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.
Removing poor domain authority backlinks worth it?
-
Hey Moz,
I am working with a client on more advanced SEO tactics. This client has a reputable domain authority of 67 and 50,000+ backlinks.
We're wanting to continue SEO efforts and stay on top of any bad backlinks that may arise.
Would it be worth asking websites (below 20 domain authority) to remove our links? Then, use the disavow tool if they do not respond.
Is this a common SEO practice for continued advanced efforts? Also, what would your domain authority benchmark be? I used 20 just as an example.
Thanks so much for your help.
Cole
-
Awesome responses guys. Anyone else have any other insight?
-
I updated my response while you were writing yours.
I don't doubt your insight. But The Googles doesn't sleep.
When you're doing a local campaign, with strictly above the board links, you should move as fast as possible.
-
That would be bad.
You should follow the rough 10-80-10 rule, whether you are building 10 links or 10,000 links. And you should always do it slowly.
I agree there are no specific percentages. You have to look at the big picture over a long period of time.
-
Let's say someone reads this and decides to get their first 10% in the crappy category. That would not be good for them. Further, there aren't any specific percentages that I'm aware of.
Yes, The Googles does have to pick the best of the worst. I'm not in doubt of that.
Yes, sometimes you inherit a mess but it seems to work. Manual reviews happen.
-
Big picture: What a good "problem" to have!
Without taking a close look at your specific URL...
...my first instinct is that the answer to your question is almost certainly a giant...
**No.
DO THE HARD THING: NOTHING!!!!** There is a real danger of overthinking this stuff and neglecting the fundamentals.
I faced the same issue with a DA72 site for a leading SME In his field who had 450,000+ backlinks....some from major media outlets and universities, but most from "nobodies" in the field. This is good!
What you want in a classic Inverted U-shaped curve in terms of DA.
-
10 % crappy links
-
80 % middling links
-
10% super high quality links
You mess with this at your peril!!!! Beware. "Bad" links are not necessarily bad in the grand scheme of universe. Every credible and authoritative site should have some. They are part of a natural link profile.
Getting rid of the <20 DA authority links could hurt...badly.
Focusing excessively on tweaking or sculpting the middling 80% of your links is probably a mistake. You could shoot yourself in the foot.
Less is more.
It might be better to just keep doing what you're doing.
This is hard...and requires great discipline!
-
-
Happy to be contrary. Another good thing about Link Detox is that the service has been trained - mostly for the good - by users manually reviewing the quality of their links. If easylinkseodirectory4u.com has been flagged enough, it's more likely to get caught by the machine.
Once you have uploaded your list and reviewed the links, you will get a pretty accurate risk rating. It scales from shades of low to high. I don't think Link Detox has ever given me a false Toxic rating on individual links either.
I'm not a client scalper, so if you would like to PM the domain name, I can take a look.
-
Excellent, quality response. Thanks so much.
I would love to hear from any disavow experts, maybe even costs of them (of course, I don't want to break any Moz rules that may be applicable).
Cole
-
Setting a DA cut-off from the outset is a bit too arbitrary. What if it's a link from a site with low DA and a low PA now, but later the site becomes the next New York Times? You don't want to disavow the next New York Times, but that's what an arbitrary number would have you do.
Further, DA and PA can be gamed to a certain extent. I'm sure Rap Genius has a pretty solid DA, but they were penalized all the same. So it would appear that using DA as a cut-off would be less than ideal.
There's no real easy way to do a disavow. You have to think about characteristics, context and intent. If you have links that pass juice, but were obviously paid - that may be a candidate. If there's a vast preponderance of links from seemingly low quality directories with exact match anchor text - those would be candidates for closer scrutiny as well. Dead giveaways are usually 'sponsored' links that pass juice.
Low quality directories usually let everyone in. You will know them by their viagra and casino anchor text. They're usually a pretty safe disavow candidate.
Does the site have a lot of links from spam blog comments from sites that are obviously unrelated? Has there been some guest blogging on free for all blogs? Those links would require some review as well.
Definitely prioritize your exact match anchor text links for review.
I would suggest you start with gathering link data from numerous sources:
- Google Webmaster Tools
- Bing Webmaster Tools
- Ahrefs
- Majestic SEO
- Etc.
Then filter the duplicates via spreadsheet voodoo. After that, drop it into a service like Link Detox. But be careful, it still throws false positives and false negatives. So again, there's no real way of getting out of a manual review. But Link Detox will speed up the process.
Are there plenty of disavow services out there? Sure, but I've never used them. I'm far too paranoid. A disavow is a delicate and lengthy process.
Are there some great disavow pros/individuals out there? Definitely. I would be far more likely to trust them. In fact, a couple will likely chime in here. Though they may be a little bit outside the budget. I don't know.
One final, important, point: A disavow is not a panacea. They take as long as they take. Though it is good that you appear to be proactive. You never know when the next Penguin filter will land. The site may be right with The Googles now, but it might not be later.
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 i can increase my page authority?
Hi, I have website and i want to increase my page authority. My website is latestdatabase.com I have making more backlinks but not good page authority so far. Please give me suggest.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | LatestMailingDatabase1 -
Bit.ly backlinks
Hi all, what experience do you have with Bit.ly links? Can I use it for backlinking management?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Tormar3 -
Domain Redirect and SSL Cert
Hi, When redirecting an entire site to another domain, do you have to maintain the SSL certificate? The SSL expires 3 days before the planned redirect. Thanks in advance.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | sofla_seo0 -
Redirect domain or keep separate domains in each country?
Hi all Hoping this might be something that can be answered given the number of variables 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | IsaCleanse
My main site is www.isacleanse.com.au (Obviously targeted to Australian Market) and also www.isacleanse.co.nz targeted to NZ. The main Keywords im targeting are 'Isagenix' for both and also Isagenix Australia, Isagenix Perth, Sydney (Australian cities) and Isagenix NZ, Isagenix New Zealand, Isagenix Auckland etc.. for NZ The Australian site gets a lot more traffic and Australian market gets a lot more searches - I also have a section www.isacleanse.com.au/isagenix-new-zealand/ on the Australian site. The question is am I best off redirrecting the .co.nz domain completley to the Australian Domain to give it extra SEO Juice?0 -
Is it safe to redirect our .nl (netherlands) domain that we have just purchased to our .com domain?
Hi all! We've recently developed a German version of our website with German translation and now we have just purchased a .nl domain, but with this one, we want all of the copy to remain in English. Is it ok to redirect our .nl domain to our current .com website or will this give us bad SEO points? Thank you!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | donaldsze0 -
SEO value in multiple backlinks from same domain and from various sub-domains.
A site has a link to my site as one of their main tabs, which means whenever a user clicks through to another page within the site, my link - being a main tab - is there. This creates thousands of links from this site. How does Google treat this? Do we have a rough formula estimate. In other words, assume it creates 1,000 backlinks would the SEO value be around the same as if I had just 2 link total as a main tab, but on 2 different non-related sites? Or, does it actually count fully as 1,000 links? Links from various sub-domains. Several .EDU's are linking to my site. Different schools within the overall same university. Example: nursing.abc.edu links to my site, but so does business.abc.edu. For SEO does that count as much as if I had links from complete non-related universities, or would Google evaluate that these links are related (since same main domain) and that will discount any links more than 1 to some extent? If discounted, then what do we estimate the discount to be? thank yoyu
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | knielsen1 -
Backlinks from Chinese Big sites
Hello, I wish I know your position regarding backlinks from chinese websites. I am able to get a text link(from homepage) from a very big site in chinese. It has PR8 and over 10M users monthly. My site is in english. Will it help me ? Will I be penalised (my site is 5 years old, PR4) and some decent traffic(6-7k daily) Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | adresanet0 -
Recovery during domain migration
On average, how long does it takes to recover 80% of the rankings if two high authority domains are combined without chaging any content? I totally understand that each domain is different and search engines can treat them differently but if all the steps are followed to the T what are the chances?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ninjamarketer1