Should receiving dozens of legitimate links make you nervous?
-
Hi all,
Google has made it clear that it considers links built through press release sites as manipulative link building and one can assume that they refer in this context to press release sites that exist only for SEO reasons.
But it is also possible to receive a link in a press agency dispatch such as Reuters, afp etc. In this case, a site might receive dozens or even hundreds of links that have many characteristics of spammy links because
- they are from pages with identical content
- they have identical anchor text, which might even be a money keyword
- there are usually no canonical tags on the referring pages
- they appear in a matter of hours or a few days
On the other hand of course, the links will appear on very reputable sites, as these are regular media sites.
Do you know any case studies that look at this issue? Did you experience it yourself?
It just happened to me. I got even two links (both to my site's homepage) in a dispatch
- the first link has a four word expression as anchor text that is not really related to the topic of my site. The linked page now is search result #24 for this expression
- the second link has my brand name as anchor text, which does include a money keyword
No warnings in Webmastertools so far.
Should I worry or even go as far as disallowing these links?
Thanks for sharing your experience and opinion!
-
Hi Frank,
Don't rush to disavow or worry about these links as Google will look at the types of sites where you are featured.
On the other hand of course, the links will appear on very reputable sites, as these are regular media sites
This is what matters in cases like this. The sites are reputable and that is a big plus. If you had an article spammed across 50 random blogs, then it might be a different story.
Without seeing everything for myself, it's a little hard to say with 100% certainty, but from what you said, it sounds OK.
-Andy
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
-
Moz bot not discovering important links (high DA sites link)
Moz bot is unable to crawl and discover my links on the high authority websites like microsoft, linkedin, pinterest, etc. Where is the problem?
Link Building | | TechG0 -
Links from coupon sites
Hi All, I post coupons on coupon sites a month ago and when I checked backlinks of my website I saw approx 1000 links coming from coupon sites on my Brand Name. IMO it is quite natural please share your views. *All the big brands listed on that coupon sites e.g amazon, dell etc Thanks
Link Building | | Alick3001 -
Link removal
We were hit by penguin and have been going through the process of removing bad links. Things were looking up but then wasa 20% jump in our bad links. They all seem to be related. There are over 100 different domains that all seem to go back to mbiz. examples include http://www.5stone.com.cn/Literature-holders-.html http://www.building-stone.com/Display-furniture.html http://www.china-tombstone.com/Display-exhibition-products-.html It looks like they have automatically gathered data from google to create these pages. I would hope that the guys at Google are clever enough to be aware of these sorts of links. But if not I need to get them removed. I have tried whois but I cant find out how to contact these guys. Has anyone got any bright ideas? Thanks
Link Building | | Discountdisplays0 -
Why am I getting links in my link report from sites that no longer exist?
So, I have a link report from Link Detox. And I'm going through all of them and considering what sites need to be removed. and trying to find emails and contact webmasters. There is just one odd thing i'm starting to see more of. A lot of links are on websites or webpages that no longer exist. The link no longer exists. Some of the domains are even available for purchase. Why are these links showing on the backlink report and are they really harming my website? Also, do I need to add these links into the disavow document that I will submit to Google?
Link Building | | lightwurx0 -
Why so few links in webmaster tools
In Webmaster Tools it only shows one domain linking to our site totalvac.com, but we have lots of external links. Why is this?
Link Building | | totalvac0 -
Old links
I am looking to remove some old directory links that now look spammy. Some years ago the site was redesigned. The links are all to the old pages url, which is 301 redirected to the new. If we remove the 301 and let the page 404, will that suffice in Googles eyes?
Link Building | | cottamg0 -
Authrity link building
This is one of the strangest things i have yet to see on Link Building , one of the sites i follow up managed to build links on huge sites like : speedtest.net , pbs.org , ucla.edu ,etc , its done in some downloadble file like that : http://cdn.speedtest.net/mobile/SpeedTestHD_v2.0.apk?pagetype=&pageNum=124 basically when you click on the link it downloads a file , and i see that it was done hundreds of times in large numbers of top ranked sites , does any one know how to do it ?
Link Building | | seowatches0 -
Links from any country?
My site is aimed primarily at the UK, 90% of the traffic is from the UK and most of my links are from other UK based and UK targetted websites. The content is actually fairly international (apart from certain terms like Plasterboard instead of Drywall, etc). My question is: Should I concentrate on gathering links from the UK, or should I widen my search and try to get links from US and European websites? Are there any particular advantages or disadvantages to keeping links "local"?
Link Building | | Jingo010