What is the best way to remove and fight back backlink spam?
-
Removing low quality and spam backlinks. What is the most effective clean-up process?
-
Hey Matti
Glad it helped buddy. Check out those tools, they won't do the job for you but they will certainly help out with some of the manual labour aspects.
Marcus
-
thank you for the response Marcus. so far it's not really that bad. I discovered that there were some pretty bizarre links that facilitated the atrophy of our rankings but not quite reach 90% spam links.Starting a new domain is far more than I think. I'll probably look at the tools that you suggested and see what's out there then.
Regards,
Matti
-
Hey Matti
In a nutshell, if it is really bad, then start again on a new domain.
What I am seeing with a few people I am helping is that where the site has had historical results, but is now penalised, attempting to clean up if the back link profile is pretty rotten (90% + placed links) is a pretty tough gig.
There are some tools out there that are proving useful and the pick of the bunch would be:
- rmoov
- Link Cleanup and Contact
- Remove’em
These all have pros and cons so you will likely want to use all of them.
Additionally, you will want to make sure the site is worth saving and likely invest some time and effort in generating some honest links through some solid content marketing. Maybe build some kind of free report or something specific to the site that you can use to do some outreach based link building. Do some blogging, invest some time and effort in the quality of the site.
Additionally, if you have a penalty, be prepared to put in a few requests and if you intend to disavow, be thorough.
With some experience here, you also have to ask yourself - what are you trying to save? If the answer to that question is that you are trying to save some spam links that still seem to be working at the moment, then, seriously, start again.
Without a link and some research it is hard to make a call but know this, it is a tough job to remove bad links and unless you have a link profile where there is something worth saving, then a new domain is likely the fastest way to sort out this mess and make sure you don't get hit again when they tighten up the link penalties down the road (you know it's going to happen).
There really is no generic answer here and every situation is different but be sure to know what you are getting yourself into before you undertake this and do an honest review of the site, the content and the links to make sure this is a battle you can win.
This is a good read:
http://cyrusshepard.com/penalty-lifted/
Hope that helps buddy
Marcus
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
-
Backlink inconsistency
Hello! We were ranked on page 1 in Google for the past 10 years for a specific key phase until this February when we were pushed to page 2. When analyzing backlinks via majestic.com we found that our backlinks haven't been consistent, we typically have around 1,000 or less, but in February they dropped, then began spiking inconsistently (from 3000+ to a few hundred, then back up). Not sure how accurate Majestic's reporting is but we've also noticed some sites which are spamming our site with links on their low-quality and porn content websites. Is this type of backlink inconsistency normal, or is this something that could be negatively impacting our rankings? UttesqA
Technical SEO | | EileenCleary0 -
What is the proper way to deal with multiple product pages?
If an e-commerce site selling backpacks has 200 items and they only show 30 per page, what is the proper way to deal with page 2, page 3, etc? Do you let each page rank separately? even though they are competing on the same keywords? Do you use canonical tags on pages after the first page?
Technical SEO | | youngsgarden1 -
Removing some of the indexed pages from my website
I am planning to remove some of the webpages from my website and these webpages are already indexed with search engine. Is there any way by which I need to inform search engine that these pages are no more available.
Technical SEO | | ArtiKalra0 -
Best way to do a site in various regions
I have a client who has 2 primary services in 4 regions He does mold removal and water damage repair. He then serves cincinnati, dayton, columbus, and indianapolis. Before hiring my company he had like 30 domains (keyword based) and had tons and tons of fake google places listings. He actually got a lot of traffic that way. However I will not tolerate that kind of stuff and want to do things the right way. First of all what is the best site approach for this. He wants a site for each service and for each city. indy mold cincy mold dayton mold dayton water etc etc etc In the end he will have 8 sites and wants to expand into other services and regions. I feel like this is not the right way to handle this as he also has another site that is more generic To me the best way to do this is a generic domain with a locations page and a page for each city. The for the Places he would get one account - an address that is hidden since he goes to customer locations, and just multiple city defined regions. He does have an office like address at each city. So should I make him a Places listing for each city or just the one? And of course how should the actual sites be organized? Thanks
Technical SEO | | webfeatseo0 -
Some backlinks not getting picked up by OSE -- confused to why
I've had what has ended up being a nightmare SEO campaign. We have sunk a ton of time into link building for the site and saw little to no traction. Just as a test, I have the site on our portfolio as a site we designed years ago. The link to the site is old. Somehow, this link does not show up on OSE, and it seems to get no credit. http://www.happydogwebproductions.com/item/spine-and-sports.html The backlink, and troubled campaign is www.spineandsportschiro.com There should be a few more links too that aren't getting picked up, especially the ones I have noticed using Whitespark local citation tool. Has Google got picky with all of this? How come this site seems to be getting no credit?
Technical SEO | | Boogily0 -
Best Strategy For Multiple Geographic Targets
I have a client who operates and gets business from several cities in the same geographic area. Does anyone have suggestions that will allow him to get leads for the same service from multiple cities. Any help appreciated.
Technical SEO | | waynekolenchuk0 -
Best SEO strategy for a site that has been down
Because of hosting problems we're trying to work out, our domain was down all weekend, and we have lost all of our rankings. Doe anyone have any experience with this kind of thing in terms of how long it takes to figure out where you stand once you have the site back up? what the best SEO strategy is for immediately addressing this problem? Besides just plugging away at getting links like normal, is there anything specific we should do right away when the site goes back up? Resubmit a site map, etc? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | OneClickVentures0