Links from local.com after Penguin
-
I have been doing some research on where some competing links are getting their links from and I see that a decent number seem to be getting some juice from local.com.
My question is- have the panda & penguin updates rendered these useless- or even worse can links from directories like this now harm my SEO?
-
@AWCthreads: given how hugely damaging it would be to local.com to fess up to getting penalized, I'm guessing your chances of a straight answer from them are slim. Agree, though, that going to the parent newspaper would be a good possible route.
For everyone, an example of the kind of directory we're talking about is here: http://directory.journal-advocate.com/alexandria+va.z.html
-
Hi Peter. Thanks for weighing in. Please let us know if you find something definitive.
I've still not heard back from local.com and have not tried in a couple of days. I'm curious if I can handle this at the news station/ newspaper level. Perhaps those outlets have some influence on how the content is fed.
-
We're doing similar research on behalf of a friend who was hit hard by Penguin. A prior SEO had run a link building program that resulted in more than 50% of their total links coming from various repeats of the local.com directory. We're unable to pinpoint anything else that would have caused a precipitous fall in rankings. We've tried some other searches of the local.com directories using the methodology someone on SEOmoz suggested (i.e. searching for exact title tags) and those searches would indicate that local.com was, in fact, penalized.
On the surface, local.com would not appear to be one of the cheesy directories that Penguin aims to devalue, but I'm wondering if that fact that the content gets duplicated so many times (as a directory for multiple newspaper sites) might be part of its devaluation. A service business in North Carolina that shows up in a local directory in Oregon isn't really a quality directory.
We're still in the hunt but have growing conviction that local.com got hit.
-
A timely question. We've got a bunch of local.com backlinks that just showed up. All are no followed and the anchor text is "website." How nice.
Our domain authority dropped a couple of points (perhaps associated with this - who knows), so I called local.com several times about the backlinks. Still haven't heard from them.
I don't know if Google frowns on a littany of no followed backlinks from local.com with a bunch of spammy looking anchor text, but apparently, SEOmoz frowns on it.
My intent is to ask local.com if they can at least use our store name for anchor text. If they can't, I'd just as soon they give us 2 or 3 no followed links with our store name in the anchor text.
If they can't do that, then I'd be fine if they just get rid of the backlinks altogether. If they're going to give me some directory love, do it right. If they're not going to do it right, don't do it.
-
Matt Cutts recomened local or relevant directories, so i would not be concerned
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
-
What is the process of link earning to avoid link building?
Hi All, I want process to earning links for new SEO 2014. Can anybody explain? Thanks, Akhilesh
Link Building | | dotlineseo0 -
Is providing a paid scholarship to schools and receiving a back link, classed as a paid link scheme?
I've always wondered if it is classed as paid links in Google's eyes?
Link Building | | ResumeGenius0 -
Links in product UI
We have a SaaS product that places a UI on our clients' websites. The UI often includes a link back to us. Think Live Chat (it's not, but the idea is similar) where the chat UI has a link "Live Chat by CompanyA". But our solution is not hosted - it's part of our customers' page. Our customers are big, enterprise companies (e.g., American Express). Does this provide any value in terms of inbound linking? Would it introduce Penguin risk to have the product name as an anchor text link (think "Live Chat by CompanyA" with Live Chat as the link)? Are there considerations I should think about? We're updating our standard UI, so it's a good time to make sure our SEO strategies are sound here.
Link Building | | mbrusyo0 -
Root Domain Link for Affiliate's Link
It seems my affiliate link: http://www.hrmsplugins.com?partners=21 is not being considered as a "root domain" backlink when this link is used on their website. Is there a reason for this?
Link Building | | delphia0 -
How to beat This with Links?
Hello, So i am trying to beat this website gujratdetectives.com/ with a new website which has no backlinks as of now.
Link Building | | hardik_hrc
Now, I checked in open explorer that this site has many moderate level links. No high authority links but the problem is these links they all have title as the search keyword "detective in Gujarat" so maybe this is why this site rests on the top of this search keyword. So if building authority links into a different domain(Not detective related) with very high PR but WITHOUT title of relevancy. Anchor text would be the keyword but not the title of page. So the question is will those authority sites beat this gujratdetectives.com/ ???0 -
Link building monitor
Hi i am trying to find a good link building monitoring tool, all the ones I have looked at are terrible. Basically i want to import my list of links so they can be monitored then emailed when failing. Can anyone suggest one they have used?
Link Building | | TomBarker820 -
Do links from a Tumblr blog count as inbound links?
That's it. I'm thinking of making a Tumblre blog (s) for inbound links. Is it worthwhile?
Link Building | | Spreader73760