Spam Score & Redirecting Inbound Links
-
Hi,
I recently downloaded a spreadsheet of inbound links to my client sites and am trying to 301 redirect the ones that are formatted incorrectly or just bad links in general (they all link to the site domain, but they used to have differently formatted urls on their old site, or the link URL in general has strange stuff on it).
My question is, should I even bother redirecting these links if their spam score is a little high (i.e. 20-40%)? it already links to the existing domain, just with a differently formatted URL. I just want to make sure it goes to a valid URL on the site, but I don't want to redirect to a valid URL if it's going to harm the client's SEO. Also not sure what to do about the links with the --% spam score.
I really appreciate any input as I don't have a lot of experience with how to deal with spammy links.
-
Hi Ali,
Yeah, I would agree that it is a spammy site. When I tried visiting it, I went through a lot of redirects and ended up on some random page. I would disavow the domain and still implement 301 redirects.
-
Hi Mazen,
Thank you so much for your reply.
Here's an example of a domain with a 43% spam score: 123coolpictures.com. The DA is 26 though. Still seems like a spammy site?
-
Hi,
A spam score of 20%-40% doesn't necessarily mean that the backlink is bad/spammy. It's only an indication - you can read more about MOZ's spam score calculation here.
I would strongly advise implementing 301 redirects because the old URL can have more valuable backlinks that you still can't see. As good as MOZ's crawler is, it won't pick up everything Google does.
If you're worried about a certain link being spammy, I would go visit it and see what kind of website/page it's sitting on and if it does turn out to be pure spam, you can Disavow that link from Google Search Console. Otherwise, I'd keep the link.
Hope that helps!
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
-
How to Reduce the spam score of the website?
Hello, My Website Spam Score is 60. how can I reduce the spam score of the website. plz give me suggestion
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | jyhkgkkkkkhkjgj0 -
Footer images links, good or bad?
Hi everybody! I have a very serius question because i have a problem with this. We run a website of voucher codes and we are looking that our rivals are putting their logos on footers of online stores with images, sometimes link to home, sometimes link to store within webpage. Should i ask for the same to online stores? I have scary to get a penalty by Google. Please help me with this and recommend me something because we are doing fair play but rivals are doing this and they get best results in SERPS. Thanks very much! Best regards!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | pompero990 -
Better ranking competitors have paid links from blog pages
I have a trial of all the tools at the moment and it's a lot of fun. I have been delving into site explorer and found that some competitors have links to them from obvious seo promoting paid blog sites. One has no other links except a paid for blog from a site that openly admits it offers paid marketing and they shot up to 4th on page one for a main keyword phrase. The info from moz and matt cuts video's say not to do this, but it's so tempting. The blog is well written, while I sit here and do the right thing, my competitors have page one. If the blog is well written and is meaningful is it OK and if google ever decide it's paid and don't like it, wouldn't it be better to be page one for 6 months and then recover? I'd love to give the link to the seo, blogger thingy but don't want to come across as promoting it in any way. I am sure there are loads of them anyway.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Peter24680 -
2 Questions about 301 Redirects
So I have a couple of questions about 301 redirects: Do Google penalties EVER pass through a 301? I've done 20+ domain 301s in the last year and have yet to see it happen, but the other day I read a an article (or maybe it was a QA post?) that suggested doing 302s to avoid transferring penalties. Has anyone seen any authoritative information regarding this? I 301'd a domain in February that another SEO firm had built a lot of spammy links and I began building contextual links for it at a very slow rate (like 10 or so a month). Within a month, my domain authority was a 26 on the new domain and my inbound links were non existent. By month 2, my links were 70k and domain authority was 34. By month 3, down to 25k inbound links and domain authority of 29, where it has settled for the last 3 months despite some really high quality links. My question (don't worry it's coming), is does anyone have any clue why my links shot up so quickly and then dropped? I'm assuming the 301 links kicked in and then only about 45% ended up 'sticking'?? Thanks in advance
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BrianJGomez0 -
Spam linking site how to report
I have a spam linking site that is generation thousans of links to my site. Even if i have a good link background, this is the only spammy i have, each week number of links comings from it increases by 500 , i know have 3000 links for that site and 1800 for other sites, but that one keeps growing What should i do, i dont want that link it is imposible to remove as webmaster does not respond
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | maestrosonrisas0 -
Google Sitemaps & punishment for bad URLS?
Hoping y'all have some input here. This is along story, but I'll boil it down: Site X bought the url of Site Y. 301 redirects were added to direct traffic (and help transfer linkjuice) from urls in Site X to relevant urls in Site Y, but 2 days before a "change of address" notice was submitted in Google Webmaster Tools, an auto-generating sitemap somehow applied urls from Site Y to the sitemap of Site X, so essentially the sitemap contained urls that were not the url of Site X. Is there any documentation out there that Google would punish Site X for having essentially unrelated urls in its sitemap by downgrading organic search rankings because it may view that mistake as black hat (or otherwise evil) tactics? I suspect this because the site continues to rank well organically in Yahoo & Bing, yet is nonexistent on Google suddenly. Thoughts?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | RUNNERagency0 -
Infographic submission sites potentially offering paid links....
Good Morning/Afternoon fellow Mozzers, I recently created an infographic and am now looking to get it distributed via as many publications as possible. I discovered some great sites with collections of infographics.However I have discovered a multitude of sites offering to review and feature the infographic, or "express" submissions so the graphic features faster for a price..... links below. http://www.amazinginfographics.com/submit-infographics/ http://infographicjournal.com/submit-infographics/ 2 questions 1. Is this considered as buying links? My instincts say Yes. 2. Some sites offer mix of free and "express" paid submissions. If the answer to Q.1 is yes, should I avoid them all together even if my graphic gets picked up free? Thanks in advance for the feedback.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | RobertChapman0 -
New website :301 redirection of a established domain
Hello , I am launching a new website which would host user generated content . Based on my brandname i have purchased a new domain . In order to improve SEO rankings i was considering to purchase a good quality domain (have gr8 link backs) and then perform 301 redirection of the domain to the new brandname.co.in domain . Does this work ? Is there any harm in doing this ? . Does the Link juice pass naturally ? Warm Rgd
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | ShoutOut0