Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
How/Why do I have so many Spam backlinks?
-
I was looking in GWT yesterday and found we have several thousand "spam" backlinks...I am curious why this happens and how this happens?
There are some links from websites/domains that are not mine that appear to be spam. However, we own a large group of domains and have noticed some of the links are coming from 2 of those sites/domains we own to my main site. The sites/domains are not active, we just own them. I am wondering how someone could access these domains that are not active and create spammy backlinks to my main website? (They created about 20,000 links).
Thanks.
-
I don't think so...We had owned the domains for several years and the bad links have just come up in webmaster tools recently.
-
Could it be possible that you are not the original owner of the domain and that in a former era the domain was once active and used for dodgy linking?
-
Thanks! No we haven't hired anyone to do any backlink building for us in the past which is why were really curious to know how one of our domains got hacked (loyaltyexpo-europe.com) which isn't even active and had made thousands and thousands of backlinks to our main site loyalty360.org.
-
Hi there
Have you done any link building in the past? Or have you had any SEO companies do work for you?
With the 2 sites that are linking to the other sites, are there footer links or site-wide links of any kind?
I would run through a backlink audit and look into removing any potentially spammy backlinks or disavowing.
If you feel your site has been hacked, you can look into this resource from Google about what you can do to remedy the situation.
Hope this helps! Good luck!
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
-
My Brand new website shows 79% spam Score, what is the reason and how should I deal with this?
Hi, I have just launched my website 1 month before and I have used all paid images, Uniquely written contents, Everything is genuine for better SEO experience in the future. The actual problem is its showing spam by 79% in MOZ bar, I don't have a single link on my website also my content is unique, Images are unique. Why its showing so much spam on this brand new website? Can you please help me? I am very stressed due to this problem.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | rahat640 -
Do Ghost Traffic/Spam Referrals factor into rankings, or do they just affect the CTR and Bounce Rate in Analytics?
So, by now I'm sure everyone that pays attention to their Analytics/GWT's (or Search Console, now) has seen spam referral traffic and ghost traffic showing up (Ilovevitaly.com, simple-share-buttons.com, semalt.com, etc). Here is my question(s)... Does this factor into rankings in anyway? We all know that click through rate and bounce rate (might) send signals to the algorithm and signal a low quality site, which could affect rankings. I guess what I'm asking is are they getting any of that data from Analytics? Since ghost referral traffic never actually visits my site, how could it affect the CTR our Bounce Rate that the algorithm is seeing? I'm hoping that it only affects my Bounce/CTR in Analytics and I can just filter that stuff out with filters in Analytics and it won't ever affect my rankings. But.... since we don't know where exactly the algorithm is pulling data on CTR and bounce rate, I guess I'm just worried that having a large amount of this spam/ghost traffic that I see in analytics could be causing harm to my rankings.... Sorry, long winded way of saying... Should I pay attention to this traffic? Should I care about it? Will it harm my site or my rankings at all? And finally... when is google going to shut these open back doors in Analytics so that Vitaly and his ilk are shut down forever?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | seequs2 -
Ever seen this tactic when trying to get rid of bad backlinks?
I'm trying to get rid of a Google penalty, but one of the URLS is particularly bizarre. Here's the penalized site: http://www.travelexinsurance.com. One of the external links Google cited as not being natural that links to the penalized site is: http://content.onlineagency.com/index.aspx?site=6599&tide=769006&last=3111516 In the backlink profile of the penalized site, there are about 100 different backlinks pointing to www.travelexinsurance.com from content.onlineagency.com/... So when I visit http://content.onlineagency.com/index.aspx?site=6599&tide=769006&last=3111516 it actually is displaying content from http://www.starmandstravel.com/787115_6599.htm, which you can see after clicking the "Home" button. That company is a legit travel agency who I assume knows nothing about content.onlineagency.com and is not involved in whatever is going on. And that's the case for every link from content.onlineagency.com. So I'm just wondering if someone can help me understand what sort of tactic content.onlineagency.com is using. One of my predecessors I fear used some black hat tactics. I'm wondering if this is a remnant of that effort.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Patrick_G0 -
Article submission, and how to build backlinks for Ecommerce? [HELP]
Hi guys, I have a question, for high quality backlinks apparently you go to these article websites where you submit your site such as Ezine etc etc, however is it just one article you submit to these as it'll look like duplicate content? Also can I have it on my site first? How does it work? Also I run an ecommerce website, how can I build backlinks to each product, theres over 200+ products and 1.6k subcategories. I would like to rank for as many as possible but getting an SEO company to do this would cost to much. Any ideas on how I should go about it?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | InkCartridgesFast1 -
Is the SORBS-SPAM list a big deal?
Someone here pointed out that my server ip is on the SORBS-SPAM list and I was wondering if this was a big deal, and how it might have got there, and I would go about getting it off the list?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | ayetti0 -
How do you deal with spammy backlinks?
One of the web designers I work with asked me to do a preliminary site assessment on a small business website. The owner of the business had a falling out with his previous web designer and moved over to the one I work with earlier this year. The site has been redesigned but when analyzing the back links I discovered that the previous designer had created directories to create backlinks to the page. The PR 0 links from the site number about 150 and are from unrelated topic pages. So, it made me wonder, how much damage can spammy backlinks do? What is the best practice to deal with spammy backlinks if you find them?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | TheARKlady0 -
Would linking out to a gambling/casino site, harm my site and the other sites it links out to?
I have been emailed asking if I sell links on one of my sites. The person wants to link out to slotsofvegas[dot]com or similar. Should I be concerned about linking out to this and does it reduce the link value to any of the other sites that the site links out to? Thanks, Mark
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Markus1111