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.
Suspicious external links to site have 302 redirects
-
Hi,
I have been asked to look at a site where I suspect some questionable SEO work, particularly link building. The site does seem to be performing very poorly in Google since January 2014, although there are no messages in WMT.
Using WMT, OPenSiteExplorer, Majestic & NetPeak, I have analysed inbound links and found a group of links which although are listed in WMT, etc appear to 302 redirect to a directory in China (therefore the actual linking domain is not visible). It looks like a crude type of link farm, but I cant understand why they would use 302s not 301s.
The domains are not visible due to redirects. Should I request a disavow or ignore?
The linking domains are listed below:
http://www.basalts.cn/
http://www.chinamarbles.com.cn/
http://www.china-slate.com.cn/
http://www.granitecountertop.com.cn/
http://www.granite-exporter.com/
http://www.sandstones.biz/
http://www.stone-2.com/
http://www.stonebuild.cn/
http://www.stonecompany.com.cn/
http://www.stonecontact.cn/
http://www.stonecrate.com/
http://www.stonedesk.com/
http://www.stonedvd.com/
http://www.stonepark.cn/
http://www.stonetool.com.cn/
http://www.stonewebsite.com/Thanks
Steve
-
Linda,
OK, thanks. Grateful to have another opinion on it. It seems like this site has suffered, but the rest of links look reasonable. However, the previous SEO done appears to have been link building with complete absence of keyword research and subsequent optimisation of pages, posts, etc.
Regards,
Steve
-
As strict as Google can be, I have never heard of them penalizing anyone for something bad they used to do (but didn't get caught at) and have now stopped doing. I think they reserve their penalties for current bad actions. [Which is not to say you were doing something bad--we are talking about your wanting to be sure that it doesn't appear to Google that you tried something bad.]
In general, I think it's best not to disavow unless it is an extreme situation. As Google itself says: "In most cases, Google can assess which links to trust without additional guidance, so most normal or typical sites will not need to use this tool."
-
Linda,
Thanks. It appears that the domains are all owned by the same / person entity and could it be that there is any legacy effect of having these links prior to 302?
Regards
Steve
-
Since the links are using 302 redirects they are not passing any link juice, so I can't imagine that you'd be penalized for them.
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 many links can you have on sitemap.html
we have a lot of pages that we want to create crawlable paths to. How many links are able to be crawled on 1 page for sitemap.html
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | imjonny0 -
The use of a ghost site for SEO purposes
Hi Guys, Have just taken on a new client (.co.uk domain) and during our research have identified they also have a .com domain which is a replica of the existing site but all links lead to the .co.uk domain. As a result of this, the .com replica is pushing 5,000,000+ links to the .co.uk site. After speaking to the client, it appears they were approached by a company who said that they could get the .com site ranking for local search queries and then push all that traffic to .co.uk. From analytics we can see that very little referrer traffic is coming from the .com. It sounds remarkably dodgy to us - surely the duplicate site is an issue anyway for obvious reasons, these links could also be deemed as being created for SEO gain? Does anyone have any experience of this as a tactic? Thanks, Dan
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | SEOBirmingham810 -
Do I lose link juice if I have a https site and someone links to me using http instead?
We have recently launched a https site which is getting some organic links some of which are using https and some are using http. Am I losing link juice on the ones linked using http even though I am redirecting or does Google view them the same way? As most people still use http naturally will it look strange to google if I contact anyone who has given us a link and ask them to change to https?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Lisa-Devins0 -
How would you optimize a new site?
Hi guys, im here to ask based on your personal opinion. We know in order to rank in SEO for a site is to make authority contents that interest people. But what would you do to increase your ranking of your site or maybe a blog post? leaving your link on blogs comment seem dangerous, nowadays. Is social media the only way to go? Trying to get people to write about you? what else can be done?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | andzon0 -
Tags on WordPress Sites, Good or bad?
My main concern is about the entire tags strategy. The whole concept has really been first seen by myself on WordPress which seems to be bringing positive results to these sites and now there are even plugins that auto generate tags. Can someone detail more about the pros and cons of tags? I was under the impression that google does not want 1000's of pages auto generated just because of a simple tag keyword, and then show relevant content to that specific tag. Usually these are just like search results pages... how are tag pages beneficial? Is there something going on behind the scenes with wordpress tags that actually bring benefits to these wp blogs? Setting a custom coded tag feature on a custom site just seems to create numerous spammy pages. I understand these pages may be good from a user perspective, but what about from an SEO perspective and getting indexed and driving traffic... Indexed and driving traffic is my main concern here, so as a recap I'd like to understand the pros and cons about tags on wp vs custom coded sites, and the correct way to set these up for SEO purposes.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | WebServiceConsulting.com1 -
Pages linked with Spam been 301 redirected to 404\. Is it ok
Pl suggest, some pages having some spam links pointed to those pages are been redirected to 404 error page (through 301 redirect) - as removing them manually was not possible due to part of core component of cms and many other coding issue, the only way as advised by developer was making 301 redirect to 404 page. Does by redirecting these pages to 404 page using 301 redirect, will nullify all negative or spam links pointing to them and eventually will remove the resulting spam impact on the site too. Many Thanks
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Modi0 -
Link Building using Badges
In light of penguin update, is link building using badges(like "I love SEOMOZ" badge) still considered a white hat tactic? I have read old posts on SEOMOZ blog about this topic and wondering if this method is still effective. Look forward to feedback from MOZers.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Amjath0 -
Partners and Customers logo listing and links
We have just created a program where we list the customers that use our software and a link to their websites on a new "Customers" page. We expect to have upwards of 100 logos with links back to their sites. I want to be sure this isn't bordering on gray or black hat link building. I think it is okay since they are actual users of our software. But there is still that slight doubt. Along these same lines, would you recommend adding a nofollow or noindex tag? Thanks for your help.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | PerriCline0