Can I just delete pages to get rid of bad back-links to those pages?
-
I just picked up a client who had built a large set of landing pages (1000+) and built a huge amount of spammy links to them (too many to even consider manually requesting deletion for from the respective webmasters).
We now think that google may also be seeing the 'landing pages' as 'doorway pages' as there are so many of them 1000+ and they are all optimized for specific keywords and generally pretty low quality.
Also, the client received an unnatural links found email from google. I'm going to download the links discovered by google around the date of that email and check out if there are any that look specifily bad but I'm sure it will be just one of the several thosand bad links they built. Anyway, they are now wanting to clean up their act and are considering deleting the landing/doorway pages in a hope to
a. rank better for the other non landing/doorway pages (Ie category and sub cats) but more to the crux of my question..
b. essentially get rid of all the 1000s of bad links that were built to those landing/doorway pages. - will this work? if we just remove those pages and use 404 or 410 codes will google see any inbound (external) links to those pages as basicly no longer being links to the site? or is the TLD still likely to be penilized for all the bad links coming into no longer existing URLs on it?
Also, any thoughts on whether a 404 or 410 would be better is appreciated. Some info on that here: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=64033
I guess another option is the disavow feature with google, but Matt Cutts video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=393nmCYFRtA&feature=em- kind of makes it sound like this should just be used for a few links, not 1000s...
Thanks so much!!!!
-
Thanks very much! Greatly appreciated
-
Google's official documentation says they treat 410's the same as 404's (although I've heard otherwise through the grapevine)
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/05/do-404s-hurt-my-site.html
Some other resources:
Here's where John Mueller (Google guy) says to 404/410 a page to drop a link:
https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/webmasters/glDIZyRs5bs/discussion
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=40132
-
Hi Cyrus, thanks heaps for your answer, this was very helpful! Just wondering whether you might be able to point me in the direction of Googles resources on the 'not counting links to a 410 page' issue... So I could read up on that a little more?? Thanks again!
-
Yes, Google has indicated they won't count links to a page that either 404s or 410s. Most SEOs would suggest a 410, (permanently removed)as there is some indication that Google will drop these pages out of the index faster.
After this, you might consider using GWT Remove URL feature. This would be easier if the URLs were all in the same directory, and you could wipe the entire thing out at once. But a disclaimer: even though this would speed dropping the pages from the index, I'm not sure if it would speed in dropping the links to those pages from the ranking algorythms (but one can hope, right)
After this, since you relieved an unnatural link warning, you should strongly consider filing a reconsideration request. I might wait a few weeks before doing so, to make sure the incoming links were dropped, and check Google's responses.
As you mentioned, I'd be careful about using the new disavow feature. It's so new and untested we can't really predict the results at this time.
Hope this helps! Best of luck with your SEO.
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
-
Internal Links & Possible Duplicate Content
Hello, I have a website which from February 6 is keep losing positions. I have not received any manual actions in the Search Console. However I have read the following article a few weeks ago and it look a lot with my case: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-cut-down-on-similar-content-pages-25223.html I noticed that google has remove from indexing 44 out of the 182 pages of my website. The pages that have been removed can be considered as similar like the website that is mentioned in the article above. The problem is that there are about 100 pages that are similar to these. It is about pages that describe the cabins of various cruise ships, that contain one picture and one sentence of max 10 words. So, in terms of humans this is not duplicate content but what about the engine, having in mind that sometimes that little sentence can be the same? And let’s say that I remove all these pages and present the cabin details in one page, instead of 15 for example, dynamically and that reduces that size of the website from 180 pages to 50 or so, how will this affect the SEO concerning the internal links issue? Thank you for your help.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Tz_Seo0 -
More or Less pages helps in SEO?
Hi all, I have gone through some articles where less pages are suggested and they claim that they will be favoured by Google. I'm not sure as with limited pages, we can only target limited keywords. There might be threat from Google in-terms of doorway pages for more pages. But one of our competitor has many pages like dedicated page for every keyword. And their website ranks high and good for all keywords. I can see three pages created with differnet phrases for same on keyword. If less pages are good, how come this works for our competitor? Thanks
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | vtmoz0 -
More than 450 Pages Created by a hacker
Hi Moz Community, I am in charge of the Spanish SEO for an international company, related to security. A couple of months ago, I realized that my Spanish/keywords/post all vanished from Google, Yahoo, Bing and Duckduckgo. Then I noticed that somebody in command of the main website used a disavow all! I was in shock, as all of you can imagine. Knowing that all the inbound links were spam score under 4, highly relevant and so. Later on, I was informed that the website was hacked and somebody took that action. Of course, it did not solved the issue. I continue researching and found those pages - "Online%20Games%20-%20Should%20Parents%20Worry%20Or%20Celebrate%3F" - all of them like this one. I informed the owner of the website - he is not my client - my client is the Spanish Manager. They erased the pages, of course plus sent all those, to avoid the 404 responses, to the homepage with a 301. My heart stopped at that point! I asked them to send all those with a redirect 301 to a new hidden page with nofollow and noindex directives. We recover, my keywords/pages are in the first page again. Although the DA fell 7 points and no inbound links for now. I asked for the disavow file "to rewrite it", not received yet. Any better ideas? Encountered a similar issue? How did you solved it?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Mª Verónica B.
Thanks in advance.0 -
Competitors Linking to My Site
One of the more successful competitors in my niche has embarked on new strategy that seems to be working well for him. I noticed that many new links began to appear to my site from my competitor's stable of many websites. It appears that he has setup a link wheel to benefit a site that has been in the top Google position for several months now. The rim of the wheel links back to authority sites, including my own main site (established 7 years, now hanging on to the lowly 10th place on the serp). So the strategy seems to be: a) create a dozen sites that no-follow link back to authority sites including competitors, b) place links in a such a manner (bottom of page, uncolored links, from images) that a customer is unlikely to ever click on it, c.) do-follow to your own site and blast it to the top of Google. I don't think this competitor is worried about getting penalized. I've been watching this for years. When one site gets burned, he just shifts things around and brings up another one of his sites. He seems to age them for years, calling them up one by one as they are needed. Has anyone else noticed this? Is it a trend? Because it sure seems to work. He's crowded the front page now with 4 of his sites. Would it be appropriate for me to "disavow" his links? Would it matter?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | DarrenX0 -
Are multiple links on the same domain worth pursuing?
Let's say you get a guest post on a blog that links to your site for $100. How much is the link from another guest post on the same domain worth? $90? $50? Does each additional link from the same domain lose its SEO impact? What if one blogger loves your content and is willing to post 10+ of your blog posts with links to your site in each - is that worth pursuing just from an SEO standpoint (I know it can be a good branding opportunity if the readership is right)?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | pbhatt0 -
Is Link Building Dead?
I know there are various posts about this but none of them are up to date. I am so reluctant to do any linking now as I was hurt by google algorithms (without even knowing I was doing anything bad back in April 2012). I am just overwhelmed with all the seo info out there - I have written articles, blog on my site, lots of facebook postings but I don't seem to reach people I now have someone who wants to help me get a new linking structure to get my ranking back but the whole idea scares me. He basically wants to do the following using social media platforms only to get natural links (is this a very bad idea? ANY comments will be appreciated: Proposed Plan includes 200-250 Do-Follow Themed Links to your “TARGET SITE” 50 Approved Social Bookmarking Links: - 2 articles are used to build 50 PR 3-9 do-follow links with guaranteed approvals. 25 Approved Article Submission Links: - 2 articles are used to build 25 PR 3-9 do-follow links with guaranteed approvals. 20 Approved Press Release Links: -2 articles are used to build 20 PR 3-9 do-follow links with guaranteed approvals. 50 Approved Web 2.0 Properties: - 2 articles are used to build 50 PR 3-9 do-follow links with guaranteed approvals. 30 Approved Classified Links: - 2 articles are used to build 30 PR 3-9 do-follow links with guaranteed approvals.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Llanero0 -
Strange Pingback/Blog Comment Links
On one of my sites I've noticed some strange links from Google Webmaster Tools recent links feature. They are pingbacks/blog comments but they are using keyword anchor text and linking to my site. I know we are not doing this. Should I be concerned about this possibly being negative SEO? Here's a sample (be careful, shady site)
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | eyeflow0 -
Links to partner sites
I have some partnerships in some portals, usually I put the banner of my company with a link to my site on a space partners. How should I proceed? To place the banner no link? To put the link nofollow? Can’t I do it? Don’t I need to worry about it?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | soulmktpro0