What do you when the wrong site links to you?
-
In doing research of our backlink profile, I've found a couple dozen of links from off-topic websites linking to us. You see, our domain is Voices.com and tends to scoop up links from unrelated sites that are clearly trying to link to another site such as evp-voices.com or areavoices.com or dozens of others.
What would you do? Ask the webmaster to remove them because they are completely unrelated? Or would you keep them if you believed they aren't causing any harm?
-
While I'm certainly not engaged in any form of blackhat techniques, we were severely affected by Penguin. Needless to say, we suffered a 50% drop on April 24 and have not risen back since. For that reason, yes, I do have link paranoia - good term
I'm thinking of making another post on the subject (YouMoz) because I've finally figured out what happened. I'm hoping this next update will catch my fix.
For the record, they are not spammy but rather topical sites and directories related to Ghosts or New Age stuff. Again, we have nothing to do with these topics.
Seems like the consensus is just leave them. There are about two dozen out of 2000 links I manually reviewed in a spreadsheet.
-
I have to disagree with the monetization sentiment. One presumes a business plan is based on the servicing core topics of the business. Monetizing off-topic traffic may give you some short term money but it would do nothing to serve your target audience and long term growth. EPV has nothing to do with voice overs - unless one of their actors is a ghost. Any pages on his site about EPV would only water down his messaging and confuse his audience. It would be distracting and disingenuous to try and monetize this traffic.
As to the first part, again: outcome of cost/benefit analysis (which should include opportunity cost).
-
I've noticed a lot of "link paranoia" lately. Ever since Google started to take action on sites that are seriously trying to game the SERPS webmasters are paying a lot more attention to their backlink profile.
A few unrelated links are not going to get you penalized.
Penguin and manual unnatural links penalties are not intended to granularly punish every single unrelated or anchor texted link. Rather, the idea was to punish sites that are actively engaging in webspam.
If you are not actively engaging in webspam, then there is no need to worry about your backlinks bringing you down. The one exception could be negative SEO. But, I personally believe that 99% of the people who think they are being negatively SEO'd are not. People look at their backlink profile and think AGH! There are links here that I didn't make! It must be a competitor trying to bring me down! When in reality, every site is going to attract unusual links from unusual sources.
I do believe that negative SEO is possible, but rare. In order to effectively do negative SEO you would need to bombard a site with followed links containing their desired anchor text. A few links here and there aren't going to do it. A campaign like that would be obvious. And if you are seeing a pile of anchor texted spammy links then just disavow them and that disarms the attacker.
Should you disavow or try to remove these links? I would say no. Should you write to the webmaster and say, "Hey, I think you meant to link to this other site, not me?" I suppose you could if you wanted to try to help the webmaster out. But given that those links could actually be helpful to your site, I would just leave them.
-
When I say that my site has about a million of these links that is not an exaggeration.
My rankings are great. If I decided to do something about these links I could spend tens of thousands of dollars fighting a problem that does not exist.
I'll wait until they prove to be a problem.
**If he's getting traffic from SEs on the wrong topic, the benefits of solving a few of the more authoritative back links would be worth the time. **
I'd enjoy that traffic and try to monetize it. I doubt that these links are causing any rankings that are unrelated.
-
At first glance I would not be worried about it. I tend to think those types of links won't hurt unless they're extremely excessive/abusive.. else negative SEO could really get out of hand. And you're website has some very strong relevant links pointing to it already.
-
Which would be the answer to your cost/benefit analysis.
If he's getting traffic from SEs on the wrong topic, the benefits of solving a few of the more authoritative back links would be worth the time.
-
I don't enjoy these links pointing at my site.... but I don't think that it is a good use of my time trying to chase down invisible people in another hemisphere who are probably behind the links and would not take them down if I could get in touch with them.
-
I agree but only after doing a link profile and cost/benefit analysis. Assuming away spam, if a significant number of sites are linking to him on the wrong topic, that would be something I would want to correct.
-
Every website with any amount of traffic and spider action will pick up unrelated links.
Some of them are from blackhats, some are from scrapers, some from people building some type of conglomerated site, some even from university experiments.
One of my sites has about a million of these links.
I don't worry about them. I rarely even look at my links because these are so numerous I have a hard time finding the good ones.
You have a great domain, looks like you have a fantastic website. I would not worry about this for a minute.
-
This case is a little tricky in that there are degrees of 'wrong'. I'm assuming these are not spam links but just off topic. Here you have to weigh the value of the general link equity vs potentially confusing SE's about your site's topic.
Rand just finished a Whiteboard on how important topic is becoming.
If you decide they are hurting, I suggest contacting the site to outline how the link isn't serving their visitors. Even provide a couple alternative site that would be better (ie, make it worth their time)
I would hesitate to use the disavow tool. It's supposed to be a last resort for spam links and that doesn't really apply here.
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
-
Should I disavow spammy links that are showing in Open Site Explorer but not showing in Google Webmaster Tools?
Howdy Mozzers, After carrying out a backlink audit for a client, Open Site Explorer shows a range of outrageously spammy links for guys wanting a bit of assistance in the bedroom area, and so on. Hopping over to Google Webmaster Tools, there is no reported trace of said spammy links (for either of the www/non-www versions of the site). There are also no manual webspam actions found on the www/non-www Google Webmaster Tools accounts for this website. So my question is: do I carry out a pre-emptive strike and go down the disavow process of requesting removal from the spammy sites, and then submit a disavow request to Google after allowing a suitable period of time for the junky/compromised website to (not) respond? Or do I just leave it alone? Thanks in advance for your wise words of wisdom and pearls of clarity.
Link Building | | wh-seo0 -
Ecomerce: Would 4 link sections leak too much link juice?
Hello, In my content management for our ecomerce site, I've found that there are sometimes links to sites in our industry that have "helpful links" sections. Several strong sites link directly to these resource sections. There are 4 different topics that fit this trend in our industry. Would it leak too much link juice to make 4 comprehensive link sections and place a link to them on our "Useful Articles" page? Or should I stick to one comprehensive link section? Or perhaps a small link section? Or none at all? Thanks.
Link Building | | BobGW0 -
Best On-Site Internal Linking Practices?
Hi everyone, Our company works extensively with ecommerce website, and we're beginning to wonder with all of the impending Google updates what our best bets for internal linking practices will be, in particular when it comes to menu options. We typically set up our navigation with top-level categories in the main menu, then drop downs to the sub-category level pages. Our question is, should the links in the drop-down menus be followed, and if so, should they be followed links across all pages of the website, or just on the homepage menu list, or not at all? We're trying to figure out what will pass the most internal linking power without being too much and overly "spammy," I guess. Thanks for your input!
Link Building | | MountainMedia0 -
LInk Building Ideas for Large Site
Hi, I have a very large sized website of about 5 Million Pages. Earlier i used to rank very well with many naturally occurred links, But now, i lost my rankings with numerous Google updates. My content is user generated content and it wont be pure original as my users will post the same on other forums too. I all of my pages rank on #1 page for their keywords. Can anyone suggest me good link building strategy for larger websites as each url will have different keyword, i want all of my urls to be ranked well. Waiting for your replies.
Link Building | | Vegitss0 -
Will placing links in articles on my site help my rankings?
I have a few page rank 2 articles on my site. Will placing links to other pages on my site with appropriate anchor text in the body of these articles help the other pages to rank higher for the anchor text i place in these links in the articles? Thanks in advance! Ron
Link Building | | Ron100 -
Why aren't links to my site from YouTube showing up in my link reports?
Our company is paying for a service to create hundreds of videos/month for us with links back to our primary domain. If I go to YouTube I see the videos with the links, but YouTube does not show in my link reports. Why not?
Link Building | | jtroia0 -
New PDF Guide. On My site or linked by blogs?
Hi experts, I created a new worth guide about food. Its purpose it to improve backlink by adding website's URL on PDF's footer (spider crawls that one, is it true?). I want send my guide to trusted blogs so users can download new pdf guide on the web. Is it the best way to gain popularity and let my backlinks grow? I've seen that seomoz published is guide such as html pages.
Link Building | | Greenman
Could it be the worth way for me? Thanks a bunch in advance! G.0