Thousands of Links from mrwhatis.net
-
Google WMT shows that there are thousands of links pointing to the pages of my website from mrwhatis.net. Among the links, hundreds of them have the same anchor text. Here are some examples.
http://mrwhatis.net/a-canon-in-music-for-kid.html
http://mrwhatis.net/canon-chords-piano-in-c.html
http://mrwhatis.net/canon-d-major-piano-chord.html
http://mrwhatis.net/canon-d-major-piano-mp3-free-downloa.html
http://mrwhatis.net/canon-d-major-piano-sheet-fre.htmland more....
The links pointing to my site on the above pages share the same link title "Canon In D Sheet Music | Canon In D Music Score".
My question is - are these links considered unnatural links by Google based on your experience? Why and why not? I want to get some ideas before I ask Google to disavow these links.
Thanks.
John
-
I ignore these links when I'm doing a backlink audit. If you've got a penalty, I would look elsewhere for culprits. There's no harm in disavowing mrwhatis, but my guess is that Google knows that these are not self made links and just ignores them too.
-
Hi John,
In the case where you did receive a warning, feel free to aggressively try to remove the links and / or make a disavowal submission. For generic warnings, I don't believe example links are given - I have seen example links provided in follow-up emails to the webspam team though.
If the rest of your profile is, to your knowledge, clean then I would start with these links. It's disappointing on Google's part because they used to be quite adept at ignoring links like this that should be discounted - their spam trigger finger is a lot itchier now than in days past and a lot of legitimate sites are getting caught in the mix.
-
Hi Jane,
We did receive a warning from Google. Here is the message.
"Unnatural links to your site—impacts links
Google has detected a pattern of unnatural artificial, deceptive, or manipulative links pointing to pages on this site. Some links may be outside of the webmaster’s control, so for this incident we are taking targeted action on the unnatural links instead of on the site’s ranking as a whole."
Matt Cutts said that some bad link examples will be provided along with the warning. But I could not find the examples. Where can I find the examples in WMT? It makes it much harder to figure out which links should be removed or disavowed without the example links.
Thank you very much for your reply and information. They are very helpful.
John
-
Hi John,
This looks like a aggregation website that links to a wide range of relevant sites, including Yahoo, Merriam-Webster, YouTube, etc. Unless you are receiving unnatural link warnings in Webmaster Tools, I would definitely not do anything like disavowal submissions (you should never do this until you have received a warning / penalty or are sure that you are a victim of an attack anyway), as is documented here:
http://moz.com/blog/googles-disavow-tool-take-a-deep-breath
http://searchengineland.com/matt-cutts-qa-how-to-use-google-link-disavow-tool-137664
A year or so ago, I had a client decide of their own accord that they were going to disavow "one link, to test impact". This is most certainly not what the tool is meant for - definitely save it for a last-resort when you are in trouble, not just because there are some directory links or similar out there
I would not be concerned about these unless you see a big drop in rankings or receive warnings, at which point the idea is to clean up every link that you don't consider high quality. Until then, Alan is correct - many many sites have this sort of site linking to them and Google understands that they have not been built for malicious purposes. When Google messes up and decides that these _are _malicious, disavowal is at your disposal.
If they still bother you because they take up a large portion of your backlink profile or you suspect ranking issues, try contacting the site to have your links removed before using disavowal. Not only does it make any future submissions or reconsideration requests more likely to succeed, but it can mean you take the care of the issue without having to involve the Webspam team at Google at all.
Cheers,
Jane
-
We all have them, no don't worry, google would have ignored them long ago.
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
-
GWT app and link emulation
Hi, I have a gwt site - https://www.whatiswhere.com. I have tab control which emulates the menu. I am planning to put <a>links instead of text into tab labels to create internal links. I am thinking to add java script to stop onclick event of</a> <a>otherwise i will get to the new session of GWT site. What I want is to just change the tab but at the same time have a link for the crawler. Would my approach work? Will it be equivalent to non-follow link? Will it improve the ranking comparing to 'no link at all' case?</a> <a>Thanks, Andrei.</a>
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Anazar_20010 -
Internal Links - Different URLs
Hey so, In my product page, I have recommended products at the bottom. The issue is that those recommended products have long parameters such as sitename.com/product-xy-z/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.co&srcType=dp_recs The reason why it has that long parameter is due to tracking purposes (internally with the dev and UX team). My question is, should I replace it with the clean URL or as long as it has the canonical tag, it should be okay to have such a long parameter? I would think clean URL would help with internal links and what not...but if it already has a canonical tag would it help? Another issue is that the URL is different and not just the parameter. For instance..the canonical URL is sitename.com/productname-xyz/ and so the internal link used on the product page (same exact page just different URL with parameter) sitename.com/xyz/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.co&srcType=dp_recs (missing product name), BUT still has the canonical tag!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ggpaul5620 -
Link Audit - Sponsor/Partners Images Links
Hi everyone, 1. I'm conducting a link audit and read that if you are a sponsor or partner of a company, links should be nofollowed. I always no follow them if they are money keywords, but branded I leave alone. is that a good strategy? Or do i nofollow my brand name as well? 2. What if I'm a sponsor and have my company logo on their website that links to my website? How would i know if that link should be nofollowed? a. Does it depend on the "alt" of the image? b. Does it depend on the landing page of the link of the image? c. Do i just no follow image links from sponsor pages and partner pages as a whole? Please keep in mind that I'm sponsoring websites that are relevant to my niche. PLEASE HELP!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Shawn1240 -
Multiple Internal links to same destinations
My company is redoing our homepage and there will be 4 links to our main play pages (5 games). 2 in the menu and 2 within the content. I was thinking I should no follow one of the links on the homepage + 1 in the menu so that we don't have link dilution from having multiple internal links to the same destination within 1 page. Does this make sense? Any downside of this or suggestions of a solution that may be more effective? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | theLotter0 -
Ecommerce Internal Linking Questions
I am a bit confused at internal linking for ecommerce site. Is it wise to link say all "boots" term in the review section to the boots page? Zappos is doing this. Wouldn't this incur penguin penalty? Since all internal anchor to that page is "boots" ? Scroll down to the bottom and checkout their reviews: http://www.zappos.com/tony-lama-6071l Is this the wise way to go about doing internal linking? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WayneRooney0 -
Penguin Apply To Internal Linking?
Is Penguin focused primarily on backlinks or does it also assess internal linking/anchor text? We've lost about 3,000 visitors a month since the rolling updates were implemented. I'm always careful not to over-react to algo updates but enough time has passed that I think the dust has settled. I try to stay white in all I do but I think if I've over-done anything its the internal linking related products/categories with exact match. My backlink profile also has an over-abundance of affiliate links but that's kind of out of my hands isn't it?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AWCthreads0 -
What is value in a back-link from article with multiple links pointing to various other sites?
In a standard article with 400-500 words my site got a back-link. However, within the article there are 4 other links pointing to other external content as well (so total 5 links within articles all pointing to external sites, and 1 of the links is to my site). All links are to relevant external content that is. Question: wouldn't it be much more valuable for my site if only my site got a back-link from the article, as less link juice is now passed to my site, since there are 4 other links pointing to various sites from this same article? Or, is the case that given the other links are pointing to quality material it actually makes the link to my site look more credible and at the end of the day have more value. Conclusion: is it that on one hand less links in same article is better from a link juice perspective, however, from a credibility perspective it looks more convincing there are other links pointing to quality content?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | knielsen0 -
Internal followed links query
hi guys, im hoping to get some help with a a question i have about internal followed links. I analysed my site (selling adult toys) on open explorer today against some of my competitors. what i found my internal followed links and total internal links are extremely low compared to the other sites. here was my stats internal follwed links: 177 total internal links: 178 i have over 2000 pages on my website. which i believed to of had a good internal link structure. when compared to my competitors theres was in the thousands. i have looked to see if i could spot any 'no follow' tags but nothing. my site is christiarasextoys.co.uk if anyone can help me out here id really appreciate it
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | skyenicole0