Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Drop in Rankings After Removing Links
-
So I removed some links to a particular homepage for one of the sites we own, this page had A LOT of links pointing to it using exact match anchors. And for the most part the links were coming from low quality pages/content. After removing a good chunk of them I noticed are rankings went down from around 8-9th two weeks ago to 21 as of today. Has anyone else had a problem like this before?
I'm thinking about restoring some of these links now to see if I can recover some of that. Any thoughts on doing this?
Thanks
-
Update on this issue........
I ended up restoring a few of the links I removed but none of the truly crappy ones. It seems though I was just needing to be a little patient. This latest algo update shot be back up to 8th after I had dropped to 30th (after removing a ton of links). So it seems those links were still passing pagerank even though they were total garbage and didn't offer any value whatsoever. I think this is evidence that Google's quality standard when it comes to links definitely went up. Which I guess goes without saying but it's good to have proof. I also hadn't done anything else to the site for the last couple months other than remove those links so there shouldn't have been any other variables at play.
-
I see, Anthony provides some good insights below.
Removing inbound links from other domains thus effects your overall inbound links which then can have an impact on your natural ranking. Restoring them will probably fix the immediate issue. BUT! There is a fine line here that should be discussed.
You don't want to become a victim of link manipulation this can be done by buying a crap ton of domains making some generic content and point them back to one another or just one, creating an internal link ring or link funnel. This will eventually get you penalized. Now, owing a handful of sites and pointing them to one another is perfectly acceptable. An example being Pepsico pointing to Pepsi, Mt. Dew, Taco Bell, Quaker Oats, Tropicana ect.. these are all companies they own. In fact our company owns 3 branded websites, but we were careful only pointing to relevant pages when it suits the user's experience. You may have been benefiting from a form of this, which is why your rank dropped whence you removed the links.
Hope that makes sense.
Don
-
I've done this to several of our other sites and haven't seen a ranking increase or decrease. They have all continued to have roughly the same amount of organic traffic. So I'm assuming these links were really doing nothing from an SEO standpoint and probably a ticking time bomb ready to go off when the next major algo update rolls out.
I may have just gotten a little overzealous when removing them on this particular site. It was for a pretty significant keyword so I'm tempted to maybe restore at least some of them and see what it does.
-
I meant links to the homepage of a site from other sites that we happen to own.
-
Removing backlinks, especially ones with money anchor text, will most definitely cause your rankings to decrease. I can only assume you did this because you viewed the links as spammy or something that could eventually cause you future ranking problems at an algorithmic or manual level. If that is the case, you probably made the right decision if you are hoping this site will rank for the long-term.
Instead of restoring those links, try to find a way to create a few new ones that you feel are safe for the long-term.
-
Rankings are dynamic. Moving 1-3 spots from day to day or even hour to hour is actually common and not really concerning. Now dropping from page 1 (rank 8), to page 3 (rank 21) would be something I would certainly want to to watch.
When you said you removed the links to your homepage from lower ranking pages.. my first question is why? Were they redundant links? Ie you can click a banner or home page button instead? If not, then you are creating orphan pages which from a useability standpoint is not good. A user should always be able to get to your homepage or any main topic pages very easily and apparent. Just look at this forum, even in edit post mode I can still get to Moz.com homepage in 1 click.
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
-
Disavowing Links
I need some advice... I've noticed our link profile has increased with many comments links --- something I certainly have not pursued manually. I'm new to disavowing links. However, before I go ahead and disavow them, I'd like to ask how harmful these links are and would you recommend this is something I can do myself (relatively novice SEO) or if you'd recommend someone who could do this for a reasonable cost. In one instance, the link from this comment thread is with the anchor text, "porn"... Certainly not something we want to rank for, haha! I look forward to your advice
Link Building | | LukeBTDT0 -
Rankings Dropped After New Backlinks.
I have a low-traffic website (under 100 unique visitors per day) and I've encountered a strange issue started yesterday morning. I acquired three back-links, one of these back-links is contextual and the other two are site-wide. The site-wide back-links are from PA 40+ blogs. It looks like the back-links are already indexed by Google. Despite these new back-links, my rankings across multiple keywords have dropped several positions. I'm new to SEO, but I would assume new back-links would improve my rankings. None of these back-links are low quality links, they are from real established blogs with high domain and page authority values. Could anyone give me insights into why my rankings may have dropped with new back-links?
Link Building | | poke11 -
Asking a site to remove a "nofollow" on a link to our client
Hello, We created a good infographic for a client of ours and a large tech site (DA 86) picked up and ran a story on it. We didn't contact this company asking them to feature it, they have just picked it up through other shares around the Web. I understand that, at the end of the day, it's their prerogative whether to "nofollow" their links or not, but surely they should be giving our client some credit as they have clearly deemed the graphic newsworthy and felt that it would appeal to their readership. I've emailed said tech site, but to no avail. Does anyone have any advice on this? Or is it just a case of they can do what the heck they want? I know that our client will still benefit from the additional referral traffic, but a follow link would have been nicer! Cheers, Lewis
Link Building | | PeaSoupDigital1 -
What is the best way to remove a link that redirects to a spammy site?
I've got a new client and I'm trying to clean up their backlinks. There are several links that all redirect to this spam site http://www.expert-lender.com. All of the websites appear to be real, i.e. http://www.sammorganhomes.com/ but the actual links i.e http://www.sammorganhomes.com/wp-fav/backup/supplement/semitruckleasing.html are in a sub-directory and redirect to the spam site. I don't know if these links were from the previous SEO company or if they paid someone to create these or if these sites have been hacked. Can anyone tell me what is going on here and what should I tell these site owners?
Link Building | | Total-Design-Shop0 -
Toxic Link Removal-Better to Pay an SEO Firm or Can I Do It Myself?
Hi Jen: Recently an SEO audit from a reputable SEO firm identified almost 50% of the incoming links to my site as toxic, 40% suspicious and 5% of good quality. They are of the opinion that it is imperative to remove the toxic domains. The fee for toxic link removal is about $3,000.I would prefer to save the $3,000 but would prefer not to take the risk of screwing up my ranking if this is a complex procedure best left to SEO professionals. My assumption is that link removal will involve identifying the toxic domains, requesting removal and eventually submitting a Google disavow request. Can I do this myself or is there a big risk of screwing it up? Assuming it is safe for me to remove toxic links, would anyone suggest software of tools for doing so? Thanks so much.
Link Building | | Kingalan1
Alan0 -
Reciprocal links
Are they worth anything, if they are from relevant sites? I'm I better off avoiding linking back wherever possible?
Link Building | | littlesthobo0 -
Remove links or change anchor text?
I am currently in the process of cleaning up the link profile for a website that has been hit by Penguin thanks to loads of links from free directories with exact match keyword anchor texts (about 200 root domains from total of 300 root domains). I was wondering whether it's best to remove these un-natrual keyword anchor text links altogether, or change the anchor texts to brand (domain name, domainname.com, www.domainname.com, http://www.domainname.com)? I am currently trying to remove these links but was thinking it would be quicker to get to a healthier link profile (in terms of brand/commercial anchor text split) by altering the anchor texts and not removing them. Some of these directories are the worst of the worst on the other hand. Also note that I'm only really getting about a 30% response rate from the owners of these directories. Any thoughts? Many thanks in advance.
Link Building | | ec9awp0 -
How to remove backlinks?
Hey guys, With all this anti over optimization movement going around with Google, I decided to do a link building profile audit. I see some pages with PR 0 and some pages that expired. My websites are not penalized at this moment, however I do want to avoid this at all costs. What can I do? Could a backlink from an expired domain penalize my site?
Link Building | | nrv0