Backlink inconsistency
-
Hello!
We were ranked on page 1 in Google for the past 10 years for a specific key phase until this February when we were pushed to page 2.
When analyzing backlinks via majestic.com we found that our backlinks haven't been consistent, we typically have around 1,000 or less, but in February they dropped, then began spiking inconsistently (from 3000+ to a few hundred, then back up). Not sure how accurate Majestic's reporting is but we've also noticed some sites which are spamming our site with links on their low-quality and porn content websites.
Is this type of backlink inconsistency normal, or is this something that could be negatively impacting our rankings?
-
Hi Eileen
I just noticed you didn't respond to my questions here - are you all good? Would love to help in any way that I can!
Also, can you provide a URL so I can review? Thank you!
-
See if the changes correspond to the Feb 4th update
http://moz.com/google-algorithm-change
Its possible that the algorithm update was the reason for your drop and will give you a starting place to investigate.
Also it would be worth disavowing any undesirable links such as porn just to be on the safe side.
-
Hi Marcy
When these fluctuations happen, what types of links are you seeing? Are they only porn / low quality sites? Are they the same ones over and over?
I still think you should look into the help section for Google regarding spam and I would also look into the two resources that Moz has regarding link removals:
Ultimate Guide to Google Penalty Removal
Link Audit Guide for Effective Link Removals & Risk Mitigation
Your Start to Finish Guide for Google's Disavow ToolAt least from these you can look into spam reporting and also removing/disavowing these potentially dangerous backlinks. Let me know if you have any questions or comments!
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
-
301 Redirects Backlinks?
I am wondering how many people still getting results from 301 redirects from high authority expired domains..? I read few case studies on detailed dot com where the shared some people still making big bucks from this strategy which i think 10beast also implemented few years back.? Is it worth it to test out 301 redirects to money sites.? How many people on the moz community here have implemented this strategy in practical and can share some insights and pros and cons of doing 301 redirects? Many Thanks.
Technical SEO | | asifseo0980 -
Http to Https Backlink Value
We updated our website from http to https and I wanted to know how backlinks were affected by this. The new site redirects all old http links to the https home page. How does this affect more specific backlinks like http://www.mysite.com/about ? The old http://www.mysite.com/about is now being directed to https://www.mysite.com . Do I need to set up redirects to pass value to my new pages?
Technical SEO | | nat88han0 -
Are backlinks the reason for my site's much lower SERP ranking, despite similar content?
Hi all, I'm trying to determine why my site (surfaceoptics.com) ranks so much lower than my competitor's sites. I do not believe the site / page content explains this differential in ranking, and I've done on-site / on-page SEO work without much or any improvement. In fact I believe my site is very similar in quality to competitor sites that rank much higher for my target keyword of: hyperspectral imaging. This leads me to believe there is a technical problem with the site that I'm not seeing, or that the answer lies in our backlink profile. The problem is that I've compared our site with 4 of our competitors in the Open Site Explorer and I'm not seeing a strong trend when it comes to backlinks either. Some competitors have more links / better backlink profiles but then other sites have no external links to their pages and lower PA and DA and still outrank us by 30+ positions. How should I go about determining if the problem is backlinks or some technical issue with the site?
Technical SEO | | erin_soc0 -
Backlinks that we have if they are 404?
Hi All, Backlinks that we have if they are 404? Open site explorer shows 1,000 of links and when I check many are 404 and those are spammy links which we had but now the sites are 404 I am doing a link profile check which is cleaning up all spammy links Should i take any action on them? As open site explorer or Google still shows these links on the searches. Should we mention these URL's in disallow in Google webmaster. Thanks
Technical SEO | | mtthompsons0 -
Using the Moz to weed out bad backlinks
How do you use the opensite explorer to weed out bad backlinks in your profile, and then how do you remove them if you cannot contact the various webmasters.
Technical SEO | | marketing-man19900 -
How to improve my google backlinks
Hi i have just checked my google back links for my site www.in2town.co.uk and it has said that i have only five, not sure where these are from as the tool i was using did not tell me. But i have looked at my compeditors and they have a few hundred and some have thousands so i am just wondering what i need to do to compete and get more backlinks. I have been writing articles for other sites, free article sites hoping to get some traffic as well as backlinks, for this has not worked out. i just done a report now and i have got the following information DMOZ Directory ? NoYahoo Directory ? NoDigg 0 Yahoo Indexed Pages ? 0 Bing Indexed Pages 0 I would really like to know what steps i need to take as i feel that i have done a lot of good work but my back links are not improving. any help would be great
Technical SEO | | ClaireH-1848860 -
Can hidden backlinks ever be ok?
Hi all, I'm very new to SEO and still learning a lot. Is it considered a black hat tactic to wrap a link in a DIV tag, with display set to none (hidden div), and what can the repercussions be? From what I've learnt so far, is that this is a very unethical thing to be doing, and that the site hosting these links can end up being removed from Google/Bing/etc indexes completely. Is this true? The site hosting these links is a group/parent site for a brand, and each hidden link points to one of the child sites (similar sites, but different companies in different areas). Thanks in advance!
Technical SEO | | gemcomp1230