Link from a non existing page- is it bad?
-
If Google Webmaster tools is showing a link to my site and when checked, that page doesn't exist (404 error), does that mean anything? Is it bad?
-
That's a good idea Iain. Thanks! Though link is pointing to homepage so can't redirect.
-
I agree with Edward here.
However for bonus SEO points if you 301 redirect the page where the external link is pointing to, to a relevant page, you'll take full advantage of that links power.
Iain - Reload Media
-
I support, there is nothing you need to worry about. Google will automatically take that link out once it recrawls the page.
-
Please don't take the above advice. I think the responder misunderstood your situation. If the externally linking page is broken, there's not much you can do. It will fall out of Google eventually.
-
If the page is indexed I would remove it. This should help: https://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=59819
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
-
Does removing pages, so that they return 404, also remove any impact of spam links pointing to that page?
A site with numerous spam links pointing to an old forum. The forum is now removed so do I need any further action? thanks,
Link Building | | ElaineDesignLobby0 -
Gained a number of new 'do-follow' links - Good or Bad?
So, my client's site is on a subdomain of the parent site and there were a number of links previously pointing to the subdomain site from the main site which were all no-follow so were purely for referral/traffic benefits. Around the end of February, the main site changed all the links to 'do-follow'. Is this likely to have caused the decline we've recently seen in organic traffic to the site and a drop in rankings? I'm curious as to how that could have affected the site as we didn't know and have only just found out about it but I'm not sure how to show that it's led to a decline. Any help is appreciated!
Link Building | | soapmed1 -
Internal Linking - Post links vs Side Bar Links behaving differently
Hi, I have a question regarding the internal linking behavior. My website is www.hindimeaning.com which is approx 3 years old. I have approx 450 posts. Now i have a widget on right sidebar "Popular posts". A widget below my posts "Related Posts". And a simple html CSS menu above the posts (I removed menu around 6 month before so currently it will not show.) I crawled my site with moz crawler (same are the result from google crawler as well) and it shows menus links as internal links. While sidebar widget "Popular posts" and "Related Posts" are not showing as internal links. If we talk theoretically what i learn till now is "every link on a page behaves as internal link". Then why the widget links are not showing as internal links. Thanks, Mahesh Kumar
Link Building | | chaudhary04890 -
Link building for a non-linkable site?
Hello, I am trying to zone in on a link building strategy for a non-linkable site. What I mean by non-linkable is I have a construction site. It's a family owned and operated small business. Our clients are farmers and older people usually. We go do a job, do it right the first time, and leave. Basically even if a couple of people who link to me for some weird reason, this is no way in the realm of 6,000 that my main competition has. I have tried to get as many quality citation resources as possible by using get listed, and white spark. My domain authority is only 16 though, so I must be able to increase this somehow. I have listed with Google +, Bing, Yahoo and every other major citation I could find. So now with trying too increase links with other ideas. I read somewhere to donate to charitable organizations, but if they link back to me as a donor, in an unrelated field, isn't that spammy like? So a construction site donating to a disease website, and then getting a backlink in return, does that look weird. It just seems like there are so many rules that I do not want to mess something up. I do not want get spammy links, but not sure if citations count as links so I am doing a win-win thing? Thanks for any tips Chris
Link Building | | asbchris0 -
Pursuing Links on Sites You Have a Link From
Is it a bad idea to spend resources to get a second link from a site that already links to you? It seems like the marginal value of each additional link is much smaller than the first link.
Link Building | | ProjectLabs0 -
Adding a link section - good or bad?
Hi all, I am currently thinking about adding a link section to my site. In 2010 I released a new version of the site, where one of the main differences to the old site was that a link section was left out. Now i see in webmaster tools that a lot of old links are still indexed but has a 500 error. My question is: 1. Will my site in general benefit from having a link sections with relevant links for the users - in terms of SEO? 2. Will my site benefit from creating a link section and having all the old link section URLs in google redirected to the new section? Best regards, Rasmus
Link Building | | rasmusbang0 -
Link Directories - Good or bad?
I've just done a search on open site explorer for a competitors site that has is ranked number one. Most of their highest authority backlinks are from link directories. I just read an article on here saying to stay away from directories that state things like 'seo friendly directory'. Many of my competitors links are from these kind of sites! Will it harm me to get links from such sites? It seems to be working for my competitors.... confused.com!
Link Building | | SamCUK0 -
Links from low PA pages on high DA sites... What effect do they have?
My company's website has inbound links from very high DA websites (LinkedIn 96, Yelp 91, etc.) but from pages with very low PA (1). These low PA pages are the company listings pages. In the case of Linked In, there are several products/services listed with ideal anchor text to the relevant pages on our site. How do these links effect our overall ranking and trust, and why aren't they listed when I use OSE to analyze my pages? Thanks!
Link Building | | sverdino0