Link removal
-
We were hit by penguin and have been going through the process of removing bad links. Things were looking up but then wasa 20% jump in our bad links.
They all seem to be related. There are over 100 different domains that all seem to go back to mbiz. examples include
http://www.5stone.com.cn/Literature-holders-.html
http://www.building-stone.com/Display-furniture.html
http://www.china-tombstone.com/Display-exhibition-products-.html
It looks like they have automatically gathered data from google to create these pages. I would hope that the guys at Google are clever enough to be aware of these sorts of links. But if not I need to get them removed.
I have tried whois but I cant find out how to contact these guys. Has anyone got any bright ideas?
Thanks
-
You should definitely be able to ignore these as they're quite common (not specifically these websites, but these types of links). That said, if you are under penalty and can't work out which links are causing it, having cleaned up all the rest, I'd go for a disavowal. If you are 100% certain that the penalty is due to Penguin, approaching the manual webspam team isn't likely to help you at all. But getting that disavowal in before the next Penguin update (which, despite Google's updates of this week - Panda and "payday loans" - can't be far away) might help.
-
This is true Gary, but only if you're dealing with a manual penalty. The OP has a Penguin issue so no one from the webspam team is going to be reviewing their links. Still, there's no harm in making a spreadsheet in case the site were to undergo a manual review in the future. And, there's no harm in working hard to get links removed rather than just disavowing. But, in most cases the ROI just doesn't make sense. For Penguin issues I generally try to remove the links that I can easily remove and then disavow the rest.
-
Thanks for the kind words Tim.
And...thanks for pointing out that statement on my site. You're right...that post was written a while ago. In fact, it was written before the last Penguin refresh. When Penguin refreshed in October of 2013, the only sites that I saw making any kind of a recovery were ones that had done a thorough disavow. As such, I now DO recommend using it for Penguin recoveries. I've edited my post.
Submitting a disavow will definitely not flag your site for a manual review. John Mueller has mentioned this several times in webmaster central hangouts.
-
Hi Marie thanks for your response. Have been reading through your blog with interest. Re penguin you said
"I am still really cautious in my use of the disavow tool. I use it for getting manual unnatural links penalties removed. At this point though I still do not condone using the tool as a method to recover from Penguin unless you have a site with which you are willing to experiment
I realise that this was a few months ago and things move on but I'm concerned that submitting a disavow file might flag our site up for further investigation by google. Is there any evidence of this?
As i mentioned we have not had any manual penalty or unnatural links notifications
-
John Mueller at Google has said many times before that if it is not easy to find contact details don't waste your time, disavow and move on.
The web spam team want to see a good faith effort, not a miracle. Create an excel spreadsheet of all the links and mark next to each link if you were able to find contact info or a form and what action was taken. A word in each column as a reference is enough. Upload it as a google doc with your reconsideration request.
If they can see you really worked hard at going through all the links even if you have little removal success you stand a high chance of getting the manual penalty removed if you have disavowed all the bad stuff.
-
These links are popping up on pretty much every link audit that we do now. Often they are nofollowed, but it appears that yours are not. They're not ones that you made yourself and I really believe that they can be ignored. With that being said, there's no harm at all in disavowing them.
If you've got an algorithmic issue (Penguin) then contacting the site owner is nowhere near as important as when you have a manual penalty. As such, I'd just disavow and ignore.
-
Google tries to be smart enough to recognize when this sort of this is going on. They get it right the majority of the time, but I've encountered times where Google didn't recognize some sites as scrapers like this, and our client's site was still incurring a penalty. I know for a fact that is was scraper sites like this, because Google told me as much when they responded to my first reconsideration request.
Short version: Probably won't hurt you, but it is possible. I would disavow this stuff to be safe.
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
-
Link Building where link building is dead. Latest tactics in a land of content.
Hello, What is your latest link building techniques considering manual link building is basically dead, and you should really build good content to drive results. Link building has really become less important. It seems to be much more 10X content now. What would you recommend for basic link building considering this besides the 50 first Links video by Rand, which is excellent. Thanks, Bob
Link Building | | BobGW0 -
Link from a directory
Hi, im submitting a clients website to some directories. They are a dental practice and I'm adding them to this website http://goo.gl/Tvyabd Once i added the business to its directory it asked me to add a link (in so many words) back to its website from my clients website. Is this ok to do or is it seen as spam? Im confused about this as sometimes directories are free and sometimes they ask for a fee for it to be fast tracked to put it on the website. I always check the Domain authority of the websites and make sure they are relevant to the industry that I'm working in but again not sure if this would be seen as "paying" for links. Thanks Ade
Link Building | | popcreativeltd0 -
Link Campaign
I need to put together a link campaign, but am a new SEO in training. Any recommendations on how to start, even if it's just read certain articles or watch certain videos? Your help is appreciated!
Link Building | | cbeuoy0 -
Links in the Classifieds
We rent apartments. One way we use to find clients is to advertize these apartments in Classifieds. Generally, we use free ads. Sometimes, for very popular sites ( like Kijiji), we pay so our ads can be seen first. Could this be a problem with Google? Some sites send us clients, many of them never do. We keep putting ads there because of their PR. What is the worth of this kind of links? Thanks for your answers.
Link Building | | Caru0 -
Link building
Hello all ! I would love some opinions about one Link Building technical aspect from SEOs, link builders ... How important is the number of outgoing links on the page you have the opportunity to place a link ? (from a scale of 1-10 / what about where dose this factor fits overall with your check list , as important to consider as far as link building) Would you place a link on a page with 200+ outgoing external links if the page is ok (not involved in selling links, all links are related with the subject, target page, anchor text etc) or you would go with a link on a 10-15 links per page but not that 'powerful' and not that related (not spammy but more general on the subject that can contain links to some other non related resources). Eg: Option 1: www.whatever-name.com/links.html the entire domain is about x. It has 250 links in that page (in the links.html) all links on the links.html pages are somehow related / resources with x. Your link can be placed with an anchor text related with x that will target a page on your site related with x. Domain page rank : 6 (as a general indicator), Page PR, the links.html one, PR: 2 Option 2: www.some-other-name.com/x-is-so-great the entire domain is NOT about x, just the page. It has 5..10 links in that page (external links more or less related with x - but not spammy) Your link can be placed with an anchor text related with x that will target a page on your site related with x. Domain page rank : 3 (as a general indicator), Page PR, the links.html one, PR: 1 What's your best option ? Thanks !
Link Building | | eyepaq1 -
What are the new ways of Link Building which will get quality links?
Hi We are doing following kinds of Link Building: 1. Article marketing 2. Directory Submission 3. Guest Blogging 4. Press Release submission 5. Infographics (Viral Marketing) I know blog commenting and links from discussion forums are considered as greyhat / blackhat by google. So I want suggestions on some other ethical(Whitehat SEO) ways of Link Building to get quality Links. Also suggest me some Free article submission sites which give " dofollow-links" Thank You
Link Building | | Virrtuo0 -
How do i remove bad links ?
Google have sent me an email regarding manipulativre link or paid link etc. Tey are asking me to fix the issue then resubmit my site for consideration. My site IS still in the search results but i suspect that they may remove it soon. I suspect that a competitor may have a contact in google andthey are submitting complaints against my business but we do have many link to my site . How am i going to know exactly what link are the problem.
Link Building | | SydneyMove0 -
Link Churn - where have all my links gone?
I am sure most of you have asked yourself the question I'm asking right now.. Where have all my links gone? I am starting to get twitchy now. I would estimate we have lost around 60% of our links in the past 3 weeks. Does anyone have any comeback stories? Feel like I am back to the start again. I have made a number of changes on the site not least removing a reciprical link page.. that had over 200 links on it but from reading one of Rand's tweets is it true that linking out could be good again?
Link Building | | robertrRSwalters0