NoFollow & Directory Scraper Backlinks
-
I was wondering how important it was to remove/disavow:
- NoFollow backlinks - many ("buy viagra" etc).
- Directory backlinks - many questionable/generic directories.
Obviously the focus is the equity passing links but both of the above constitute a significant proportion of backlinks to the site - I've seen that "scrapers" are seen as natural and obviously NoFollow do not pass link juice - but does the sheer number have a bearing and therefore make them equally important to address?
Thanks in advance for your responses.
Regards
-
If you've got viagra spam pointing at your site you likely won't be able to remove them. So should you disavow? Disavowing a nofollowed link won't accomplish anything as disavowing is simply asking Google not to count the link and a nofollow link is already not being counted. However, when you have loads of nofollowed links from spam attacks this is one situation where I often do go ahead and disavow these. The reason for this is that one tactic that spammers can use is to point a bunch of nofollowed links at a site and then one day turn them all to followed. If you've got them disavowed then you've got that covered.
Also, if you have viagra links pointing to your site, make sure you don't have a hack within your site. Try doing a google search for site:yourdomain.com viagra and see what comes up.
For directories, I don't worry about things like dmoz scrapers and 100searchengines and stuff like that, unless somehow you managed to sneak a keyword anchored link into dmoz. I wrote a thorough article on my thought process for auditing directory links here:
http://searchenginewatch.com/sew/how-to/2360254/is-that-directory-link-unnatural
-
Regardless of the nofollow attribute, having spammy links in your link portfolio can hurt your SEO and cause a penalty. If you've identified links that are clearly on spammy site, proactively dissavow those links. Don't think that just because they have a nofollow attribute that your site is safe from penalty, because they are not.
Edited for directories - it all goes back to the quality of the link and website linking. If the directory is legitimate and useful to users, then consider it a good link. If the directory is a hodgepodge of links that was only generated to be a link farm, then get rid of it before it does you harm, because it isn't doing you any good.
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
-
Spammy no follow backlinks - what should I do?
There is a individual/company that is creating lots of spam sites in my niche. It doesn't seem that they are trying to rank for any keywords, so I'm a little confused as to their purpose, but here's what they're doing. They scrape the top 10 Google results for each keyword and create a page - so if the niche is "widgets", they scrape the top 10 ranked sites for 'widgets', 'blue widgets', 'red widgets', and so on. A 'results' page is created for each keyword, which is linked from a home page. The results page always contains 10 websites - text is the site metadescription or similar. Each website gets a nofollow link back with the page title used as the anchor text. The host sites all have the keyword in the domain name - e.g www.widgetsxyz.com. The sites are thrown together but interestingly have a very crappy but individual logo (like 90's clipart). The host sites all have high DA/PA due to some very extensive link spam pointing to the sites, with very targeted keywords. There is seemingly no purpose to these sites that I can see - no other 'followed' links on the page or site. Whoever is doing this is churning out tens, if not hundreds of these sites. Any ideas what might be going on here, and whether I should be disavowing these sites (even though no follow). The fear is that they could switch the links to do follow, and get all the major players penalised in one fell swoop. ???
Link Building | | johnohara0 -
How do stop lost backlinks from website?
I have checked my backlinks through ahref tool. Daily some backlinks are removed bases of ahref tool, so how can stop removing backlink of my website. Please suggest me.
Link Building | | surabhi60 -
How to index Backlinks Fast in Google!
I Made few backlinks with my keyword but they are not getting index and it has been for 15 days. Do you have any idea that will help me out to solve this problem and also to index back links quickly.
Link Building | | rohitdeveloper0 -
Why don't directory backlinks show up in Open Link Explorer?
Why don't we see linking root domains like yelp, google, yahoo, etc? Is there any way to get a more accurate list of links to a domain where webmaster tools are not an option?
Link Building | | ScottM0 -
How Much Should I Worry About NOFOLLOW Links?
I've got many unnatural backlinks that have the NOFOLLOW tag. How much should I worry about those links? Could Google penalize my website for these links?
Link Building | | sbrault740 -
Directory subission post penguin
Does anyone have thoughts on doing mass directory submissions post penguin? I know the value of the links are pretty worthless I am considering a submission service for nothing more than to get my number of different c-blocks up Will directories be looked upon as link networks? Is worth it?
Link Building | | shauny350 -
Value of paid for directories
For a company with a limited budget, is it worth spending money on paid for directories which a high authority to boost your page rank? Thanks
Link Building | | f1plustraining0