Covering from link injection hack
-
About 3 months ago my site was hacked. Links were added to pages and pages were added. Whom ever did the hack made a bunch of scummy links back to my site. Now that the pages are gone off my site. Was wondering how I should deal with all the back links that are now getting 404s.
The two solutions I have thought of are 301 redirecting all the 404 to the homepage or disavowing all the backlinks.
Any advice would be awesome! Thanks!
-
Great thanks guys!
-
Disavowing would be a good option in this case.
You just need to tell Google that these links are of thin quality and don't want these to get associated with your website
-
Hi Murdacki
Here's what I would do...
-
Get a list of all your backlinks
-
Assess your backlinks
-
What ones are obviously spam?
-
What are your good backlinks?
-
Do any of those good backlinks link to your old spam pages?
-
You can use LinkRisk to assess your profile
-
Reach out to websites with links you want to keep
-
Have them correct the URL to a new relevant page
-
Try removing links that are from spam sites
-
Reach out and ask for the link to be removed
-
Do NOT pay to have links removed
-
Keep a spreadsheet of sites/pages you reached out to and those that removed links?
-
Here's a good resource from Moz.
-
Disavow backlinks that are obviously spam and could potentially penalize you
Do not blanket redirect backlinks to your homepage because you could have some bad backlinks that could backfire on you. This will take some research and work on your part, but will pay off in the end. You have to put a little effort into this, it won't be a one step solution.
Let me know if you have questions or comments. Hope this helps!
-
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
-
Value of Links? What is each link worth?
Morning Everyone, I just had this thought and wondered what everyone's opinions were in terms of link value in monetary terms. We'll assume for the purposes of this that the links come from contextually relevant sites and that the sites in question have got the Moz DA from being high quality and have a good quality incoming link profile. Its a bit of a theoretical question, but i guess imagine if the only way you could get links was to pay for them, what would they be worth to you. This is link value for SEO purposes, they will have in addition value from traffic from good sites, that no doubt varies wildly depending on topic. I assume everyone also agrees on: The first link from a domain is the most valuable High DA sites are worth more than low ones. So could anyone who has an opinion on the link value suggest a monetary value for links. Its really just using a monetary amount to see how best to target my time. Here is my example of what might be expected, but I am hoping people with more knowledge will perhaps correct it. DA Rating First Link 2nd-5th Link 5th-10th Link 10Plus Links 5 $5 $2 $1 $0 15 $7 $3 $2 $1 25 $25 $10 $5 $2 35 $45 $20 $7 $3 45 $65 $30 $11 $4 55 $95 $45 $19 $5 65 $200 $100 $45 $6 75 $350 $120 $65 $9 85 $700 $240 $95 $15 95 $1100 $450 $200 $30
Link Building | | wellandpower1 -
Subdomain links vs root domain links? Are the less valuable?
I am determining the value of links we get. Is a link on a subdomain less valuable vs one on the root domain? How less valuable would you consider a subdomain link? For example blog.site.com vs site.com/blog What other metrics would you take into consideration for the value of a subdomain link?
Link Building | | calf0 -
Question about inbound links
Hi! Hi have a little doubt. I'm interested in getting higher positions for a landing page with a long tail keyword. Now the page (ecommerce product page) appears in position 5 and have a low authority domain site and page. My intention is to put more original text in the page and write a blog post with a link pointing to the product page. My doubt is: What is better? Building the blog into the same domain or build it into a high authority external domain (like wordpress), what link could be better for my objectives? Thanks! (And sorry for my English)
Link Building | | Empatica0 -
Link Building - Affiliate Link Programs
I'm getting some conflicting information when researching this... I want to create the most organic link building strategy that not only gets high authority sites linking to a website, but relevant websites. I'm creating an affiliate link program where I link to partner and affiliate companies, who in turn link back to me. The question is where to put these links. I was initially thinking of putting them in the footer so they add credibility to every page, and in turn ask my affiliates to do the same thing. However; some sources say that Google no longer looks at links in the footer section. Is it true that Google doesn't count links in footer sections? And do you have any tips on creating this Affiliate Link Program?
Link Building | | reidsteven750 -
Link Detox and Link Removal
I have a question about which links to remove after running a link detox from Link Research Tools. First a little back story. I had had an SEO company link building for one of the websites I own. But I have recently stopped working with them. In the last month my rankings have near dropped off the charts. I have just recently gotten access to Google webmaster tools and noticed an unnatural link warning from back in March. So yesterday I ran link detox and it reported 19 toxic links, 120 suspicious links, and 24 healthy links. It's rather obvious that I should remove all of the toxic links. They all from sites that have been deindexed by google. But my question is a about the suspicious links. What should my criteria be for removing them? Am I better off removing them all and leaving my site with only 24 healthy links or should I personally comb through them and remove only the worst of the worst so that I leave my site with a few more links? I'd really like to get the site ready to resubmit to google as soon as I can. Thoughts? yyCOf.png
Link Building | | CobraJones950 -
For a new site, does it matter which sites I get back links from first? I.e., are the first back links more important than later ones?
I've heard that when a site is new, the sources from which it gets its first back links are very important -- that the early links are more important for ranking than later links. Is this true. If so, what would be some good places to get these very first links? Thanks.
Link Building | | sigma3x0 -
Link Building Methods
Hi, If i hire a SEO company, what kind of links they will build for me. If anyone own a seo company can you let me know.My question is if i create a new website, what kind of link building techniques should i use other than, articles, press releases, social bookmarking, directories. As i am competiting with very tough competition. I have analyzed my competitors and they bought sitewides which are paid ones. Without paid ones i think it is is very hard for me to get into the competition. Can someone discuss more link building methods also. Awaiting for your responce. Regards.
Link Building | | Dex32320 -
Do links from a Tumblr blog count as inbound links?
That's it. I'm thinking of making a Tumblre blog (s) for inbound links. Is it worthwhile?
Link Building | | Spreader73760