I knew better, but did it anyway. Should I keep these backlinks?
-
Out of desperation (lack of time and knowing we were way behind competitors on backlinks) - I went to Fivvr and ordered 50 "high quality" backlinks. I know there are no shortcuts, but this weak little voice push through and said, "Just maybe...it's so cheap, what's the harm?" Well, I should have listened to the rationale voice which is typically so much more assertive! What to do now?
*Note - I haven't had time to review them all, but at 1st glance, it appears they are off-topic, spammy blog comments
- snapshot of links: https://www.dropbox.com/s/9d23c93o1ryrhv1/Screenshot 2016-09-21 11.49.26.png?dl=0- Check each page to see if the rank suggested is correct and leave links with legit high page rank?
- They are all garbage, try to remove them immediately - is this even possible?
- Watch to see if rank is positively or negatively affected, then go about taking them down if needed?
Other suggestions? (Besides don't do that again, stupid.)
-
Oleg is right, you should disavow them. Google won't know (most likely) that you did them--unless your social media ID is tied to them. But, nonetheless, I would disavow them.
If those links are only a small percentage of your overall links (less than 1 percent of total links) then you probably won't see any changes, and they will probably not hurt your rankings. But, if they're a large percentage of your links, then you might want to get them removed completely.
-
Thank you all. Please do not think that I am not completely ashamed. Will follow advice to disavow. Punishment served in time lost... that probably could have been used EARNING 10 real quality links.
-
Oleg and Andrew beat me to it. But I would also recommend disavowing them to protect your site. Other option before going to the disavow tool, is to reach out to the sites and ask them to remove the links.
Hope that helps!
-
Google clearly states that buying backlinks breaches their guidelines and you are at very high risk for penalization. For $5 you are guaranteed to have got yourself a package of automated craplinks and you have made a pretty good case for deserving penalization. You can save yourself by disavowing the links.
Here is Google's guide for disavowing backlinks:
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2648487?hl=enAnd here is a guide for using the disavow tool:
https://moz.com/blog/guide-to-googles-disavow-tool -
I highly doubt you can remove them - best case disavow them.
At this point, if you are willing to roll the dice, see what kind of effect the links will have on your rankings. Understand that those links are textbook spammy and should be treated negatively (they are irrelevant to your website, have lots of spammy outgoing links) but Google makes mistakes.
It is probably a matter of time before those links will be considered negative/poor and likely to hurt you down the line. However, it could be months/years before that happens.
If you are already ranking well some some terms and are scared of losing rankings, i'd disavow them now.
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
-
Backlinks from The Sun, New Yor Post, etc...
Hello there, Some of my competitors have backlinks from very well-known newspaper websites like New York Post or The Sun. And it is really obvious that their backlinks are paid ones. On these news websites, they don't talk about ghost writing stuff or "partnership" for backlinks. They only write about banner advertising. So I was wondering how they can get a backlink from them.
Link Building | | Veptune
Do some writers sell those backlinks somewhere else, under the table? Are they in contact with SEO agencies who paid them and if this is the case, does their "manager" know it? or does the company directly have partnerships with SEO agencies? Basically, how to get a backlink from the NY Post or The Sun ? Thanks0 -
My backlinks are not showing
I have been building lots of backlinks to my website but when I decided to check them I saw just two. Please am I doing something wrong?
Link Building | | Briefwatch0 -
Backlink Dilemma & Typewriters (Seriously...Typewriters)
Hi all. I have a bit of a unique issue. My company, Smith Corona **used **to be one of the world's premier typewriter manufacturers. However, we have completely got out of that business roughly a decade ago. Instead, we sell blank thermal shipping labels. As you might imagine, writing content and getting links about paper labels is not easy. Quite simply, no one cares about labels. They either stick or they don't. Typewriters is a whole different story. We still get tons of calls and emails everyday about them. There are online communities dedicated to them. I think if I even tried a little, I could get backlinks from people interested in typewriters. The problem is... that we don't do ANYTHING with them at all anymore. I would really just be pimping out our brand name in hopes of getting some cheap links. The real question is... do I even want these links? If they are semantically about typewriters and not labels, is it really helping my SEO efforts? Any advice is welcome. Thanks all!
Link Building | | smithcorona1 -
Which tools/techniques do you use for backlink indexation?
Hello All, I was wondering if you have a list of sites, tools or best practices in order to get your new backlinks indexed sooner by Google. Thanks a lot in advance! Luis
Link Building | | Yeeply.com0 -
Does more product pages mean better rankings?
We've recently been told that one of reasons why our site doesnt rank as well as a particular competitors because they have much more product pages than us. We can see that they have better quality links, which we are working on improving, which we sort of understand can be helping them beat us, but we didn't think that they would be ranked higher just because of more products. They also do not have much interesting blog / content on site. So should our limited resources be focused on getting better links, better content, or increasing our depth of product range? Thanks all.
Link Building | | onwardsandupwards0 -
My site keep loosing its serp? Need advice
Hello, my site keep losing the serp with the keyword "love messages" for the site www.secretlovemessages.com From May first week, the rank dropped from 3rd to 5th, then 5th to 9th and so on. Now the rank is 25th !!!! Mainly after penguin 2.0 update. Can any SEO expert give me a audit and advice on why thats happening to my site and how i can recover the serp again?
Link Building | | rimon_dxnx0 -
Why do we need proxy to so Backlinks?
Does Google knows the IP addresses that the backlinks are created from? if i create 200 backlinks for my site without proxies will google ban my site because it will look like i a the one who create all the backlinks? May i ask how many proxies do you guys need to create around 200 backlinks per day? If i already use the proxies today Can i use the same set of proxies to create backlinks tomorrow? THanks
Link Building | | locoto00071 -
Backlinks on Facebook
Has anyone seen the benefits of adding backlinks back to their main site on their facebook page? Also, what about uploading a bunch of pictures of your products onto facebook, and on each picture putting the link directly to that specific product? Anyone know if there is any benefit in doing this? Thanks...
Link Building | | Prime850