Too Many Non-Niche-Specific Links?
-
Something just occurred to me today.
I work in-house for an embroidered patch company, but I respond to a lot of HARO queries about Marketing, SEO, SEM, Web Design, ect. So, we have a lot of links from these types of sites. Additionally, I have done guest blogs on these topics because those are what I'm knowledgeable about.
We also have links from customers' personal blogs or websites stating they got their patches from us and are happy, blah, blah, blah.
On top of that, we hired someone who ended up getting tons of .edu links by spamming blogs. Oy.
I'd estimate only about 10% of our links come from embroidery, sewing, screen printing, promotional products, etc types of sites.
I guess it's not really known or documented how much weight Google places on niche-specific links--we just assume that it matters, and I'm sure it does.
Our rankings are fine now, but I'm looking for some opinions from other SEOs about how much they think this will matter in the future or how much it matters now. Could this hurt us in the future?
.
-
Agreed
-
Agreed. I didn't think our answers were contradictory, I agree with you totally. I just didn't feel she needed to spend time trying to get rid of the naturally built non-niche links and I don't think you thought so either.
Cheers!
-
Hi Marisa,
I think what me and Billy are both saying here is to put most of your focus toward building niche-specific links. The other links will come, and it is actually good to have non-niche related links so that it looks natural to Google.
What I was trying to say was this if, for example, 80% of your links all came from motor racing websites, and your website is about cats, this can be confusing. If only 20% come from there, 20% from dog websites, 10% from directories, etc, then this is good.
Make sure that you don't focus too much on building non-niche specific links though as the most powerful links are the related ones. Also, completely agree with Billy regarding getting rid of those spammy .edu links. They could come back to haunt you.
Hope this has cleared things up,
Matt.
-
Two very good answers, however they're rather contradictory to each other. I'm still not sure what to do about this.
-
I don't believe that non-specific YET naturally built links will ever hurt you. Obviously they will never help quite as much as industry specific links but the fact remains that they are not spam; they are real, honestly built relationships. I would not spend one second worrying about those links. I would also, however, not spend lots of energy or time building more if there are more relevant links that you could be spending your time trying to build.
I would probably do my best to dump those spammy .edu links though. But that's just me
Cheers!
-
If you think about the links to your website as a web of semantic data. If your website was about cats and you have lots of websites that also talk about cats linking to you then Google can identify that your website is, in fact, about cats. However, if your website is about cats and you have a lot of websites that link to you about motor racing, then this can confuse Google and actually maybe believe that your website is, in fact about motor racing.
Semantically similar information is becoming more and more important and is the basic fundamental of search. Having a lot of links pointing to your website can help with building authority to your website, but niche specific links are invaluable.
Hope this helps,
Matt.
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
-
Do the back-links go wasted when anchor text or context content doesn't match with page content?
Hi Community, I have seen number of back-links where the content in that link is not matching with page content. Like page A linking to page B, but content is not really relevant beside brand name. Like page with "vertigo tiles" linked to page about "vertigo paints" where "vertigo" is brand name. Will these kind of back-links completely get wasted? I have also found some broken links which I'm planning to redirect to existing pages just to reclaim the back-links even though the content relevancy is not much beside brand name. Are these back-links are beneficial or not? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Do back-links to non indexed sub-domains / sub-directories considered by Google as website backlinks and pass Pagerank to website?
Hi, If some noindexed links on our website or sub-domain got some backlinks, will that backlinks pass Pagerank / linkjuice to website? Will they be considered as backlinks to website by Google? Here is a statement from Matt cutts for the question. My question is same as below with answer? Eric Enge: Can a NoIndex page accumulate PageRank? Matt Cutts: A NoIndex page can accumulate PageRank, because the links are still followed outwards from a NoIndex page. Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Is there any way to prevent Google from using structured data on specific pages?
I've noticed that Google is now serving what looks like host-specific video cards on mobile for our site. Is there any way to control which videos are included in these lists without removing the structured data on those clip pages or user pages? We don't want to noindex those pages but we don't want content from those pages to appear as video cards. 1kzPW
Algorithm Updates | | Garrett570 -
Relevant Link, but Low DA...good idea?
If a website has a low DA (not because of spam. Just because it's new or because there isn't a ton of content) but it is industry specific/relevant, then is that worth pursuing? I have read how relevancy is supposed to be a major portion determining a link's benefit, but I"m leery about about something with a low DA - like under 15 low. Thanks, Ruben
Algorithm Updates | | KempRugeLawGroup0 -
Links hovering at the bottom of a search result
Hey folks, Curious has to the how and why there are links at the bottom of this search query for "Justin Bieber Networth" for other celebrities, completely unrelated i.e. "harry styles, taylor swift" etc. http://imgur.com/DNXuyRW (also attached) Is this an SEO tool? How did they embed this into a search query? Thanks! Screen Shot 2015-06-08 at 12.04.43 PM DNXuyRW
Algorithm Updates | | Anti-Alex0 -
Why is Google.co.uk showing so many US retailers on search queries?
Over the last couple of years Google seems to be showing more and more irrelevant search results in the field I am based in (dietary supplements) with searches for products coming back with results which highlight US vendors. Given I am in google.co.uk and actually logged in as well, why is Google so far off with their results lately?
Algorithm Updates | | predatornutrition0 -
How to content marketing: Should my blog posts link to my sales page?
Hi, I've been doing a weekly blog making sure that each blog post contains my money keywords in the text, sometimes in h2 tags etc. My blog posts never contain any links to my actual sales page. Should I link each blog post to my sale page or is it overdoing it? Will internal linking of all my blog posts to my sales page will improve its page authority or have any SEO benefits? What about using exact match anchor text on these internal links? I couldn't find any resource online about this matter. Thank you for your opinion and help! -Marc
Algorithm Updates | | marcandre0 -
Sitemap link in footer?? Is it needed
Hi, I know sitemap is important to have as it tells google the pages to crawl. I have an xml sitemap for google to crawl. However, Do I need a sitemap link in footer. Any thoughts?? Does it have any harm if I dont include a sitemap link in footer
Algorithm Updates | | pejman500