Will removing old (3 years+), low quality inbound links potentially improve my rankings?
-
I have a client site with thousands of old very low quality links purchased from directories etc over several years - I am certain these are doing nothing for the current rankings and I advised them to stop buying these links 18 months ago when I first started working with them, but do you think pro-actively getting old poor quality backlinks removed will potentially improve the site's rankings?
-
Don't do it. Very bad idea.
Consern your efforts with buildingt stronger links.
-
If you have better links to subsidise with the same money - go ahead. Otherwise leave them as they are. Link is a link, however if it looks reallys pammy than it's worth going through trouble of removal. If this was my site I would try to avoid a massive link drop and remove gradually.
-
Hi Simon,
Assuming your client's website has been around for a couple of years or more, these links will have no negative impact. Low quality links won't ever get an aged site penalised - going around and removing them would be hugely time consuming and you're better off focusing on building better quality links instead.
Good luck!
-
Fair enough - the last thing I need is another job on the list
-
No.
The sites in question would have to be in very bad standing to penalise sites they linked too and as these are just directories (or similar) they would have to actually be a recognised link farm to do this.
At worst they're going to be passing no value but can still count as a unique domain link for things like domain authority etc.
I would leave them unless you know they're actually harming you (and if they require monthly payment or similar then you could always just let them die off).
EDIT: On the other hand if you were going to be engaging in 'aggressive' link building and having these would push you over the edge (not that anyone knows where that is) in terms of having a really spammy backlink profile, then maybe.
If you're doing quality link building and getting more natural links, then I'd still leave them
-
True, some links that you can't control/communicate to get removed (scrapers) but at least you try
-
Interesting points. We are currently working on building quality links both with better content on the blog and site, also by pro-actively engaging with bloggers in the client's niche.
Some of the links do look very spammy as the client previously engaged what I'd politely call a questionable SEO firm who just bought a lot of links - this is going back a few years when it probably didn't cause the same penalty it would today, but I suspect some of these links are still hurting them a bit.
I'd love to know if anyone has actually set about removing low quality links as a tactic and seen an improvement in ranking as a result.
-
If the links have keyword rich anchor text, I would ditch them. In general you should only acquire directory links with brand as the anchor text in your link.
-
This is what I'm thinking too, FWIW. Of course, it's hard to remove links from real spammy pages since they are mostly auto-generated
-
Have you done this yourself and are talking from direct experience or is this just a "feeling"? Not bashing you, just curious because some answers like this are too easy to write what everyone assumes rather than real experiences. I'm very interested in this question too - I have a similar situation.
-
You should think more on lines of content creation and better interlinking between your pages and all. Social media is a big power today.
-
I am against this to be honest.
- True these links coming from low quality sites (and they are low quality) but the links have "Age"
- I only go back and remove links, if they look too spammy, or page looks like a link farm.
I would certainely see drop in rankings if these old Links has been removed and not being replaced with good one's
-
Hi Saibose,
Thanks for the quick reply, I'll add it to the job list as a fairly low priority.
Simon
-
You would be better off removing these low quality backlinks, but that would not reflect in rankings right away. Maybe over a period of time with targeted content and engaging people with social media and obtaining good contextual links would help in repairing your link profile.
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
-
Links from PRWeb press release violate Google's quality guidelines?
My site has had a manual action performed on it by Google indicating that I have inbound links that fall outside of their quality guidelines. I did my own research, found what I thought was the issue, had the links removed and requested reconsideration. Google's response surprised me in that they highlighted two specific pages with links that were the direct result of valid press releases and a publisher picking up our release off a wire service. Has anyone else seen this occur? Anyone had a case successfully reconsidered? I realize that I don't need to do anything at all as the manual action is in effect and will stay that way, discounting those links, but I would rather a) not have any manual action against my site and b) know for the future so this doesn't happen again. Also, is this applicable for guest blog posts, which effectively create the same type of backlinks? Thanks
Link Building | | barberm1 -
Old Links Remove or not to remove?
Hey everyone, So i have a site which I had previous seo work on over the years, none of which was successful for me. Now that I have taken over the seo work, I am analyzing my old links I have a certain amount of links from what I would see are "crappy" seo sites and I wondered if I need to try and remove them. Here are a few examples. http://seorankingsresult.com/what-to-consider-when-shopping-for-electricians-tools/ http://seoservicepackages.com/tag/electricians-tools/ How do I check if google has penalized me for these links and should I start removing them? ThanksMichelle
Link Building | | nutjobshell0 -
Someone not removing a link to our site
Hi Mozzers, We recently worked with an SEO company that bought a few sitewide links without our permission which caused us to get a huge slap by the last panda/penguin update. We managed to remove most of the links except one site (The biggest one).
Link Building | | Ouzan
He simply doesn't reply to our emails etc... What should I do in such case? Thanks.0 -
Old Non Relevant Links
I'm currently working on a project where most of the links are from irrelevant sources referring to the site of the past domain owner. My question is should I remove as many of these as possible or let them be for now. My gut tells me for every new link I build that I should attempt to remove some of the old ones but I'm not exactly sure on how to proceed with this situation. Thanks in advance for any input.
Link Building | | brandonschultz0 -
Remove Unatural Links by SEO Co.
The SEO firm we hired built 2797 links with 123 domain within two month period (March and April) when we don't know better. We received Google's warning on 3/28, and they didn't tell us anything but keep building. Well, that's history now. We learned our lesson. That's why we are a member of SEOmoz. The SEO firm is not too keen on helping us remove the link (we've discontinue the service) after one initial attempt to a few site with tons of links (performed by their Indian team). I've got advice from this Forum regarding link removal. The most suggestions we get is to remove it as many as possible and move on building good links. But, I am afraid such approach will take us years to come ahead as we are under staffed. I saw here that someone mentioned their link building firm wants to charge $10 for links removed. Based on that idea, I wonder if I should offer some monetary incentive? If so, what amount would make financial sense?
Link Building | | ypl0 -
Link exchange with nofollow bad for ranking?
Hi, I wanted to give my EMD (Exact match domain) some more links and added it to some general start pages, just as my competitors did. The disadvantage of such link sites is that you have to add a link back to them. So I created a new page in my footer "links" and added a link back to those who requested that. However, I made all links a nofollow because I don't want them to benefit from my rankings. Those sites really have nothing to do with my subject and are just interested in a link to give them some boost I guess. I'm sure not everybody like my approach, but my question is. Will those nofollow links on my page back to the ones that requested it affect my rankings?
Link Building | | severtservice
Or should I remove the nofollow? Thanks!
Dennis0 -
Inbound links from different subject websites
I have question regarding inbound links from different subject websites. We are selling home decor products on our website and getting links from different subject websites. I want to give more idea about it. I love cooking and write articles on recipes... My article will live on following website with my signature and signature will contain links to my website. http://allrecipes.com/ So, will it help to my website or not?
Link Building | | CommercePundit0 -
Different Link Titles Linking to the same page
So I'm doing a lot of link building but my question is how do search engines treat different link titles to the same page. For example, my main page is www.musillawfirm.com If I have 20 links from 20 sites linking to it as Melbourne FL DUI Lawyer and 20 more linking as Melbourne FL immigration Lawyer and More linking as Cocoa FL DUI lawyer etc... what happens? Do the search engines just rank me higher for all the terms or would it be better to always just link to separate landing pages? Thanks in advance
Link Building | | musillawfirm0