Should I report unnatural links via Webmasters?
-
We have a client who fired their last SEO firm for backlinking. The company has the actual emails and evidence that it found. On July 19, 2012, they received a notice in Webmasters that "unnatural links" had been detected to their site. The notice states that they should request reinclusion, but Matt Cutts is saying something different:
https://plus.google.com/u/3/109412257237874861202/posts/gik49G9c5LU
My client wants to ensure that they are NOT impacted, so should they notify Google anyways?
The notice in Webmasters reads:
Dear site owner or webmaster of….
We’ve detected that some of your site’s pages may be using techniques that are outside Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.
Specifically, look for possibly artificial or unnatural links pointing to your site that could be intended to manipulate PageRank. Examples of unnatural linking could include buying links to pass PageRank or participating in link schemes.
We encourage you to make changes to your site so that it meets our quality guidelines. Once you’ve made these changes, please submit your site for reconsideration in Google’s search results.
If you find unnatural links to your site that you are unable to control or remove, please provide the details in your reconsideration request.
If you have any questions about how to resolve this issue, please see our Webmaster Help Forum for support.
Sincerely, Google Search Quality Team
-
We do not see any penalties at this point.
-
Has the site been penalized or no? If not don't report anything. If yes then you need to clean it up and file for reconsideration, don't just assume that Google will lift the penalty you need to be pro-active.
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
-
Reasonable to Ask URL of Link from SEO Providing New Links before Link Activation?
My firm has hired an SEO to create links to our site. We asked the SEO to provide a list of domains that they are targeting for potential links. The SEO did not agree to this request on the grounds that the list is their unique intellectual property. Alternatively I asked the SEO to provide the URL that will be linking to our site before the link is activated. The SEO did not agree to this. However, they did say we could provide comments afterwards so they could tweak their efforts when the next 4-5 links are obtained next month. The SEO is adamant that the links will not be spam. For whatever it is worth the SEO was highly recommended. I am an end user; the owner and operator of a commercial real estate site, not an SEO or marketing professional. Is this protectiveness over process and data typical of link building providers? I want to be fair with the provider and hope I will be working with them a long time, however I want to ensure I receive high quality links. Should I be concerned? Thanks,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingalan1
Alan0 -
Benefit of internal link in content
Hi, Is there a real benefit to having internal links in content other than at the bottom of a page for example and not surrounded by content. Would the benefit be 1 to 10 or 1 to 1.5 ? Thank you,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics0 -
Unnatural Links Warning Disappeared from Search Console Account
Hello all, In 2013 I had an Unnatural Links Warning message in my GWT account. I believe that it was a result of the work of an old SEO company. When I received the warning I was working with an SEO. He helped me clean up some links. He also uploaded a disavow file for me. He did not file a reconsideration request. He told me that it was not necessary at the time. The message disappeared from my account. A few months ago a similar message appeared in the manual accounts section of my account. I gathered inbound links from GWT, Majestic, etc. I went through them myself and tried to contact lots and lots of webmasters. I got many links cleaned up. I spent several months on this project. I just logged into my Search Console account this afternoon and clicked through everything and guess what... that manual penalty message is gone. So... what does that mean? I assume that I should still upload the disavow file for the sites that did not respond to me that are spammy. Should I still try to file a reconsideration request even though there doesn't seem to be a manual penalty? How should I proceed? Thanks. Melissa
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | pajamalady0 -
Link Audit - Sponsor/Partners Images Links
Hi everyone, 1. I'm conducting a link audit and read that if you are a sponsor or partner of a company, links should be nofollowed. I always no follow them if they are money keywords, but branded I leave alone. is that a good strategy? Or do i nofollow my brand name as well? 2. What if I'm a sponsor and have my company logo on their website that links to my website? How would i know if that link should be nofollowed? a. Does it depend on the "alt" of the image? b. Does it depend on the landing page of the link of the image? c. Do i just no follow image links from sponsor pages and partner pages as a whole? Please keep in mind that I'm sponsoring websites that are relevant to my niche. PLEASE HELP!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Shawn1240 -
Why would my ip address show up in my webmaster tools links?
I am showing thousands of links from my servers ip address. What would cause that?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EcommerceSite0 -
Do banners pass link juice
Hello there, If we place an animated gif banner on a website will this pass link juice in the same way as if we just had a link? Obviously the website would need to be "Follow" Thanks Robert
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | roberthseo0 -
Simple Link Question
Hi Guys, I will appreciate if you answer 1 small question..... Will our site benefit from that link?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Webdeal
Valuable website related to our business ---nofollow link--> PDF Doc(on second site) ---link to our site ---> Kind Regards,
webdeal0 -
Not sure if I should disavow these links or not
I am on the marketing team for CandyGalaxy.com we are an online candy store that specializes in bulk candy for events. Were just about a year and a half old and i'm running into some SEO strategy road blocks lately. When we started the company we used an oversee's seo company. For the first few months results were great then things took a massive dive as google began rolling out updates early and mid last year. After that point we started taking things in house and have been trying to create content and begin content marketing. We launched a blog @ blog.candygalaxy.com and also launched and educational resource at candybuffet101.com - However the question i'm up against now is what to do with those bad old links? Are they actually hurting us? Or just neutral? I'm also trying to decided what to do about the links in my footer? We put those there because those are truly our most popular products and we wanted customers to have easy access, but are those links potentially harmful? I'm questioning these issues because I feel like there is something holding back some of my pages from ranking. For example "blue candy" is a very popular section of our website. We have worked on a lot of content for the blog related to blue candy, made videos, photo shoots ect. We have customer reviews on page and unique category content. According to open site explorer our DA and PA are around the range of most of the sites in the 8-12 serp position. But we have more social activity then all but the top 2-3 spots. However the page almost impossible to find via search. Its not in the first 300 results and surely the page is more relevant then an entry about quilts.. Similar situations like this have led me to think that maybe there is a technical underlying issues that I have not addressed. ? The content is definitely there because if i type in a line from the content directly to google it is the first result. So the site seems indexed properly.. Would love to hear any feedback from similar experiences or ideas. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Jonathan_Murrell0