More bad links

[WallerD]

Hi,

After a recent disastrous dalliance with a rogue SEO company I disavowed quite a few domains (links he had gained) which I was receiving a penalty of about 23 places. I cleaned up the site and added meta descriptions where missing, and deleted duplicate titles and pages. This gained me another 5 places. In the meantime I have been getting a few links from wedding blogs, adobe forums and other relevant sites so was expecting an upward momentum.  Since the high point of bottom of page 1 I have slowly slid back down to near the bottom of page two for my main keywords. Just checked my webmaster tools latest links and  another 4 domains have appeared (gained by the dodgy SEO) :

domain:erwinskee.blog.co.uk

domain:grencholerz.blog.co.uk

domain:valeriiees.blog.co.uk

domain:gb.bizin.eu

They all look bad so I am going to disavow.

I expect to find an improvement when I disavow these new domains.

As I have said,  have started using the open site explorer tool to check my competitors backlinks and getting some low level links(I'm a wedding photographer) like forum comments and blog comments and good directories. I know there is much more than this to SEO and  plan on raising my game as time progresses.

I have also gained more links from the domains I disavowed on the 8th January mostly from www.friendfeed.com. will webmaster tools ignore any new links from previously disavowed domains?

Like I have said I know there are better ways to get links, but are these links (forum comments, blog comments and respectable directories) one way of raising my rankings? To be honest that is all my competitors have got other than some of the top boys might have a photograph or two on another site with a link. No-one has a decent article or review anywhere (which is my next stage of getting links).

Thanks!

David.

[donford]

Hi David,

Yep, keep the file updated. The best answers I have seen are directly on Google's Webmaster blog here (scroll down to the Q:A section).

Good luck!

[WallerD]

Hi Don,

So I just need to add the new dodgy domains to the original file and resubmit?

Thanks for the advice also, Very much appreciated!

All the best

David.

[donford]

Hi David,

Sorry to hear about your experience with a bad SEO company. Unfortunately, it is a common occurrence. A positive is that you're now engaged in the SEO process more intimately.

Your question about new links from disavowed domains, Google keeps your disavow list on file so any new links from previously disavowed domains should have no impact (positive or negative). Remember you can only have one disavow file so make sure you keep it updated.

Building positive links requires research and time. Moz has a beginners guild to link building, and there are a few good YouMoz post about it. I will share my approach for a quick recap.

• Research competitors (note their backlinks) (Moz Competitive Link Finder) great Tool!
• Research my demographics posting habits. That is find the best forums / blogs where your customers are posting.
• Create accounts on these sites
• Engage! Find topics about your types of products or services and create compelling informative content
• Build the links! When you're posting on these forums or blogs if appropriate link to the relevant content on your site. Use proper title and keywords when linking and make sure the page you link to is absolutely beneficial to the readers. If it is not you will lose credibility and possibly be viewed as a spammer.
• Not ever post you make needs a link. Establish yourself as an authority and make sure your site has content to back that up. Done correctly when you do drop a link, people will pay attention, take note and possibly help you in future post by linking to your site themselves.

Hope this helps,

Best of luck,

Don