Google Manual Penalty - Unnatural Links FROM My Site - Where?
-
Hi Mozzers,
I've just received a manual penalty for one of my websites. The penalty is for 'unnatural links from my site which I find disturbing because I can't see that anything really wrong with it.
The website is www.lighting-tips.co.uk - its a pretty new blog (only 6-7 posts) and whilst I've allowed guest posting I'm being very careful that the content is relevant and good quality. I'm only allowing 1 - 2 links and very few with proper anchor text so I'm wondering what has been done so wrong that I'm getting this manual penalty? Am I missing something here?
Thanks in advance.
Aaron
-
Those guest blogs were mostly created for the purpose of improving another site's PageRank and manipulating the search results. Even if they're not paid links they are links that were made with the intention of gaming Google. If you remove the links or nofollow them and then file for reconsideration you'll get your penalty removed.
-
Hi Aaron,
Yup - MBG will be your downfall here. You will need to remove those posts to be considered for re-inclusion and the penalty lifted. Google has only just taken this action in the last day or two, so watch our for more analysis and blog posts / commentary on the fall-out and recovery. It has affected a huge collection of sites, including some that used MBG years ago and only for two or three posts.
Cheers,
Jane
-
Thanks Philip - As it happens it was part of myblogguest.com. I had no idea Google took it down. Looks like they really have it in for them.
The website has basically only guest blogs - I thought it'll be okay as long as the content was good and useful to real people and not too many links but obviously that's not the case.
So back to the drawing board.
Aaron
-
Curious... was your site apart of the MyBlogGuest.com network? They were recently taken down hard by Google.
Here's a recent Tweet from Matt Cutts stating that sites posting guest posts can receive manual penalties, not just sites that receive links from guest posts: https://twitter.com/mattcutts/statuses/446438659689316353
Your site does seem like pretty good quality, but the sole purpose of it appears to be for guest blogging opportunities. Someone manually reviewed it and decided it was penalty worthy... To be reconsidered you might need to either A) remove all the links or B) nofollow all the links. I'm not 100% sure if nofollowing is enough. You'll probably also want to start posting a lot more content that isn't guest blogs. You might be already doing that (I didn't look around for too long). Good luck, Aaron.
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
-
Weird Site is linking to our site and links appears to be broken
I have got a lot of weird links indexed from this page: http://kzs.uere.info/files/images/dining-table-and-2-upholstered-chairs.html When clicking the link it shows 404. Also, the spam score is huge. What do you guys suggest to do with this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Miniorek
Could it be done by somebody to get our rankings down or domain penalized? Best Regards
Mike & Alex0 -
Any idea why Google Search Console stopped showing "Internal Links" and "Links to your site"
Our default eCommerce property (https://www.pure-elegance.com) used to show several dozen External Links and several thousand Internal Links on Google Search Console. As of this Friday both those links are showing "No Data Available". I checked other related properties (https://pure-elegance.com, http:pure-elegance.com and http://www.pure-elegance.com) and all of them are showing the same. Our other statistics (like Search Analytics etc.) remain unchanged. Any idea what might have caused this and how to resolve this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SudipG0 -
Google cache is for a 3rd parties site for HTTP version and correct for HTTPS
If I search Google for my cache I get the following: cache:http://www.saucydates.com -> Returns the cache of netball.org (HTTPS page with Plesk default page) cache:https://www.saucydates.com -> Displays the correct page Prior to this my http cache was the Central Bank of Afghanistan. For most searches at present my index page is not returned and when it is, it’s the Net Ball Plesk page. This is, of course hurting my search traffic considerably. ** I have tried many things, here is the current list:** If I fetch as Google in webmaster tools the HTTPS fetch and render is correct. If I fetch the HTTP version I get a redirect (which is correct as I have a 301 HTTP to HTTPS redirect). If I turn off HTTPS on my server and remove the redirect the fetch and render for HTTP version is correct. The 301 redirect is controlled with the 301 Safe redirect option in Plesk 12.x The SSL cert is valid and with COMODO I have ensured the IP address (which is shared with a few other domains that form my sites network / functions) has a default site I have placed a site on my PTR record and ensured the HTTPS version goes back to HTTP as it doesn’t need SSL I have checked my site in Waybackwhen for 1 year and there are no hacked redirects I have checked the Netball site in Waybackwhen for 1 year, mid last year there is an odd firewall alert page. If you check the cache for the https version of the netball site you get another sites default plesk page. This happened at the same time I implemented SSL Points 6 and 7 have been done to stop the server showing a Plesk Default page as I think this could be the issue (duplicate content) ** Ideas:** Is this a 302 redirect hi-jack? Is this a Google bug? Is this an issue with duplicate content as both servers can have a default Plesk page (like millions of others!) A network of 3 sites mixed up that have plesk could be a clue? Over to the experts at MOZ, can you help? Thanks, David
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | dmcubed0 -
Google penalty was lifted when an SSL was added, only to come back. Have you seen this?
We took on a client who is under penalty (various reasons). The solution was a ground up new website with fresh content, domain, everything. This client has everything "right" in Google. Everything you would want a client to do, he's done. Great reviews, great offsite engagement, video, etc. Recently we updated his SSL and for about 1 week he came off penalty, only to come back on penalty (top three for every major term in a very competitive market back to around page three). Do you have any experience with this and if so, I'd love to hear your advice/rational of why this occurred and what it means?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mgordon0 -
How to avoid Google penalties being inherited when moving on with a new domain?
Looking for SEOs who have experience with resetting projects by migrating on to a new domain to shed either a manual or algorithmic penalty. My questions are: For algorithmic penalties, what is the best migration strategy to avoid inheriting any kind of baggage? 301, 302, establish no connection between the two sites? For manual penalties, what is the best migration strategy to avoid inheriting any kind of baggage? 301, 302, establish no connection between the two sites? Any other input on these kind of reset projects is appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | spanish_socapro0 -
Can 410 links trigger a penalty?
Hi! This is a follow on question from my other post - http://moz.com/community/q/site-dropped-after-recovery. As mentioned there, I've ad a manual penalty revoked for http://www.newyoubootcamp.com/. This came after the forum was hacked and some poor quality SEO was done. We've managed to clean a large amount of links, but ones such as http://about1.typepad.com/blog/2014/04/tweetdeck-to-launch-as-html5-web-app-now-accepting-beta-testers.html (anchor is "microsoft") are still being found and indexed. My question is that although the forum is now 410'd, can these junk links still be causing any harm? A huge amount have been disavowed, and many others taken down after a manual outreach campaign, but still others are appearing. The site is performing poorly in search despite having a much better domain authority, driven by largely great links from national newspapers, than its competitors, as well as solid user metrics such as a bounce rate of 30% and few on-site issues. This makes me think it must be the link profile. Any advice would be much appreciated. S
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Blink-SEO0 -
Big Site Wide Link
Hi Guys, I've noticed that Google is starting to de-value site-wide links... Our previous SEO agency sourced us a site wide link on a big website and at the moment within Google Webmaster Tools its showing 749,726 links from this 1 source. Do you think this is too many? Could this be being flagged by Google? Here is the site: http://tinyurl.com/7bttw3b Cheers, Scott
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ScottBaxterWW0 -
Getting a site to rank in both google.com and google.co.uk
I have a client who runs a yacht delivery company. He gets business from the US and the UK but due to the nature of his business, he isn't really based anywhere except in the middle of the ocean somewhere! His site is hosted in the US, and it's a .com. I haven't set any geographical targeting in webmaster tools either. We're starting to get some rankings in google US, but very little in google UK. It's a small site anyway, and he'd prefer not to have too much content on the site saying he's UK based as he's not really based anywhere. Any ideas on how best to approach this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PerchDigital0