
So, in recent years some services have been developed such as Engageya I want to ask the experts to weigh in on these types of services that generate traffic. I know of sites that have achieved higher ranking via these NON-bot, user browser visitors. Here's their own explanation. Any thoughts will be appreciated. I could not find what Google's Matt Cutts has to say about these affairs, I suspect not very good things. However, I KNOW of sites that have achieved higher ranking, with about 30-40% of traffic coming from similar systems to this. Join our exclusive readers exchange ecosystem Engageya offers an exclusive readers exchange ecosystem - either within the network only, or cross-networks as well - enabling participating publishers to exchange engaged readers between them in a 1:1 exchange ratio. No commissions involved! Why networks work with Engageya? Create traffic circulation within your network - increase your inventory and impressions within your existing properties.Engage readers within your network and experience an immediate increase in network's page views. Enjoy readers'- exchange from other networksOur engine intelligently links matching content articles together, from within your network, as well as from other networks. Get new audiences to your network for non-converting users clicking out. New revenue channel - monetize pages with reader-friendly content ad units, while making your readers happy!This is the time to move from aggressive and underperforming monetization methods - to effective and reader-friendly content advertising.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Ripe
Let our state-of-the-art semantic & behavioral algorithms place quality targeted content ads on your publisher's content pages. Enjoy highest CTRs in the industryContent ads are proven to yield the highest CTRs in the industry, starting at 2% and up to 12% click-through rates! This is simple. Readers click on an article they are interested-in, whether it's sponsored or not. Enhance your brand - Offer your publishers private-label content recommendations today, before someone else does.Content advertising is becoming more and more common. New content advertising networks and suppliers are being introduced into the online advertising market, and, sooner or later, they are going to approach your publishers. Engageya offers you a private-label platform to offer your publishers the new & engaging content ad unit - today! Comprehensive reports and traffic control dashboardTrace the effectiveness of the content recommendations ad units, as well as control the traffic within your network.0 -
Looking for a Way to Standardize Content for Thousands of Pages w/o Getting Duplicate Content Penalties
Hi All, I'll premise this by saying that we like to engage in as much white hat SEO as possible. I'm certainly not asking for any shady advice, but we have a lot of local pages to optimize :). So, we are an IT and management training course provider. We have 34 locations across the US and each of our 34 locations offers the same courses. Each of our locations has its own page on our website. However, in order to really hone the local SEO game by course topic area and city, we are creating dynamic custom pages that list our course offerings/dates for each individual topic and city. Right now, our pages are dynamic and being crawled and ranking well within Google. We conducted a very small scale test on this in our Washington Dc and New York areas with our SharePoint course offerings and it was a great success. We are ranking well on "sharepoint training in new york/dc" etc for two custom pages. So, with 34 locations across the states and 21 course topic areas, that's well over 700 pages of content to maintain - A LOT more than just the two we tested. Our engineers have offered to create a standard title tag, meta description, h1, h2, etc, but with some varying components. This is from our engineer specifically: "Regarding pages with the specific topic areas, do you have a specific format for the Meta Description and the Custom Paragraph? Since these are dynamic pages, it would work better and be a lot easier to maintain if we could standardize a format that all the pages would use for the Meta and Paragraph. For example, if we made the Paragraph: “Our [Topic Area] training is easy to find in the [City, State] area.” As a note, other content such as directions and course dates will always vary from city to city so content won't be the same everywhere, just slightly the same. It works better this way because HTFU is actually a single page, and we are just passing the venue code to the page to dynamically build the page based on that venue code. So they aren’t technically individual pages, although they seem like that on the web. If we don’t standardize the text, then someone will have to maintain custom text for all active venue codes for all cities for all topics. So you could be talking about over a thousand records to maintain depending on what you want customized. Another option is to have several standardized paragraphs, such as: “Our [Topic Area] training is easy to find in the [City, State] area. Followed by other content specific to the location
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | CSawatzky
“Find your [Topic Area] training course in [City, State] with ease.” Followed by other content specific to the location Then we could randomize what is displayed. The key is to have a standardized format so additional work doesn’t have to be done to maintain custom formats/text for individual pages. So, mozzers, my question to you all is, can we standardize with slight variations specific to that location and topic area w/o getting getting dinged for spam or duplicate content. Often times I ask myself "if Matt Cutts was standing here, would he approve?" For this, I am leaning towards "yes," but I always need a gut check. Sorry for the long message. Hopefully someone can help. Thank you! Pedram1 -
Link Building Plan Need some tips
Okay so I want to start focusing on SEO for my Web design company and I have been reading and reading and am now working on my off-page optimization and have some questions. My words are competitive words and a few of them are finally increasing to top 500 and a few in top 100. My current MozRank for my domain is 2.28, but my mozbar shows my homepage to be MozRank to be 3.35 Link Building Plan -Around 50 Directory submissions to high PR directories and high MozRank domains Free listings Paid Listings -3-5 articles written for guest posts Around 25 Local Business directories such as brownbook.net, whitepages, etc -Around 20 dofollow forum profile creation and backlinks from signatures -Squidioo Lens Creation( I will be creating high quality content related my website which would be web design, internet marketing, seo services.) -Hubpages Creation My question is should the content used on squidioo be 100% original, like can I post the content to other directories as well? -Article Directories Okay so from what I've read this is method doesn't really give much benefit with the recent updates, is this true or should I still at least submit some articles to article directories. I am also confused wouldn't distributing your articles to article directories be considered duplicate content? 20-25 Blog Comments on related blogs that support dofollow blog commenting, also will build some nofollow blog comment links for link diversity
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | azokaei0 -
Abused seo unintentionally, now need a way out
Hello, I have been in contact with a smo to optimize my site for search engines and social media sites. my site was doing great from last 4 years. but suddenly it started dropping in ranking. then i came and joined seomoz pro to find a way out. i was suggested to categories content in form of subdomains ... well that put a huge toll on my rankings.. thanks to suggestions here i have 301 them to sub directories. Now another huge question arises. i found out that my smo guy was taking artificial votes or whatever youc all them on twitter, facebook and g+ ...twitter and facebook's are understandable but i am getting to think that these votings on g+ might have affected my site's ranking ? here is a sample url http://www.designzzz.com/cutest-puppy-pictures-pet-photography-tips/ if you scroll below you will see 56 google plus 1s... now the big question is, i have been creating genuince content. but nowt hat i am stuck in this situation, how to get out of it ? changing urls will be bad for readers.. will a 301 will fix it ? or any other method. thanks in advance
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | wickedsunny10