Should i disavow yellowpages.com. Webmater tools shows 656 links coming from it.
-
We do not have any manual penalty warnings but I am still concerned that Google will see this as unnatural and be penalizing us to a lesser degree.
-
My client had 17,500 links pointing to his site from Yellowpages.com and it caused a algorithm penalty to there local search results. Here is a sample of the links. Now notice that each link contains a different city. My client city is Tacoma WA. We are positive this destroyed there NAP because they went from first place in the Google 3 Pac to not being the Google 3 pack at all, but for the same keyword they are number 3 in organics. When you go to Bing they still maintain there local search rankings.
-
Apparently Google admitted that the Yellow Pages link was given as an example link in error:
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-natural-link-mistake-17326.html
Still, it's probably true that if you managed to get a keyword anchored link into Yellow pages, and it was a followed link it could be considered unnatural.
-
The disavow tool is meant to be used to ask Google not to count links that you made with the sole intention of manipulating Google's search results. A Yellow page link is almost always a nofollowed link, and as such does not need to be disavowed. But, even if it was a followed link, it would still be a good link.
Don't worry about the fact that there are a large number of links. The way that Webmaster Tools presents these links makes them look bad, but in reality, Google knows that this is just one site linking to you and not hundreds of individual links.
I've seen a lot of webmasters do damage to their site by disavowing too many good citations. Be careful!
-
You will have to keep an eye on it. The more searches are done on the YP sites, the more these links build and over time they do work against you. I agree with everyone else that they shouldn't but the reality is, we've seen them in penalty notices. Google thinks 4000 links coming from yp.com.au, yp.net.au, yellowpages.com.au and yellowpages.net.au are spammy, nofollow or not.
Jason Mun had the same issue: http://jasonmun.com/links-yellowpages-unnatural-according-google/
It's interesting to note that he's also referring to the AU version of Yellow Pages even though we've seen it with the .coms as well.
Anyhoo - I would leave it for now. Just keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn't become a bigger problem.
Edit to add: it does depend on your ad itself - don't use any links within the page. And be careful with how many you let this build to.
-
Even the volume is not abnormal - suppose you have a Italian restaurant & take-away in Manhattan, then you would probably appear on pages on restaurants, italian restaurants, mediterranean restaurants, catering, take-aways in Manhatten, New York,... - all these lists are indexed in Google and all these pages would have links to your site. Depending on your business & region - you could appear in an awful lot of combinations of (sub)categories & geographic locations.
rgds,
Dirk
-
Hi Francisco
I agree with Dirk here - this isn't an unnatural link, but I would check and make sure that you are appearing in relevant and proper categories, as well as service areas.
If you find you are appearing in irrelevant categories or locations, I would contact them to make sure you can fix this, if anything from a user experience standpoint.
Hope this helps!
-
Normally i wouldn't be concerned but the shear volume of links is what makes it appear odd.
Thanks for your thoughts.
-
Normally the links from yellowpages are of type "nofollow" so they do not need to be disavowed.
Apart from this fact, given the fact that most businesses are listed in the yellow pages, these links don't seem to be very unnatural to me.
rgds,
Dirk
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
-
Multiple Links from High Ranking Site Vs. Links from Multiple Domains - What's More Important?
I understand it is important to get links from many quality domains. Currently, I do have links from top domains (PR, Trust) and it I can get more from (high rank) pages on these same domains. Would it be better to focus on expanding my reach (find additional domains to link from) or to continue to build links from the current domains I have a connection with? What is weighted more? I realize doing both is important, but trying to figure out how to best use my time. Thanks! David
Link Building | | DWill0 -
Is link exchange a reliable source to get back links?
I read a latest post on seomoz that _“Do not buy or exchange link with anyone who contacts you. This is completely against Google's policies and if they were to find out, you could be penalized." So I went through Google's ''Link Schemes'' and found that ''Excessive link exchanging ("Link to me and I'll link to you")'' can negatively impact a site's ranking . _ So is it the ''excessive'' link exchanging that can cause a negative impact? Exchanging links with good quality, cached sites (without excessive doing) can do good or bad? Can anyone please explain to me in detail?
Link Building | | semvibe0 -
Why does my site only have 4 internal followed links/internal links?
When using Open Site Explorer my site is winning in many categories but lacking in others as compared to competitors. I intend to improve on this but am a little confused by the extremely low number of "internal followed links" and "internal links" at just 4. My competitors have much more than that. Does this mean links to the root domain? Total internal links? I have many internal links so I'm having a hard time figuring this one out. What four internal links are getting noticed? I just went through and changed all the links that went to index.html to link to the root domain at www.njlimocarservice.com as I just found a Q&A that indicates this was better. So as of Wed at 5:45 PM all my links to the homepage went to index.html and not the root which is no longer the case. Not sure if this matters. At the same time I also just put a 301 from index.html to redirect to www.njlimocarservice.com. Any help appreciated! h9QuF.png
Link Building | | kabledesigns0 -
How do you check to see if your site (site A) has already been linked to by another site (site B) when you have a large site with lots of links
There are some basics in SEO relating to finding out about who has linked to whom that I could use some help with.
Link Building | | hughman0 -
Why are none of my incoming links showing up in SEOmoz or Google? How do I get good legit incoming links?
There are hundreds of sites that are linking to my website, but nobody is showing it. Google wont display any when using link:eugenecomputergeeks.com, and in webmaster tools it only shows 46 incoming links. SEOmoz shows only 3 links. This just isn't so. Why is this? I DESPERATELY need valid incoming links from well ranked websites , and having lots of trouble getting them. Nobody in town with a well ranked site seems to want to do a link exchange, and I've already made the mistake of buying my way into directories, which didn't do anything good for my rankings. Thanks!
Link Building | | eugenecomputergeeks0 -
Link Builder Tool
Has anyone used the new wordtracker link building tool? linkbuilder.wordtracker.com If so, please give your opinions.
Link Building | | azguy0 -
Free link on a Paid Link Blog
Hi there, I have been doing some outreaching, and managed to have a blog post accepted on a authority blog. They included links to my website, and I was very pleased with the placement. However, having browsed through the site, I was worried to see that they openly admit they allow 'reviews' of websites, with backlinks included, for $50 per review. I am worried I might be penalised without actually doing anything wrong. I did not pay for my link, but the link has been placed on a site which openly admits they accept payment for links. Should I be worried? Should I ask them to take it down? To date I have been told countless times by bloggers I am outreaching that if I pay $10, $50, $100 etc I can write a blog post. I have never accepted because of the risk of penalization. Now, unwittingly, I am linked to from a paid link site with a blog post that would look like I have paid for it because of the placement and style of back link. What do you think? Thanks,
Link Building | | giveacar0 -
SEO MOZ LINK BUILDING TOOLS
So I learnt that in link building you need to send an email to someone from where you want the inbound link coming in from. In this case, are there any tools withing SEO moz that allow you toactually search for links and also provide you the contact email? Thank you, Vijay
Link Building | | vijayvasu0