Inbound Spam Links
-
We've held Local listings at "A" for over a year.
2 weeks ago we dropped down to below the fold.
I ran several reports and our backlink report shows roughly over 10,000
and it's growing every day along with new domain referrals with
inbound spam links all using the same core anchor text term.
One domain is responsible for over 2,000. These sites
have Nothing to do with our industry and several in foreign
languages.
All these links are "NoFollow".
My question is. Although "nofollow" is known to protect you, I'm wondering with over 10,000 of them coming from 345 sites, ALL using our one core term as an anchor text has red flagged us? If so,I'm planning on using Google disavow at the "domain" level.
We are a local resort and until this happened we only had around 15 referral sites that are industry related. Hotels.com type sites and local tourist related sites.
These new inbound spam links are so blatant and yes they're "nofollow", but I'm starting to wonder IF this off the wall inbound spam link pattern IS indeed affecting us?
Any thoughts?
-
My gut reaction is the same as Marie's - it doesn't sound like a typical negative SEO approach. It seems more likely that a past SEO attempt by a 3rd party went farther then you thought or got spread/duplicated somehow. Unfortunately, there's virtually no way to tell who created a link (let alone why).
If many of these are coming from just a few domains, I'd also recommend using the disavow tool. I do agree with James that these links could potentially harm you, even no-followed.
I'd look for any common clues as to who might be leaving these comments, though. I'd just want to make absolutely sure it's not someone operating on your behalf. I've seen that way too many times in the past.
-
Hmmm. I don't know. Hopefully someone else can figure out why you would have so many nofollowed links from iffy domains. I'll be watching this thread.
-
I've been looking around the web and a couple of places it says that when google
disavows they apply a "nofollow". If indeed this is the case, we're already "nofollowed" up the yen yang.
Do they apply a "nofollow"?
-
Back in 08 or 09 I purchased 2 link wheels, a couple of months apart, but how would that keep producing forever backlinks? They're not backlink generators. The were for anchor text links.
I got reports back for each assignment and they were all English websites
with an article post for us with our anchor textI've been aware of backlink generators for years, but didn't go there.
So to answer your question build X number of links for $$...Nope
-
Listening to Matt Cutts, I would approach this by putting together a disavow file:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=HWJUU-g5U_I#!
You can also reach out to the Google Webmaster team:
https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/spamreport?hl=en
But, I wouldn't draw their attention if some of the spam links were self inflicted.
-
Thanks for sending me the url and the links. I don't have an answer as to what is going on, but I have a couple of theories.
I looked at a few of the spammy pages linking to you and they all seem to be nofollowed comment links. They are hidden by css. And they are there along with hundreds of other sites who have anchor texted links.
Are you absolutely sure you never purchased a "build x number of links for $100" type of package? That could populate links like that.
I wondered if it was some type of a malware thing where hackers place a script on your site and then link to it several times, but your site is clean according to sucuri and I don't see any strange script. Plus, it doesn't make sense that the hacker would link to you with anchor text. I see links for a couple of anchor texted terms.
If I were you I would disavow these links. I would use the domain: operator and hopefully you can get the majority of them. I personally wouldn't file for reconsideration given that you haven't been dealt a manual penalty. If you have suffered algorithmically because of the number of anchor texted links (which would surprise me because they are nofollowed) then this will resolve itself without you filing for reconsideration. It's not Penguin because you would have seen a dramatic drop October 5.
If the drop is indeed because of the links, then over the next couple of weeks as Google disavows them you should see a rise again. I'll be interested to hear if that happens.
-
I sent PM.
Looks like Google slowly started "discovering" these in Nov and started to peak in Dec
-
According to the report, these links started slowly this past Nov.
No problems with Panda or Penguin. We dropped 2 weeks ago.
Links aren't coming from directories, they'll all websites.
The only thing I've done as far as backlinks go was back in
2007 or 8 I published some articles and a couple of press releases and
yes it did use our core term as the anchor text
No email warning from Google in WMT, but from what I understand the only time
you get one is when the site is manually reviewed by a human as to an automatic algorithm adjustment. Don't know if this is actually true or not.
-
I'm curious about these links. Can you p.m. me your url? I'd love to have a look.
-
I'm going to respectfully disagree about this being a negative SEO campaign. If someone was going to go to the trouble to negative SEO you, why would they build 10,000 nofollow links?
When you disavow a link, what Google essentially does is add a nofollow to it in their algorithm.
Unnatural links issues and Penguin issues happen to sites that have built links in order to manipulate pagerank. That's not going to happen with nofollowed links.
But hey, you did lose rankings, so perhaps I could be wrong? Did your rankings start to drop on a Penguin day (last one was Oct 5)? Did you have a manual warning of unnatural links in WMT? If not, then I really guess that this is not any sort of negative SEO campaign.
So why do you have so many anchor texted links pointing to you? Have you ever used a backlinking service? Sometimes these can keep populating links. Have you ever used an auto directory submitter?
There's no harm in using the disavow tool on these new links just to be sure, but my guess is that it won't make a huge difference.
-
Don't think that - that thought hasn't cross my mind, but the "nofollow" doesn't make sense for negative SEO, useless, if this IS the case, they didn't get what they paid for to really crush us with "follow" links.
This started this past Dec and caught up to us 2 weeks ago.
I"m amazed we're not banished with this off the wall link/domain/anchor text ratio. Maybe the "nofollow" is saving us so far.
As mentioned, my plan is to do a Google disavow at the domain level.
We got 6 New domains since yesterday, so this is going to be an ongoing task, since it started 2 1/2 months ago, I don't see it stopping anytime soon
Forgot to mention. When I go to these links I can't find us ANYWHERE. Not for our term that's listed in report nor our domain
-
I think it may be hurting you b/c even though the links aren't passing link juice they are likely still messing up your anchor text distribution. This sounds like a case of negative SEO by a competitor.
What is your plan of action?
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
-
Block Links From Spam sites
can you block links from other websites?ie: links backlinking to your site, causing a high spam score.
Link Building | | Socialdom0 -
Would it be a valid "link building' strategy to pay youtube video owners, to link to our company website in the decription of a certain video. ( For popular video's that are relevant )
I was wondering if it would it be a valid "link building' strategy to pay / work out a deal with youtube video owners, to link to our company website in the decription of a certain video they posted? ( For popular video's that are relevant to our business. ) Anyone have any thoughts on this? Thanks in advance! Steven
Link Building | | RockyMountainFlyboard0 -
External links - link to third party sites
Greetings! Actually, got an doubt on linking to external site. The thing, i have working for roof marketers site. They have covered roof products. Each of the products have a page along with major keyword. Actually, i do link from other pages[internally]. Meaning,if i see any main keywords in different page then will link that to corresponding page/product[internally].This is what i am doing to get page rank. Now, my doubt. Some of the pages are having link with main keywords which directs to the third party site those who are really producing the products. But, i remove the third party-link which has with main keywords. Since already the site/my client site having pages for that main keywords. But client really want that link. meaning the links which they have given to direct to third party[product producer] site. So what should i do at this case. Can i just past RAW link like [http://www.thirdpartysite.com] or what do i do. But my client wants that link to be in content area. Hope you would understand my long explanation and case Please help us. Thank you
Link Building | | Webworld_Norway0 -
What should be the ration of inbound link between Home page and Internal pages?
What should be the ration of inbound link between Home page and Internal pages? And also wanted to clear my doubt, suppose My website is related to Technology niche with different technologies like PHP, Java etc. Is this better idea to submit internal PHP page link in PHP related directories? Although I know that in the most of the directories have very large number of categories.
Link Building | | Perfect0070 -
Multiple Links from High Ranking Site Vs. Links from Multiple Domains - What's More Important?
I understand it is important to get links from many quality domains. Currently, I do have links from top domains (PR, Trust) and it I can get more from (high rank) pages on these same domains. Would it be better to focus on expanding my reach (find additional domains to link from) or to continue to build links from the current domains I have a connection with? What is weighted more? I realize doing both is important, but trying to figure out how to best use my time. Thanks! David
Link Building | | DWill0 -
What is the difference between external followed links and internal followed links.
I have almost 3,000 external links followed and only a tiny amount of internal followed links. My website is doing really badly on google at the mo. I am also an SEO beginner and learning new stuff every day, but am not sure exactly what the difference is! Thanks!
Link Building | | heleni0 -
There is a New link to my Site but I can see it on link report ?why ?
Hi I found out using link campaign and Open site explorer that my competitors where getting links from this page http://www.visitgreece.gr/en/activities/land_sports/golf So I conatc the admins and added our golf courses too Is the dunes and the bay course in the middle of the page But this happened 3 weeks ago and still this linking domain is not appaering in my campaign why is that any ideas ? does it take so much time to appera to SEOmoz ? Or the problem is because they are linking 2 diffrent sites ? my site is www.costanavarinogolf.com Thanks a lot in advance for your help
Link Building | | grzontan0 -
Link values
I have an interesting question, it's more to see other peoples opinions than looking for an exact answer, as I know noone can give that. If you had a good link on harvard.edu.. how many very low quality links on low DA domains that are full of junk, would you need to match the harvard link... if all other factors were equal. I'm gonna go for 500.. I've had great results with a few high DA/trust links. I'm not looking for anyone to give me a definative answer, just curious as to the views of other SEOs 😄
Link Building | | PeterM220