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.
Links On Expired Domains
-
Does anybody know if a link on an expired domain affects your SEO?
I'm just asking because the SEO agency we used before used to create websites and then link to our company - very spammy.
We have since ditched this agecny, however they wanted an extortionate amount to remove these links. Therefore, we decided to wait until these domains expired and then the links wouldn't exist.
However, I am now completing a link audit and some of these sites are still appearing in the results (obtained from Link Research Tools) but I cannot access the links because the domains have expired.
Can anyone help?
-
If all of the domains are not expired you can use the disavow tool as well. That should be your first course in a situation like this, especially when someone is trying to extort you of bad links. If you disavow them, google does not penalize you for them and drops them out of your backlink profile.
-
Hi Brian
If the domain has expired, it should only be a matter of time before Google recrawls the page/domain and sees that the link is no longer present, therefore discounting the link from your link profile.
You could have a look and see if this has happened by typing into your address bar (if using Chrome) either:
cache:example.com
site:example.comThe first one will check to see if the URL is cached and the second one if it is indexed. If a cached version of the page no longer exists, the link has almost certainly been discounted, whereas if the domain is no longer indexed it would be safe to assume that the link will be discounted soon by Google as well.
I hope this helps - sorry to hear of your previous agency resorting to such backhanded tactics.
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
-
How to change domains in Google Analytics without losing the data
Hi there, We recently changed our domain from .COM to .NET so that all our subdomains from external pages matched. Right now in Google Console we have our new .NET website being tracked, but in GA we are still tracking .COM. It is also causing issues with MOZ crawling our site because of the .COM/.NET discrepancy. My question is what is the best way to change our Google Analytics from .COM to .NET without losing historical data and what considerations do we need to change before implementing this? Our team was concerned that just downloading the old data would be too vast and it we wouldn't be able to continue manipulating it dynamically in GA. Thanks!!
Reporting & Analytics | | cPanel-LLC.0 -
Losing referrer data on http link that redirects to an https site when on an https site. Is this typical or is something else going on here?
I am trying to resolve a referral data issue. Our client noticed that their referrals from one of their sites to another had dropped to almost nothing from being their top referrer. The referring site SiteA which is an HTTPs site, held a link to SiteB, which is also an HTTPs site, so there should be no loss, however the link to SiteB on SiteA had the HTTP protocol. When we changed the link to the HTTPs protocol, the referrals started flowing in. Is this typical? If the 301 redirect is properly in place for SiteB, why would we lose the referral data?
Reporting & Analytics | | Velir0 -
UTM Links Showing Up as Separate Pages in Google Analytics
Hey everyone, I was just looking at landing pages in Google Analytics, and in addition to just the URL of the landing page, the UTM links are being listed as separate pages. Is this normal? I anticipated seeing the landing page URL and then using the secondary dimension to see source/medium. If this isn't normal, what would I check next?
Reporting & Analytics | | rachelmeyer0 -
Difference between External Followed Links and Total External Links?
Hello, could someone please elaborate on what is meant by "External Followed Links" vs. "Total External Links"? Does "External Followed Links" mean the number of links that are generating traffic to the site? Or is there some other way to conceptualize it? Any help would be appreciated! Thank you in advance.
Reporting & Analytics | | lincolndigitalgroup1 -
Does traffic coming from Adwords increase overall Domain Authority or Page Rank?
If I'm setting up an Adwords campaign, will setting my homepage as the landing page boost my domain rank? and will the Page Rank of the landing page get boosted because of the high click rate coming from the Adwords campaign?
Reporting & Analytics | | s2bkevin0 -
Google Analytics VS target="_blank" internal links: How much wrong is it?
I am working on an e-commerce website, and our CEO is sure that having target="_blank" in internal search result is boosting the conversion (not sure, but it's not an issue at the moment). The problem is that Google Analytics sees all URLs visited from search results as entrances/direct visits, hence the Booking Funnel Tracking does not work as it was supposed to. Is there any way to recover the tracking? Or we shall get the rid of target="_blank" attribute?
Reporting & Analytics | | apartmentGin0 -
Google Analytics for multiple languages on multiple domains
Hi folks A quick question in regards to setting up Google Analytics for a website with multiple languages on multiple domains. The domains that needs to be tracked are: www.example.com -> English www.example.se -> Swedish www.example.dk -> Danish To my best knowledge this can be acheived in Google Analytids using 3 different setups: Different accounts Different properties Profiles What would you guys consider the best approach?
Reporting & Analytics | | Resultify
Pros and cons? Have a great day Fredrik0 -
Linking domains vs Inbound Links
Hello, Whats the diference between Linking domains and Inbound links in Open Site Explorer? And also with is most important to analyze? Tks in advance! Pedro Pereira
Reporting & Analytics | | PedroM18