Back link from site with DA of 72 to a website domain. Clicking on the link redirects to our website not the attended one.
-
Hi,
I've ran a back link check and discovered a good back link to a site which then gets redirected back to my company's website.I have a feeling that an old SEO agency has purchased a small website which has a decent link back from a relevant organisation with a high Domain authority and then redirects the domain to our website to get the link juice.
What are your thought on this? Is this really bad practise and possibly damaging?
Thanks,
Jim
-
I'm sure it would probably be valuable and pass on some SEO benefit but if it's likely that someone has purchased this domain purely for transferring the link equity of inbound links to your website, then there's always a chance that this is going to be picked up on.
A small chance, but a chance nonetheless.
-
Thanks John,
I don't think it will hurt us but it just seems greyhat bordering on blackhat to me - kinda manipulative. I'll definitely put broken link building on the to-do list.Jim.
-
Hi Sean, it's an old domain that used to be active - an artist's graduate portfolio site. We're an education based business....it's loosely relevant. The Royal College of Art links to it.
Thanks for your response.
-
+1 for broken link building!
-
Hey there -
Great question. If that's what's happening, then someone definitely bought the old domain with links to it and redirected it. I've also seen this done TO people in order to pass an algorithmic penalty onto a competitor. Nasty stuff.
That said, while this isn't strictly whitehat, it can be super effective to buy old dead domains with links and redirect them into your own site. It actually works very well for SEO purposes! But, it comes with its risks as you have to do a lot of due diligence on the domain you want to redirect as there could have been some dodgy things going on and you don't want to risk passing along a penalty to your own site.
That said, I wouldn't undo the redirect unless you think it's hurting you. Move on and focus on other things to build new links.
The better thing to do, IMO, is to find these dead sites and pull their backlink profiles, then go and do outreach offering your site as a replacement for that site that is now dead. It's called broken link building and it works really well!
Hope that helps.
John
-
Is the linking domain (not the link that links to that domain) relevant to your business?
i.e. is it an old domain that used to be active or is it just a dummy domain that was set up for the practice of link building?
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
-
Disavow links from legit sites but have spammy link profiles?
I'm currently doing a backlink audit for our site with a LOT of backlinks. Some of the linking sites are legitimate business websites in our industry who have linked to us for a totally legitimate reason (we have good content!). However, these businesses themselves have a spammy backlink profile—that is, the only sites linking to that site are obvious link farm sites. Here is an illustration: spammyseolinks.com; payforseo.xyz; blackhat.ru ==all link to==> legitbusiness.com ==links to==> mysite.com Should I disavow this backlink? I guess it's not really giving me much SEO worth since it surely been branded a spammy junk domain, but then again, it's a real website that we've earned a link from because we're doing stuff the right way. Is it hurting or helping me?
Link Building | | THandorf0 -
Should harmful links to your own website be removed?
Upon running a link report on a website, there are often multiple links flagged as bad or suspect that come from a blog that is integrated into the website, which means there are links (set up as article tags) in the site that go to other pages in the same site. They have likely been flagged due to their high frequency. A similar problem is occurring where blogs from a connected site (from an offshoot site of a company that is part of the original) are also tagging their blog posts to link into the original website. Should these links be disavowed? Will these links have an effect on the website if they are disavowed or not?
Link Building | | rachelmanning8880 -
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 -
A website with a spam score of 5 is back linking to me. How important is to get that link removed?
There is a website that OSE has identified with a spam score of 5, it back links to me with a very specific key word. How important is it to have them remove those links?
Link Building | | absoauto0 -
How to find inbound links to my site
Hi I purchased a rank 1 domain which i have now put a wordpress blog on. Is there a way I can see all of the inbound links to this site or any of the inbound anchor text? I want to try to rank for the keywords it used to. So really i need some historical information or at least what is linking to this domain. Thanks Chris
Link Building | | chrisleonard0 -
Links not showing up in Site Explorer?
Why aren't some backlinks showing up in Site Explorer? I have links to my home page (www.mortgagesbymark.com) from Trulia at http://www.trulia.com/blog/mortgagesbymark/ but they're not showing up in Site Explorer. Thanks for your help!
Link Building | | MortgagesByMark0 -
Where to start on building links for a news website? Should I focus on promoting individual articles or create linkbait and create friends with influencial bloggers/editors/ and news websites in the same niche?
Where to start on building links for a news website? Should I focus on promoting individual articles or create linkbait and create friends with influential blogger/editors/ and news websites in the same niche?
Link Building | | purch0 -
Links from low PA pages on high DA sites... What effect do they have?
My company's website has inbound links from very high DA websites (LinkedIn 96, Yelp 91, etc.) but from pages with very low PA (1). These low PA pages are the company listings pages. In the case of Linked In, there are several products/services listed with ideal anchor text to the relevant pages on our site. How do these links effect our overall ranking and trust, and why aren't they listed when I use OSE to analyze my pages? Thanks!
Link Building | | sverdino0