Fix Bad Links in Google
-
I have a client who had some grey hat SEO done in the past. Some of their back links aren't from the best neighborhoods.
Google didn't seem to mind until 9/28, when they literally disappeared for all searches except for their domain name. Google still has their site indexed, but it's just not showing up.
There are no messages in Webmaster Tools.
I know Bing has the tool where you can disavow bad links and ask them to discount them. Google doesn't have such a tool, but what is the strategy when you don't have control over the link sources, such as in blog comments?
Could this update have been a delayed Penguin ranking change from the latest Penguin Update on the 18th?
http://www.seomoz.org/google-algorithm-change
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Tom
-
That is an excellent point and I hope it is a Panda update rather than a Penguin. Fixing content on the website will be exponentially easier than trying to track and remove links.
It very much looks like a Penguin penalty, though, and I didn't think Panda acted like this.
Here's an example search:
That is the exact phrase on one of the inner pages. It looks like this domain "http://ip-72-167-48-40.ip.secureserver.net/" is now ranking above their actual domain, which you can see if you click the link to see the "entries that they omitted"
I've never seen a domain like that, but I assume it's the result of something GoDaddy is doing on their hosting end.
Anyway, it's very curious. Any other thoughts would be more than welcomed.
-
I don't have an answer for all of your questions, but this Panda update may be the cause of the rankings drop:
http://searchengineland.com/google-panda-update-20-released-2-4-of-english-queries-impacted-135291
It's more likely to have affected a site based on content than links, however. Unless you're working with an Exact Match Domain, I'd guess this is the most likely cause of any significant ranking drops from the date you mentioned.
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 to fix site breadcrumbs on mobile google search
For past one month, I have been doing some research on how to fix this issue on my website but all my efforts didn't work out I really need help on this issue because I'm worried about this I was hoping that Google will cache or understand the structure of my site and correct the error the breadcrumb is working correctly on desktop but not shown on mobile. For Example take a look at : https://www.xclusivepop.com/omah-lay-bad-influence/
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Ericrodrigo0 -
Pinging Links
Interested to know if anybody still uses the strategy of pinging links to make sure they get indexed, there are a number of sites out there which offer it. Is it considered dangerous/spamy?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | seoman100 -
Is a Link Wheel Safe If I Control the Wheel?
Hi, folks. Our company operates over 50 disease-specific, nice websites. Currently, we're building resource/landing pages for some therapies and other related topics. One experimental therapy is being investigated across four different disease types: cystic fibrosis, Muscular Dystrophy, Hemophilia, and cancers. We have sites for all of them, and have created original landing pages for each site. Question: is it safe / does it make sense to "link wheel" these pages, especially since the wheel is composed of all our own sites? The other option of course is to simply interlink all of them, but will I get more visibility with a cyclical linking scheme? I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Thanks!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Michael_Nace1 -
C-Block and link juice
We manage a couple of different domains on different hosting providers. I want to consolidate to one provider, but one site has some good links juice to another site (actually just one link). Should I worry about having both sites on the same C-block - and probably the same IP address?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | ThomasErb0 -
Link building freelancers or referrals to link building freelancers
Hi, Are there many freelancers in this community that advocates the MOZ linkbuilding philosophies? Or does anyone have references for link building freelancers at a reasonable rate? Thanks, Jack
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | jackgao840 -
Should You Link Back from Client's Website?
We had a discussion in the office today, about if it can help or hurt you to link back to your site from one that you optimize, host, or manage. A few ideas that were mentioned: HURT:
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | David-Kley
1. The website is not directly related to your niche, therefore Google will treat it as a link exchange or spammy link.
2. Links back to you are often not surrounded by related text about your services, and looks out of place to users and Search Engines. HELP:
1. On good (higher PR, reputable domain) domains, a link back can add authority, even if the site is not directly related to your services.
2. Allows high ranking sites to show users who the provider is, potentially creating a new client, and a followed incoming link on anchor text you can choose. So, what do you think? Test results would be appreciated, as we are trying to get real data. Benefits and cons if you have an opinion.2 -
Are links from directories good or bad?
I've done a lot of competitive link analysis lately and found that a lot of my competitors links for a certain keyword are coming from low quality directory sites and they're outranking my site. This leads me to my question which may or may not have an answer(I at least hope it fuels a good discussion)... Are links from directory sites good or bad for SEO?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | TylerReardon0 -
Strange link backs
Hi all been looking at the keyword research tool , phrase is dog beds site at number 10 is **www.ideas-4-pets.com ** opened site explorer http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/domains?site=www.ideas-4-pets.com%2F Took at a look at linking root domains ths guy has some huge linking domains , so thought I would take a look at how they managed to get links from sites like Samsung , the UN , Php.net, Linking Root Domain Domain Authority Linking Root Domains *.parallels.com/ 97 129,927 *.php.net/ 97 201,007 *.dmoz.org/ 94 80,621 *.swsoft.com/ 92 24,586 *.samsung.com/ 89 54,125 *.oreilly.com/ 88 48,350 *.undp.org/ 88 21,578 I cant understand how he has got links off psd files or on page assets like embedded swf files. Anyone know how they are dong this , is this pure Darth Vader black hat >>??? Thanks in advance May the Google be with You
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | jbloggs0