Link Relevance vs Link Authority ?

[Tiberiu]

Hi guys,

I have a quick question regarding some low quality links my site is getting. From the information in Open Site Explorer, the website Im talking about has a page authority of 16 while the domain authority is 11\. These are very low quality scores in my oppinion and Im thinking of removing them with Google Disavow Tool. The thing is that, although the domain is low quality, the links have relevance as they're in the same business sector as us. More exactly, the name of the domain is taxisavona and the company I work for is also a taxi company.

So, now I`m thinking, should I disavow the link because of it's low scores or should I leave it because it is relevant to our business ?

Thank you in advance!

Best regards,

Tiberiu Iavorenciuc

[Tiberiu]

Hey everyone,

Thank you for your answers. They've been really helpful.

Best regards,

Tiberiu

[NHA_DistanceLearning]

Hi Tiberiu,

As far as I can tell, a web site that has a low page / domain authority doesn't necessarily have to be an 'untrusted' web site. If a web site has great content, but the domain name has only recently been registered and it doesn't have a lot of links pointing to it yet, its authority on page and domain levels will be (relatively) low.

I'd review each of these sites individually and see which ones could (potentially) harm your own site's authority. You could do so by judging the way content is being presented (is it in between a lot of ads or being presented in a clean, well-structured manner), if there is interaction with the target audience of the web site, checking for 'underwater' optimized pages, etc.

So your situation might not be so bad after all. Relevant and trusted links can come from all sorts of web sites - no matter big or small.

[Chris.Menke]

When you're talking about a link of such low quality, relevance is going to be a moot point--there's just little to no value to be gained from the link.  Sometimes, low quality pages/sites grow into higher quality site/pages and such links build value.  Before deciding to disavow them look over the site and get a feel for what it's potential may be--if they're linking out indiscriminately and their back link profile is a mess a link from the site is likely to never be of value.

[AndrewAtMGXCopy]

Hey Tiberiu -

If it's a few links, I doubt that this will negatively impact your site. I would keep them there. From what I'm gathering, the Disavow tool should not be used lightly. Check out this article from Search Engine Land.

I would leave them there unless Google Webmaster specifically said that Google noticed that you're engaging in questionable link behavior. Otherwise, they'll just assume random people are linking to you.

--Andrew