Question on starting again after being penalised for bad links
-
Hi, in a scenario where you have been heavily penalised for bad links but the quality of your site is good, If you put the exact same version of your penalised site on a new domain (with no redirects), would Google recognise it and penalise it again, or would that give it a completely fresh start?
Any advice or experience with this would be much appreciated.
Thanks.
-
I would second this, it is a very last ditch approach but in a worst case scenario, what else can you do?
Has anyone actually done this? Any other considerations? Would you think it would be worth noindexing the original site first to get it out of the index before launching on a new domain?
I am actually working with a few companies and upon reviewing the link profile, it is like 99% junk so in this instance, starting again with some outreach to the few good links is certainly a more attractive prospect but I would be interested to hear any feedback from folks that have done this.
-
That should only be done as a last resort if your site is completely nuked. Or unless it was a relatively new site to begin with and all the links are bad anyway and there is nothing good pointing to you.
If your site is well established, good PR and some good links and time put into it, I would work on removing the bad links and going through the reconsideration process.
-
** If you put the exact same version of your penalised site on a new domain (with no redirects), would Google recognise it and penalise it again, or would that give it a completely fresh start?**
That would be a fresh start.
The preferred method of resolving the manipulative link issue is to run a campaign and remove the bad links. Such a campaign is time consuming and costly, but yields the best results.
If you cannot afford such a campaign, you can run away from the problem by changing domains in the manner you described. If you do such, it would be best if you can try to identify your good links and work with the publishing site to update the link to the new site.
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
-
What link would be better?
Hi Guys, Just wondering what would be better in this instance: finding an old post (with good authority) and getting a link from that old article or creating a brand new article and adding the link to that. Finding an old post (with good authority) and getting a link from that old article Creating a brand new article and adding the link to that. Both naturally link out to the page you want a link too. To me, number 1 as the page already has authority but then again number 2 since Google might place some weight to recency. Any thoughts? Cheers.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | spyaccounts140 -
Should we optimise our internal links?
Hi again, We recently had a technical search audit done by a specialist agency and they discovered a number of internal links that caused redirects to happen. The agency has recommended we update all of these links to link directly to the destination so we don't lose out on link equity. We'd just like to know if you think this would be a worthwhile use of our time. Our web team seem to think that returning a 301 to a crawler means that the crawler will stop indexing the original URL and instead index the redirected destination? Thanks all. Clair
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | iescape2 -
We used to speak of too many links from same C block as bad, have CDN's like CloudFlare made that concept irrelevant?
Over lunch with our head of development, we were discussing the way CloudFlare and other CDN's help prevent DDOS attacks, etc. and I began to wonder about the IP address vs. the reverse proxy IP address. Before we would look to see commonalities in the IP as a way that search engines would modify the value to given links and most link software showed this. For ahrefs, I know they still show common IPs using the C block as the reference point. I began to get curious about what was the real IP when our head of dev said, that is the IP from CloudFlare... So, I ran a site in ahrefs and we got an older site we had developed years ago that showed up as follows: Actos-lawsuit.org 104.28.13.57 and again as 104.28.12.57 (duplicate C block is first three sets of numbers are the same and obviously, this has a .12 and a .13 so not duplicate.) Then we looked at our host to see what was the IP shown there: 104.239.226.120. So, this really begs a question of is C Block data or even IP address data still relevant with regard to links? What do the search engines see when they look for IP address now? Yes, I have an opinion, but would love to hear yours first!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RobertFisher0 -
Metatags on drupal question
Hi Im quite inexperienced on drupal (normally an umbraco user!) and im having some difficulty with the Metatags on the CMS. I have been applying Meta Title and descriptions to the individual pages however they only appear when i preview the page and not when the page is saved. When i go into the metatag section located at /admin/config/search/metatags i am given a list of settings including Global: Front Page and Node. Im sure the reason it keeps defaulting the metatags back is to do with this but im not sure what to change to apply my own Thanks in advance
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TheZenAgency1 -
What is value in a back-link from article with multiple links pointing to various other sites?
In a standard article with 400-500 words my site got a back-link. However, within the article there are 4 other links pointing to other external content as well (so total 5 links within articles all pointing to external sites, and 1 of the links is to my site). All links are to relevant external content that is. Question: wouldn't it be much more valuable for my site if only my site got a back-link from the article, as less link juice is now passed to my site, since there are 4 other links pointing to various sites from this same article? Or, is the case that given the other links are pointing to quality material it actually makes the link to my site look more credible and at the end of the day have more value. Conclusion: is it that on one hand less links in same article is better from a link juice perspective, however, from a credibility perspective it looks more convincing there are other links pointing to quality content?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | knielsen0 -
Sitewide footer links - bad or not?
Hi, Sitewide footer links, is this bad for SEO? Basically I see all the time the main navigation repeated in the footer, sometimes as almost something to just fill the footer up. Is this bad for SEO (im guessing it is) and can you explain why you think it is? Cheers
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | activitysuper0 -
Where do I start with cleaning up our link profile?
We have just taken the steps to start building links to www.towelsrus.co.uk, I am concerned about the state of external links to the site created by previous companies, i.e are they OK, or doing us harm, could I get more out f whats already in place or should we focus purely on getting new links? We also have about 25 pages that have 302 errors and contain external links to the site. What should i do with these. try and get them re-directed to our site with appropriate anchor text or simply put a 301 re-direct in place? In essence where I start, We want to build and increase traffic in particular for towels, bathrobes, dressing gowns and bolster our position as our positions are fluctuating a little but steadier than they have been. Any help appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Towelsrus0 -
Should I remove footer links?
I added footer links to my site some months ago as I figured that any authority my home page had would be distributed to several of my other most important pages on my site helping them to rank. Would I be better to remove them and would that improve the authority of my home page as less 'link juice' is being distributed. I did originally set up a page per keyword on my site and start building links to each one but as my home page has a good authority I am going to target several keywords on my home page instead as I have some way to go to improve the authority of my other important pages and think this would be a better solution. It would reduce the number of links I have per page however I did see Matt Cutts say that the no more than 100 links per page rule doesn't apply any more. Do footer links add any SEo value?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SamCUK0