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
-
Consolidating small sites into one big site
Hi I have several small review sites in multiple categories and want to consolidate them into a single review site(aged domain I just bought) I'd redirect the old sites to the new one. If I just copied all the old articles onto the new website with solid DA, would this work or would Google think Im trying to start a PBN? Thanks! Eddie
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | calentador20190 -
How to remove this type of external link from Google
Hello, My website has been hacked few days Before, But after resolved it It is generating bad links, So i am Dis-vowing it , But as it is generating links like this,
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | innovativekrishna1
http://domain.com/a></p><h1>DIXCEL HS-typeスリットディ
i am Not able to disavow it As it generating Spacing between. So my question is : Is there any Way to remove this Type of link from google???
If any body know Please Let me know, I need Do remove this As soon as possible,
please Help, Thank you0 -
Link Building / Link Removal
Hey, I'm in the process of learning SEO, or attempting to, for my company and am chipping away at the process ever so slowly! How can I tell if a site that links to my company's site, www.1099pro.com, has a negative effect on my page/domain authority? Also, if a page doesn't show up in the search rankings at all for it's keywords when it really should (i.e it has the exact keywords and page/domain authority far surpasses even the top results) how can I tell if Google has removed the page from its listing and why? Thanks SEO Gurus
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Stew2220 -
Duplicate content or not? If you're using abstracts from external sources you link to
I was wondering if a page (a blog post, for example) that offers links to external web pages along with abstracts from these pages would be considered duplicate content page and therefore penalized by Google. For example, I have a page that has very little original content (just two or three sentences that summarize or sometimes frame the topic) followed by five references to different external sources. Each reference contains a title, which is a link, and a short abstract, which basically is the first few sentences copied from the page it links to. So, except from a few sentences in the beginning everything is copied from other pages. Such a page would be very helpful for people interested in the topic as the sources it links to had been analyzed before, handpicked and were placed there to enhance user experience. But will this format be considered duplicate or near-duplicate content?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | romanbond0 -
Site dropped suddenly. Is it due to htaccess?
I had a new site that was ranking on the first page for 5 keywords. My site was hacked recently and I went through a lot of trouble to restore it. Last night, I discovered that my site was nowhere to be found but when i searched site: mysite.com, it was still ranking which means it was not penalized. I discovered the issue to be a .htaccess and it have been resolved. My question is now that the .htaccess issue is resolved , will my site be restored back to the first page? Is there additional things that i should do? I have notified google by submitting my site
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | semoney0 -
Link Farms and The Relationship between 2 domain with a 301 Redirect
I have an interesting scenario: Domain A was worked on by a disreputable SEO company off shore. The owner of Domain A came to me for my assistance and evaluation on how the off shore company was doing. I concluded that he should terminate the relationship immediately. One of the bad things they did was register Domain A with a LOT of link farms. I started working on a new site that eventually we decided to go with Domain B (a better, but totally related domain name to Domain A). I added a nice new site and had my client write clean, relevant information for it. We've done all legitimate, above ground by-google's-recommendation SEO for Domain B. I have a series of 301 redirects from Domain A to Domain B. Since April 24th, organic search results have plummeted. I see many incoming links via Webmaster Tools as the massive link farms, but those link farms have Domain A in their databases, not Domain B. My question: is Domain B inheriting the link juice from Domain A insofar as the incoming links are showing up in Webmaster Tools as directly related to Domain A? Should I sever the ties with Domain A altogether? Thanks.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | KateZDCA1 -
Does your website get downgraded if you link to a lower quality site?
My site has a pr of 4. My friends site has a pr of 2 but I think that he is doing some black hat seo techniques. I wanted to know whether the search engines would ding me for linking to (i.e., validating) a lower quality site.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | jamesjd70 -
The Link in Profile Page is it good BackLink or not?
Well, i see that we need 200mozpoints to be able to put our Website Link (DOFOLLOW) into our profile in SEOMOZ.. the way i know it, it would be a good BackLink for my site. Here is the questions, please do answer from top to bottom, because if you have answered "NOT GOOD" for the first question, then the rest of the question will definitely be "NOT GOOD" too Every single back link source i used below (for question #2 and #3), comes from a good domain (it is an extremely wellknown website in Indonesia) 1. Is the DOFOLLOW link from my SEOMOZ Profile Page , a good back link? 2. is the DOFOLLOW from http://www.indonesiaindonesia.com/m4g1c14n a good back link 3. is the DOFOLLOW from http://www.kaskus.us/member.php?u=10407 (click the Contact Info), a good back link? okay, only if you answered the first 3 questions with "It is a good backlink, and it will definitely help your SEO Standing for your site", then i ask you my real question.. i was planning to use the service from http://www.monsterbacklinks.com , and i asked them to show me what kind of "High Quality Backlink" they will be giving me, here is their reply, 10 examples of profile they use to backlink to one of their client Domain PR 4--http://www.sanramon.org/user/12548
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | IKT
Domain PR 5--http://extratasty.com/profile/42069/paulc4312
Domain PR 5--http://www.bug.co.uk/forums/members/paulc4312.html
Domain PR 5--http://www.offspring.com/forums/member.php?u=84973
Domain PR 5--http://www.massify.com/profiles/paulcpaul
Domain PR 6--http://www.gamezone.com/member/159751/
Domain PR
5--http://www.indyarocks.com/profile/profile_vview_main.php?uid=6155724
Domain PR 6--http://classic.mapmywalk.com/user_profile?u=866130762956343886
Domain PR 5--http://www.netbookreviews.com/forum/members/paulc4312.html
Domain PR 5--http://www.thepoint.com/users/paul-c-2/profile
Domain PR 5--http://forums.cagepotato.com/members/paulc4312.html In my eyes, all of those links are as good as the one link coming from SEOMOZ Profile, hell in fact i have already purchased from them the 750 High Quality BackLink package (cost 197$), but my PayPal is being lock down just now, because i login to my account from both my cellphone and pc (they think my account is hacked)... so will i increase my SEO Standing if i used their service? if they are, i will finalized my purchase tomorrow (after i settled the problem with paypal) Their FAQ Page is also very convincing .. such these 2 questions Will I get penalized for paying you to do my backlinks? There is no way you will get penalized for paying us to do your backlinks. It is possible to get penalized for paying people to put links on their sites but that's not what you're buying from us. When purchasing from us you are paying us to place thousands of free backlinks. There is absolutely no way Google can penalize you for this. Will Google ban/sandbox me for getting so many backlinks? We have never had any problems with getting sanboxed or banned by google. None of our customers have had any problems either. If our methods of placing backlinks were to get a site penalized or banned then we would be sending thousands of links towards our competitors sites. But since our methods work great for increasing search engine rankings, we would never use our backlinking on our competitors because that will damage our rankings and boost theirs. Please enlighten me 🙂0