Remove comments or leave them be?
-
We're finding a lot of comments that were posted by a previous company - they've been using a keyword as the comment name (UGH) and then the comments are usually generic, like "great information, will definitely be back to read more form you" - you guys know what I mean...
Now, this site is ranking well and so are the keywords. My question is, should we work on removing those comments or just leave them be and now moving forward, use the proper process - since we are doing this ourselves now.
-
If the site is doing well, avoid panicking - lots of webmasters freak out and go on a rampage trying to remove every link, when they should just sit back and relax. If we're talking thousands and thousands of junk comments, it's something you might want to be concerned about. If it's a lower number, I wouldn't lose too much sleep over it and would focus on building quality backlinks going forward. Contacting blog owners is a nightmarish task because the sort who have blogs that auto-approve junk comments are usually not the most tech-savvy and often don't even think to include their contact info anywhere. Lots of them don't own their own domain, so you can't get their whois info that way either. If it were me, I'd put my time and energy into building good, diverse backlinks rather than spending tons of time trying to remove these links that don't seem to have negatively affected you.
-
To further confirm your feelings I completly agree with this answer. Wait until the penalty comes and then be proactive. In the meantime build high quality links.
-
No, this site is doing very well, the site and the keywords. Our mistake was having this particular seo company help us with link building.
Thank you for your reply, much appreciated.
-
Thank you so much for confirming what I was feeling Just needed to hear it from another in the field. I appreciate your time, thank you for responding.
-
If a keyword is ranking for poor quality content..then it's not a keyword worth having.
So for this reason, I would remove the comments. If they haven't already been picked up by Google's Panda update, then expect it to happen shortly.
Even if you take a hit with rankings for these keywords, it's better disposing of the generic comments now, rather than them having a negative impact on your whole site in the future,
-
I think it's a very pertinent question and I think you need to be realistic about the time it would take to outreach to the webmasters about your comments and then how likely they are to be removed.
The answer to me would be "a long time" and "not very likely" - which would essentially be a waste of time considering that you could be building better links during that period.
It might make you feel a bit uncomfortable, but I'd ignore them until you get an unnatural links message - at which point, I'd outreach and get ready to disavow (so you could make a note of which comments you think might trigger this, those on unrelated sites with a lot of outbound links for instance). Until then, I'd spend your time more wisely by optimising your site and building better links. There is also evidence to suggest that Google might be going down the route of devaluing links on the fly, which may happen to you in the future (or may have already happens). Should it occur and you see a rankings drop (but nothing too serious and no link warning message), it's important to have a number of high quality links built or ready to be built to replace those links devalued.
That's where I'd spend my time.
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 is the best way to remove a link that redirects to a spammy site?
I've got a new client and I'm trying to clean up their backlinks. There are several links that all redirect to this spam site http://www.expert-lender.com. All of the websites appear to be real, i.e. http://www.sammorganhomes.com/ but the actual links i.e http://www.sammorganhomes.com/wp-fav/backup/supplement/semitruckleasing.html are in a sub-directory and redirect to the spam site. I don't know if these links were from the previous SEO company or if they paid someone to create these or if these sites have been hacked. Can anyone tell me what is going on here and what should I tell these site owners?
Link Building | | Total-Design-Shop0 -
Removal of Bad Links
Before I started doing SEO for the company I am currently working in, they had an Indian company doing loads of spammy SEO work for their site. My question is as follows; should i try to remove the links that were inserted there. I am doing link building now in a natural way, which obviously takes days to get a link - not minutes. I'm worried that the link profile is full of years of spammy links and I can't dilute it as fast as I would like. Here are a few links to different sites that the company created links on: http://youdoze.com/ http://www.video-bookmark.com/ http://mylinkvault.com/ http://www.puplinks.com/ http://huzoo.com/ How do I go about this?
Link Building | | EcomLkwd0 -
Can personal name anchors from blog commenting be a risk?
Hello, I've created a new site early this year. In an effort to stay on Googles good side I decided not to do any link building. Everything you create yourself is pretty much frowned upon by Google, right? I have been doing a fair bit of blog commenting where that would add value. As a result my link profile shows about 50% anchors with my name in it. Can this be dangerous? Thanks!
Link Building | | andersvin0 -
Penguin Recover: Remove links vs Burry Links
The best is to do both. However with those with limited resources, would building more links with branded and naked URL anchor links be a better solution than painstakingly asking every webmaster to remove links.
Link Building | | reprisemedia10 -
Good and Bad of Comment Hut?
Hi All, A new client in a competitive market (international car hire - Car Trawler affiliate) is using Comment Hut to gain links to his site. I have not used this service so am wondering, with the latest google stuff, what the good the bad and the ugly is on the comment hut service. Does it work? Should we avoid it? Thanks in advance Steve
Link Building | | stevecounsell0 -
Are DISQUS comments backlinks indexed by Google?
I have just started commenting on DISQUS powered blogs and left a link to my website in the name field,but when i then look at the page "source"....i cannot see my backlink? Basically are DISQUS COMMENTS backlinks worth getting? YES/NO?
Link Building | | Freebetsuk0 -
How do i remove bad links ?
Google have sent me an email regarding manipulativre link or paid link etc. Tey are asking me to fix the issue then resubmit my site for consideration. My site IS still in the search results but i suspect that they may remove it soon. I suspect that a competitor may have a contact in google andthey are submitting complaints against my business but we do have many link to my site . How am i going to know exactly what link are the problem.
Link Building | | SydneyMove0 -
Would you approve this blog comment?
I just got an unusual comment on one of my blog posts on our real estate site. The article was about a particular street that is getting renamed after a historical figure. The comment is seven paragraphs of information about this person. The comment is an obvious attempt to get a backlink in my opinion. The site that it is linking back to is an architect's site. So, this is probably the work of an SEO. I've searched and can't find duplicate content online. I thought perhaps it was from wikipedia but there is no entry on this person and I've searched several phrases from the comment and it doesn't appear to be duplicated. So, would you approve it? My gut instinct is "yes" because it would add to the content on my site...but there's this little thing in the back of my head that is saying "Don't do it!!!!" EDIT: I just checked and the architect's site has 3 backlinks, none of which are blog comments. So, perhaps it is legit. Maybe someone is just fanatical about this historical figure. EDIT AGAIN: Very cool. I just checked their about page and the owner of the business has the same last name as the historical figure. OK. I'll stop being super paranoid now. LOL!
Link Building | | MarieHaynes0