Unnatural Link Profile
-
Hi All,
We are about to take on a new client whose site has been penalised for having a very unnatural link profile. They have over 1k links, which have 5 differing anchor texts, though the majority leans towards one particular phrase.
Their previous SEO company had done this for them and the strategy worked, keeping them in the top 3 for most phrases, until Penguin. Now they reside in the 70-100 ranks.
My initial though is we need to get rid of a lot of these links, however its going to be labour intensive and as we all know, labour is expensive.
The website is nicely designed and has lots of great unique content. Its just the link profile letting it down.
My question is;
If this were your client, what would you recommend? A link removal program which could take a long time and be very expensive or would you recommend that they start again and build a new site, also expensive and time consuming.
or would you suggest something different?
If anyone knows of any Link removal people who have done a good job in the past I'd love to get some contact details.
Thanks
Aran
-
If its 1K, LinkDelete can probably do it for about $400-$500.
But the main problem is that the links aren't guaranteed to be removed. Its based on cooperation of those webmasters, which usually are not helpful.
Another big problem is that this is a gamble.
1- You don't know if the links can be removed (uncooperative webmasters)
2- Even if you remove a good portion of links, it doesn't GUARANTEE an accepted reconsideration from Google.
-
Thanks William.
The client will not be happy to start over again, but I cannot see them being happy to spend money deleting links which they paid the last guys to implement!
you know what clients are like!!
Its a tough call! I'll check out the services you mentioned, thanks.
-
Hi Aran,
Some link removal services are rmoov and linkdelete. Google those to find exact site.
As for using a new domain, it is brought up a lot. It really varies for what your client's goals are and what you hope to achieve. The site was previously ranking at 3 but that was with spammy links. Now without those links would they still rank? Probably not.
If the site has SOME good links I'd suggest keeping the domain and removing those 1k links as it is not THAT bad if they are on same domains. But getting them removed is a hard task.
If the site has no good links and the domain isn't anything special like an EMD, I'd say just dump it. This is assuming the domain is not anything important like brand name.
You will have to consult with your client and see what they want and what their budget is. Removing links is hella annoying. LinkDelete does a lot of it for you and customer service is good overall.
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
-
Is there any benefit of posting links on blogs where last conversation took place 6 years ago
i am working on backlinking , i stumbled upon a site whos DA is 90 and spam score is 1%, however that site had last comment 6 years ago, my question is am i still getting any juice since the fact that other people may never go to this in near future, that site looks like an abandoned site.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | calvinkj0 -
Footer links VS Page links - Which one is best?
Hello all 🙂 I was wondering if someone could advise me on a link building question. If you wish to create a couple of landing pages for different locations with anchor text link building etc is it better to have a page like this web site here: http://www.acorncommercial.co.uk/commercial-property/development-sites/ or quick footer links like this web site here?: http://www.robertholmes.co.uk/ (click on quick links at the bottom). I would like to know if there is a difference from an SEO perspective or if they are considered black hat. Your advise would be much appreciated! Yiannis
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | artdivision0 -
Are these links bad for my results?
In the past we have requested links on multiple directories. Since we have seen a mayor drop (60% in traffic) in results around the pinquin update 24-26th of April. Our results have been slowly getting lower and lower in Google. Is it possible to tell if these links are in fact doing my site harm? Before the 26th of April it was easy to see that the results where benefiting from the submission to those directories. We did not have any messages in webmaster tools and reconsideration says "no manual spam action taken". What would be the best strategy to turn this around and go up again? A selection of the requested links can be found below. <colgroup><col width="266"></colgroup>
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | 2Hillz
| www.thesquat.org |
| www.directmylink.com |
| www.thegreatdirectory.org |
| www.submission4u.com |
| www.urlmoz.com |
| www.basoti.org |
| www.iwebdirectory.co.uk |
| www.freeinternetwebdirectory.com |
| addsite-submitfree.com |
| opendirectorys.com |
| www.xennobb.com |
| mdwerks.com |
| www.directoryfire.com |
| www.rssbuffet.com | To give a good view on the problem: The requested links anchors are mostly not in the native language of the directories. Thanks!0 -
Best way to build links?
i want to build high piority links and some high pr one's. what tool should i use? i was thinking of using scrapbox. any insights? i already have 2 high ones from youtube and google +1
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Radomski0 -
External links in a global footer
My company runs a real estate site (http://yochicago.com) that features editorial blog and video content. In our footer, we feature links to some of our client sites. That footer is global, i.e., on every page of the site, of which there are thousands. One of our clients has been hit by Google for unnatural links. While I am very aware of them using a network of junk sites (http://www.seomoz.org/q/can-our-white-hat-links-get-a-bad-rap-when-they-re-alongside-junk-links-busted-by-panda), could we be contributing to the problem? Our site has the most links into the troubled site.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | mikescotty0 -
Is it worthwhile to remove a large quantity of lesser quality links if you are able to do so easily?
So I've recently started working at a new company where I lead up their SEO efforts. In regards to link building I've discovered that a little over 75% of the anchor text on the links to the homepage (at least of the 10k SEOmoz provides) are non branded keywords. We don't appear to have any penalties, however, in my opinion we have what is an unnatural link profile for our homepage. As I investigated further I've noticed that a lot of these links (not all) are from irrelevant blogs where the link is found in the footer. (Clearly this was the result of some less than ideal get links quick strategy that was implemented in the past.) At first I was overwhelmed thinking that I'd have to try and contact these sites individually to see if I could get the link removed, however, I soon discovered that the site these links are actually linking to is not our domain, but is instead a domain that redirects to our site. So this brings me to my question: Should I remove the redirect from this other site to rid myself of these links. The white hat side of me strongly thinks this is a good step forward, however, a small part of me wonders what the ramifications would be. These types of redirects seem to account for a fairly high number of links, however what value that actually contribute is difficult to know. Any thoughts?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Poindexter0 -
When asking for links, what are good incentives to offer?
New to SEO and want to stay clean, What are white hat incentives you can offer in exchange for links? Giveaway for their readers? Give them helpful advice? Record video of me drinking a gallon of milk within 5 minutes?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | 10JQKAs0 -
Too many links... OOPS
So I made a big mistake. I know it was dumb. I took a chance and got screwed. I've been researching one of my competitions back links and found that about 7000 of their 12000 links came from one site. Upon further investigation that site is a page rank 7 and the link looked bought. My competitions page rank is 6 which I thought was largely because of this one link. I e-mailed the linking sites webmaster and they bought the link pretty cheap. So I thought... Hey!? Why not! About two weeks later, today, google webmaster tools finally found the link and my links went from 100 to 7100. Now that I really think about it, I know it was a stupid move. I just figured if they got away with it, I could. I'm a white hat seo'er from now on. I've learned my lesson. Wake up today and find that all 400 keywords I am attempting to rank for, which 60% used to be in the top 3, are now not in the top 100. Luckily I am still indexed in Google though, I'm just not ranking for anything significant. Now I e-mailed the linking sites webmaster and had him remove the links. He was pretty quick about putting them up, so I figure they'll be down today. Is it just a matter of Google realizing that they're gone until I'm back in the SERPS? Or am I screwed for good? This is a little scary, I depend on Google for my entire livelihood. Yeah, I know not something I should be gambling with then. I only spent $125 on the links, but every month of traffic is worth about $3k to me. Ouch. If I lose a few months I'm at least looking at a $10k hit. Please give me some good news 😞
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | bjenkins240