Linking C blocks strategy - Which hat is this tactic?
-
This related to a previous question I had about satellite sites. I questioned the white-hativity of their strategy. Basically to increase the number of linking C blocks they created 100+ websites on different C blocks that link back to our main domain. The issue I see is that-
- the sites are 98% exactly the same in appearance and content. Only small paragraph is different on the homepage.
- the sites only have outbound links to our main domain, no in-bound links
Is this a legit? I am not an SEO expert, but have receive awesome advice here. So thank you in advance!
-
Thank you Robert! Let me take try your suggestions and then I will report back.
-
C3,
One of the things I would suggest is to start by having success defined utilizing KPI's, analytics, etc. Did you have an engagement with what they were to accomplish and so forth. Have a baseline of where the site was prior to the newcom coming on board. When did the changes take place (were they put into GA on the dates they occurred?)? What is the result since then? What else was done during that period? Now you have a starting point.
Next, I would suggest you get the lower cost ahrefs membership (even if only for a month) and run your site through ahrefs. You will have a near complete list of links to the site. Where are the 100 within this? How do they compare to the other links coming to the site? Also, look at the microsites and see if your site is the only one being linked to. Remember if you have your link and another, they gave half the value of the link away.
If this was the key strategy, when was it implemented and what has changed since then. Remember that data is your friend. With our clients we are careful to get a baseline, talk about the issues they are facing, delineate potential risks, etc. With these sites, run them in copyscape and see if even the unique content is unique. Did you pay for unique?
Next, I would run the site through a moz campaign and see what I see. I would look at GWMT and see if the linking sites are showing in GWMT and I would look to see how many new pages are being indexed subsequently. If someone is saying that this linking strategy is key and you have duplicate meta descriptions, Title Tags, no H1, etc. (run the site through Xenu and you will have all of that and more), I think you can find a dozen places where someone in SEO says, if you do not do the on page, etc. there is no reason to do the other.
So, the data will be your friend if you want to show whether or not this is working. Hey, if it is let us know and how and maybe we will all say, they are right, I was wrong.
Best,
Robert
-
Don't worry about any "major damage to our domain authority". Those sites/links as you described aren't helping any and in light of a potential penalty, you're better off removing them.
-
Hi Robert,
I appreciate you getting involved! According to our SEO provider this tactic is a major part of their strategy and reason for the success of the site. I asked them to disable them and then they said for sure we would see "major damage to our domain authority".
The other issue is that they actually don't spend any time on these sites. They haven't been updated or touched in 7 months. The blog posts and single "unique" paragraph per site has remained the same. In fact, blog posts are exactly the same on all sites, basically scraped. However, they bill us for these sites because they are supposedly required for our SEO success.
My challenge has been trying to question their strategy when I am not an expert and they are supposed to be. Yes, they speak as if this tactic is unicorn dust.
-
If you haven't done any link building to those sites, they are pretty much worthless. G knows about this strategy and best case scenario, ignores them. DA is irrelevant to rankings. I can show you many sites with amazing DA but shit rankings because they are penalized/crappy links.
Opportunity cost: 100 domains @ $10/yr + 100 ips @ $20/yr = $3k in yearly savings. You can easily put that money to better use.
-
Heh, heh. Does ring a bell doesn't it Robert?
I'd de-link stat before Google banishes my site and ignores my reconsideration requests.
-
C3
You have some good responses but this is another of those where it is hard to sit on the sidelines. I have to ask a few different questions with a situation like this; first, forget what they did re the C blocks. What was the desired result they were seeking? What was the plan (with rationale) to achieve that result? And, no matter the answer to any of that, what percentage of optimization/ranking do they or their client believe is related to linking?
So, do they really spend this much effort on a 20 to 30% factor? And remember, this is not effort around bringing in quality links, it is effort around linking as if that is the Holy Grail of SEO. Given the time spend, the opportunity spend, the actual cost to the client, etc. Is this 80% plus of the SEO effort? I would be surprised if it wasn't. Usually when I come across this kind of thing, the "SEO" firm doing it is doing it as some sort of silver bullet SEO. They have discovered a secret way to sprinkle unicorn dust on the algorithm, etc.
To me and in my opinion, it is not white hat, grey hat, or black hat with sequins. It is just a waste of time and energy. It is just highly inefficient. Are they saying they can do more with this strategy than say the people on this forum with an actual strategy? If you are worrying about can linking via multiple C blocks from EMD's I own for some sort of benefit to some site, I think you are looking at SEO from a very odd perspective (not you, I am using the global you as if for anyone who). Interesting approach.
Best
-
C3,
Let's see... if those sites have no inbound links, what value are they to the main domain? If they have no inbound links, how is Google going to find them? If you submit the urls to google, google will see 100 new new sites that were all registered at the same time (and maybe to the same owner), all with the same content, and all with links only to your site.
This attempt at manipulation is very easy for google to recognize and you're putting your main site in jeopardy by following this tactic.
-
Sorry, I just re-read my response. I wasn't trying to be condescending with the first line. I was actually trying to clarify who initiated the tactic. Thanks!
-
SEJunkie,
To clarify, the SEO provider did this.
But, yes, 100+ direct match urls, all on different C block ip's, but mostly the same content. Navigational links from these site link to sections of our main site. Ex. "Electronics" on satellite site links to "Electronics" on our main site.
There is a paragraph on each homepage below the fold that describes that is unique for each page, but that is the only differing piece of content. The rest of the content is exactly the same including the blog posts.
-
Hi Eric,
Just to clarify, you have purchased 100+ domain names, created 100+ near duplicate websites, using hosting on 100+ different cblock ip's? I would lean more towards the thinking that it's a little bit on the black-hat side of the fence. With no backlinks these sites are offering no Domain Authority to your site. They still however, maybe passing some rank juice. You need to be able to test the effectiveness of the links in order to decide to keep it or remove it. If you find the links are passing some value, i wouldn't remove them. I suggest developing them into something more over time. You don't need to regularly update these sites, just develop somethng decent for a content centerpiece and move on to the next, before you know it you'll have your own network.
-
Oleg,
So what's best course of action? Building strong content for each of these sites (100+) would be an enormous task, but disabling would kill the number of linking domains, which I assume would lower our DA in a hurry.
We actually didn't ask or want the sites developed because we don't have the resources to develop content for so many sites. The SEO insisted and put the sites up for "free" as part of their strategy. Yet, they haven't developed any new content for these sites in over 7 months.
Seems like it was a mistake from the beginning to do this.
Thanks,
Eric -
This used to work, now its a waste of time that will most likely get you penalized.
You are better off using those time and resources to develop a strong piece of content and link building to it from authoritative sites.
Cheers,
Oleg
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
-
Back links issue and how to resolve it
Hi there! We have a client who has been generating back links from external sites over a period of two years with all the same anchor text which all link back to the home page. This anchor text is also their main search phrase they wish to score highly on. In total, they have roughly 300 domain names linking to their site. Over 50 of these domain names all have the same anchor text. These links have been generated through articles and blogs. So roughly 20% of the total number of links all have the same anchor text. Over the past 6 months the client has noticed a steady drop in their rankings for this term. From the back link analysis we have done, we believe it is this which is causing the problem. Does any one else agree? For the remedy, do we go in and see if we can change the anchor text or disavow them through Google webmaster tools? Suggestions? Thanks for your help! P 🙂
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Globalgraphics0 -
Do the links from top websites' forums boost in-terms of backlinks?
If we get any backlinks from discussions/forums of top websites like wordpress and joomla forums; do they count as valid and authority improving backlinks? I mean about the dofollow links.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | vtmoz1 -
Internal Links to Ecommerce Category Pages
Hello, I read a while back, and I can't find it now, that you want to add internal links to your main category pages. Does that still apply? If so, for a small site (100 products) what is recommended? Thanks
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BobGW0 -
Is this negative SEO? Should I disavow these links?
We have been doing our own internal link building for the last year and getting nice backlinks. As of the last few days, ahrefs is showing a lot of new links that seem very spammy. We have not hired anyone to do link building for us, and these are all being created on these sites under the same user name. There is a good amount of them popping up, and I fear we will be subjected to a google pentalty for unnatural links if its not addressed. My first question is, am I correct thinking this is negative seo, and not some random sites that picked up our content and is going across their affiliate websites? If so, then should I preemptively disavow all these links? Are there any good ways to stop this? How can I track who is placing these garbage links? Here are some examples of these bad links. I know I can find the webmaster via a whois but I think that really wont get me anywhere, but I could be wrong. Here are some examples of the links that started popping up yesterday and today. http://pligg-cms.info/story.php?title=student-loan-debt-relief
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | DemiGR
http://www.sharklinks.info/story.php?title=-student-loan-consolidation-options
http://factson37.com/story.php?title=student-loan-debt-forgiveness-website
http://social-marker.info/story.php?title=-student-loan-debt-forgiveness
http://makingbookmarks.info/story.php?title=-student-loan-consolidation-options
http://bookmarkingforseo.com/story.php?title=top-student-loan-consolidation-options
http://jadelinks.info/story.php?title=-student-loan-consolidation-options There are quite a bit more and they don't seem to be stopping. All of them look pretty much identical to this. Thoughts?1 -
Is competitive analysis only for high level links now
Hello, Is finding backlinks through competitive analysis only for high quality links these days. It seems commonly thought that link building is dead. If the site with a link section in my industry has a DA below 35 should I leave it alone? Or what's safe and future (update) proof these days? Thanks!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BobGW0 -
What if White Hat SEO does not get results?
If company A is paying 5k a month and some of that budget is buying links or content that might be in the gray area but is ranking higher than company B that's following the "rules" and paying the same but not showing up at all, what's company B suppose to do?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | EmarketedTeam2 -
Link quality warning from GWT and drop in keyword ranking.
So last December we saw our hard work pay off as our Panda penalty was lifted and our traffic shot back up to pre-Panda levels. Then in February we received this note: We've reviewed your site and we still see links to your site that violate our quality guidelines. Specifically, look for possibly artificial or unnatural links pointing to your site that could be intended to manipulate PageRank. Examples of unnatural linking could include buying links to pass PageRank or participating in link schemes. Since December we've lost position on 80% of our top 100 keywords. I've gone through our links and can't figure out what the problem may be. Maybe I'm not using OSE properly. We don't buy links so I'm not sure what the problem is. If someone can walk me through using OSE to see what the problem may be I would appreciate it. Our domain is http://bit.ly/rbkYkp
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | IanTheScot0 -
How Do You Determine If A Link Is Quality?
What tools and signals do you use to determine if a link is quality or not? How can you tell if a link is going to hurt your ranking?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | anchorwave0