Boosting Equity-Passing Links?
-
Hello Moz folks,
We have a SEO client who has exponentially fewer equity-passing links(inbound and internal) than their two major competitors, which I'm sure is a MAJOR factor in their rankings. In fact, the numbers are so drastically different seems to indicate that these competitors are participating in some sort of black hat link farm. For example:
Internal and Inbound Equity-Passing Links
- Our client - 2274
- Competitor 1 - 496k
- Competitor 2 - 143k
How is this possible or legit? I don't understand.
Our well-known client has been in business for 10+ years and they have a content-rich, WordPress website consisting of thousands of pages that have been optimized for search, including keyword-rich URLs, page titles, metas, H1 tags, etc. The things that keep coming to mind are the need for more links and more content.
One thing that comes to mind is that the client launched a new site about 1.5 years ago and changed their domain prefix from http to https. I'm not sure if this would have an impact on inbound link equity or not. 301 redirects are in place so from what I understand, all of the old http pages should have passed at least partial domain equity to the new https site.
I'm also wondering if changing the structure of WordPress categories, tags and author pages could somehow dynamically increase the page count and amount of perceived content. We may be overly restrictive with Google Search Console.
Anyway, I'm at a loss and don't understand how our competitors, with seemingly similar content, could have exponentially more links and are dominating the search results.
Thanks for your help and sage advice. Your input is very much appreciated.
Eric
-
Hello Blue,
Thanks for your input several days ago. I apologize for the delay in getting back to you. I was on vacation.
Anyway, I appreciate your words of wisdom. I have been digging into the Open Site Explorer but I am far from an expert at this point. That said, I shall continue to persevere.
Thanks again.
Eric
-
Hi Andy,
Thanks for your input. Much appreciated. I apologize for the delay in responding. I was on vacation with my family and just returned.
Thanks again.
Eric
-
It sounds like your competitors may be taking advantage of spammy link-building practices! You can use the Moz Open Site Explorer (https://moz.com/researchtools/ose/) to compare your SEO client's off-site authority to their competitors' off-site authority. This tool will give you insights into the domain authority, page authority, how many total inbound links the site has from how many domains, as well as page social metrics.
This tool is extremely helpful when you're concerned about boosting equity-passing links, as it gives you an insider look at where your competitors are being linked from, so you can learn whether they're being linked from valid sources or spammy ones (Open Site Explorer shows you the spam score of each site that links to you).
Hope this helps!
-
Hi Eric,
It sounds like there are many things going on here. From what you say, it does sound like the competitor might be doing something dodgy, but it also depends if the links are linking domains, or just a handful of domains with site-wide links that are producing that number. Either way, it doesn't sound natural, but Google clearly isn't objecting at the moment.
It is highly unlikely that the structure of the site is what is causing the problem here, unless you have a real problem buried away somewhere - maybe a penalty? It could possibly be the http-https transition, but you can check this by looking in analytics at the dates this happened for clues. I certainly wouldn't be trying to artificially increase the page count without any real benefit for the pages being there though - this will cause you problems.
Try and focus heavily on amazing content, a natural-looking link profile and I would be looking at setting up a strong internal-link structure to your key hub pages.
Google ultimately will deliver results that they feel meet their E.A.T (Expertise, Trust, Authority) requirements. This can be down to so many factors that it would be impossible to know where to begin just from a discussion here though I'm afraid.
-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
-
Dodgy links across top ranking sites in a certain industry - Could this be negative link building?
Hi, I've noticed repeated low value / high spam backlinks directing to a site that I manage, and despite disavowing, new links showing similar anchor text keep appearing. See sample in the table below: <colgroup><col width="514"> <col width="407"> <col width="364"></colgroup>
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Alexanders
| biz.mfso.info/files/images/vertical-blinds-for-bifold-doors.html | | Get free high quality HD wallpapers vertical blinds for bifold doors |
| nmr.mfso.info/files/images/mould-on-vertical-blinds.html | | Get free high quality HD wallpapers mould on vertical blinds |
| nmr.mfso.info/files/images/install-vertical-blinds.html | | Get free high quality HD wallpapers install vertical blinds |
| nmr.mfso.info/files/images/cutting-vertical-blinds.html | | Get free high quality HD wallpapers cutting vertical blinds |
| rre.uere.info/files/images/high-quality-vertical-blinds.html | HD wallpapers high quality vertical blinds rre.uere.info | Get free high quality HD wallpapers high quality vertical blinds |
| dig.uere.info/files/images/mould-on-vertical-blinds.html | HD wallpapers mould on vertical blinds dig.uere.info | Get free high quality HD wallpapers mould on vertical blinds |
| dig.uere.info/files/images/mould-on-vertical-blinds.html | HD wallpapers mould on vertical blinds dig.uere.info | Get free high quality HD wallpapers mould on vertical blinds |
| hja.uere.info/files/images/cost-vertical-blinds.html | HD wallpapers cost vertical blinds hja.uere.info | Get free high quality HD wallpapers cost vertical blinds | I also looked across 5 high ranking sites in the same industry and noticed they too have these 'dodgy' links in their backlink profiles. Could this be negative link building? If so, does anyone know a way to trace it or get it stop?0 -
Link building freelancers or referrals to link building freelancers
Hi, Are there many freelancers in this community that advocates the MOZ linkbuilding philosophies? Or does anyone have references for link building freelancers at a reasonable rate? Thanks, Jack
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | jackgao840 -
How to deal with link echoes of former hacked websites?
Hi all, I'd know which is the best way to deal with link echoes of former hacked websites that Webmaster tool reports. to clarify: when you download the backlink report from Webmaster tool you'll have a list of backlinks discovered, but if you follow one of those links you will see that on that page there is no link to your website. the source code is also clean, no hidden links or other dodgy technique. Since that the topic is usually miles away from my industry I have to assume at some point that site has been hacked by a spammer who placed that backlink. In this case what should I do? Ignore it, disavow the domain or what? Moreover, which is the best procedure when you have to face a site which points a lot of backlinks from only its sub-domains? For example: this dodgy spammy website : http://px949z32.com/ is apparently a desert, but when you do site:http://px949z32.com/ you'll discover 55,200 results! Would be it be enough to just disavow the root domain http://px949z32.com/?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | madcow78
As I don't want to wait too long before taking any action, my plan is to disavow all those domains without any mercy, although I can't find a current backlink in one of their pages. I will do this, as at the minute my concern is they will be hacked again and I have to face the same issue again and again Thanks to all, P.0 -
Where Is This Link Coming From?
According to Moz Analytics we have a link coming from here: http://www.grayshadowfinancial.com/ The anchor text is earthquake prone map. I can't find the link, but if I cntrl+f "earthquake prone map" it shows in the find box, even though I can't see it. I'm guessing this is some spam tactic and they are hiding this with their CSS? Is there anyway I could see it? Best, Ruben
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | KempRugeLawGroup0 -
How to Handle Sketchy Inbound Links to Forum Profile Pages
Hey Everyone, we recently discovered that one of our craft-related websites has a bunch of spam profiles with very sketchy backlink profiles. I just discovered this by looking at the Top Pages report in OpenSiteExplorer.org for our site, and noticed that a good chunk of our top pages are viagra/levitra/etc. type forum profile pages with loads of backlinks from sketchy websites (porn sites, sketchy link farms, etc.). So, some spambot has been building profiles on our site and then building backlinks to those profiles. Now, my question is...we can delete all these profiles, but how should we handle all of these sketchy inbound links? If all of the spam forum profile pages produce true 404 Error pages (when we delete them), will that evaporate the link equity? Or, could we still get penalized by Google? Do we need to use the Link Disavow tool? Also note that these forum profile pages have all been set to "noindex,nofollow" months ago. Not sure how that affects things. This is going to be a time waster for me, but I want to ensure that we don't get penalized. Thanks for your advice!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | M_D_Golden_Peak0 -
href="#" and href="javascript.void()" links. Is there a difference SEO wise?
I am currently working a site re-design and we are looking at if href="#" and href="javascript.void()" have an impact on the site? We were initially looking at getting the links per page down but I am thinking that rel=nofollow is the best method for this. Anyone had any experience with this? Thanks in advanced
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | clickermediainc0 -
Link Quality and Anchor Text
ok I was wondering how to determine the quality of a link and if there is a way to tell that the site linking to you could be passing on penalized link juice to your site. Also i would like to know some of yalls opinion on using anchor text links in articles and blogs. Now that google seems to have taken some of its "importance" away
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | daugherty0 -
What's been your experience with profile link-building?
What have your experiences been? Short Term? Long Term? There isn't a lot written about it, and I'm wondering where it falls in the order of things. I was very hesitant to jump in, but have launched a few campaigns, both for local geo targeting phrases, and national accounts. Surprisingly, I've seen a surge in rankings, but also wonder how short lived they will be. I've noticed the links still don't come up in tools like open site explorer, but I'm able to find them when searching for the unique username I used while building the profiles. The sites I'm listing on have no relevance to industry, unless by chance, although the PR's I'm using are all 4 or higher. Is this considered gray hat?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | skycriesmary720