Can piracy sites linking to you hurt your SEO?
-
Hello,
Our website sells software that we have developed, but there are piracy websites that offer a crack/keygen to our software and are linking to our site. From an SEO perspective, are those sites hurtful to us if their spam score is below 30 and their DA is not 1? We'd like to understand if there is any action we need to take from an SEO point or if our site's SEO is not affected by it.
Thank you!
-
Hi Marynau
Look on the right side of teh Moz bar and they give a rating out of 17. I'd say anything over 6/7 would be considered bad. Having said that I rely on SEMrush to tell me if it's toxic or not.
Best Regards
Nigel
-
Thanks, Nigel! Some of the sites have high spam score (25-30% based on Moz's new spam score system) but also have high DA (between 48-65). Which metrics would you take into account more when making a decision to disavow?
-
Hi Marynau
I doubt very much that they will do you any harm. It's more to do with how spammy the site is and whether it has 1000's of outbound links. Install the MOZbar in chrome and check the spam score. If it's high ie 4-7 then consider this:
1. Ask them directly to remove any links to your website. Email them.
2. If you get no reply after a week or so upload a disavow file here: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/disavow-links-main. Download the template first so you know the format.I use SEMrush and that gives me an indication of my clients (what SEMrush call) toxic links. MOZ has something similar but it's not as obvious which are the really bad ones.
It's simple to add them to a list of sites to contact and request removal. Old spammy directories are the worst but I have seen a lot of spammy links recently from Theglobe and similar mega directories. It's always good to keep an eye on your backlink profile.
Note that the disavow file should always contain ALL of the links you want to disavow - you don't add and add - they should all be on one csv. Also, it's simple to 'un-disavow' a particular URL, just remove it.
I hope that helps
Regards
Nigel
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
-
Does a nofollow link from a high DA site count towards trust?
I've been checking out competitors through the 'link intersect function in my Moz account. Many have got nofollow links from high DA websites. I understand that nofollow links do not count count as a backlink, but will they add towards the trust factor?
Link Building | | ThorUK0 -
AllTop Linking Me to Other Sites Feeds, Webmasters Reporting Lots of Broken Links
I submitted my blog to All Top awhile ago and something seems to be wrong with their feed. They're sending people to mysite.com/truth-o-meter.com/this-is-a-post. It's not just truth-o-meter either. I'm getting links that are supposed to go to all kinds of political blogs. As a result, I'm getting a ton of broken links reported on Google Webmasters. I couldn't find any real support option on alltop.com, and when I log in, there are no sites for me to manage. Instead, I resubmitted the site with the correct feed address and in the comments, I mentioned the problem. All I got was a message saying the site was rejected. I believe because I already added the site. But I'm thinking they didn't pay attention to the comments. (In fact the message may have gone through an auto-filter considering how quickly it was rejected.) Is there a way to solve this? Is this a situation in which I would use the disavow tool? If All Top continues to create bad links, how do I stop the issue once and for all? Thanks!
Link Building | | eglove0 -
How can a site with no content, non SEO optimized or any value rank better?
I understand there are many more variables to rank #1, but this site is currently #1 for one of our top keywords and I really don't understand what they Competior site barely has 200 words on any given page, very few content other than images with no ALT tags, titles, No H1 tags. in other words the website is not SEO optimized. My site has content, product descriptions, images, relevant titles, and definitely more optimized than competitor. My site VS competitor Total pages: 246 (me) vs 49 (them) Page Authority: 34 vs 26 MozRank: 5.3 vs 4.5 MozTrust: 5.7 vs 5.4 Domain Authority: 22 vs 17 External Links: 65 vs 7 Internal Links 152 vs 1 Followed Links 14 vs 5 More C-Blocks 14 vs 4 Total Social Shares: 127 vs 4
Link Building | | Droidman860 -
What Should You Do About Low-Quality Press Release Syndication Sites Linking to You?
Suppose a company did a press release and linked to you in it. The press release was republished on some high quality sites but also over 50 low quality press release syndication sites from all over the world. Suppose that they used a money keyword anchor text to link to you. Would this be harmful to your site? What action would you take? Should we disavow these 50 links?
Link Building | | ProjectLabs0 -
What benefit does a site with a low DA get from someone guest posting who links to a site with a high DA?
I'm relatively new to link building and although this may be an obvious question I can't seem to find an answer anywhere even after searching Google.
Link Building | | JoshED0 -
Does it hurt your site to syndicate content on other sites?
Does publishing an article from your site on other sites hurt your site if you require a link back to your site? If website B, C, and D publish an article found site A, but they link back to site A, does that hurt or help site A?
Link Building | | nicole.healthline0