Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Disavow - Broken links
-
I have a client who dealt with an SEO that created not great links for their site.
When I drilled down in opensiteexplorer there are quite a few links where the sites do not exist anymore - so I thought I could test out Disavow out on them .. maybe just about 6 - then we are building good quality links to try and tackle this problem with a more positive approach.
I just wondered what the consensus was?
-
Thanks everyone.
Well this is an example http://www.hotmarketable4you.com/SpecialReports/PRE30141.html
I had checked lots of these links maybe 2 weeks ago and then had (poor) content on them - but now all seem to be broken so i suspect was a link farm.
And Mike - was more irrelevant rather than "bad" content
Think I'll build links over next few weeks and then evaluate where we are then - hopefully rankings will start to improve
-
I think that the better tactic would be to create new content for those broken links. Unless these links are located on a very bad domain (link farm, etc.), I would just create a new page.
Be careful before you start messing with the disavow tool. The only time I would use the disavow tool is if the link is obviously bad. Like obviously obviously bad (if that makes sense). Many people assume that their ranking tanked because of some algo update and start disavowing links without really checking into it. Just be careful before using that tool and research the hell out of the link before you throw it away.
Here is a good article that gives you the Do's and Don't of using the Disavow tool.
http://www.portent.com/blog/seo/google-disavow-links-tool-best-practices.htm
Good luck!
-
I think if the links are broken and Google has been made aware of such, ie it has recrawled and cached the page (simply add "cache:" in front of the URL for the last cache copy - if the URL itself is broken, check if it is still indexed in Google), then it would know that the link has been broken and shouldn't count it.
If that's the case, I don't think the disavow would have any benefit, unless of course if the link were to return, which could be a possibility.
If the page is cached and that cached version has got the broken version = no worries.
If the URL is broken and the page is no longer indexed = no worries.
If the URL is broken and still indexed = check to see if any other links point to that URL (including the URLs site navigation and/or sitemap, if applicable. If not, should deindex soon. If there are links, I'd disavow.
Just my two pennies, hope it helps!
-
links that don't exist or links to pages that don't exist?
..heck, either way i'd ignore them and focus on phase 2 of your plan. Disavow seems to be a bit overused in my opinion. It's more of a last-ditch effort for penalty recovery IMHO.
and if it's 404 errors you're trying to fix: Google will eventually stop following those after they 404 long enough. Don't even worry about it. (unless they're links you want, then put a relevant redirect in place.)
Hope this was helpful.
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
-
Too many dofollow links = penalty?
Hi. I currently have 150 backlinks, 90% of them are dofollow, while only 10% are nofollow. I recently hit position #10 for my main keyword, but now it is dropped to #16 and a lot of related keywords are gone. So I have a few questions: 1. Was my website penalized for having an unnatural backlink profile (too many dofollow links), or maybe this drop in positions is just a temporary, natural thing? 2. Isn’t it too late for making the backlink profile look more natural by building more nofollow backlinks and making it 50%/50%? Thank you!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | NathalieBr0 -
Dealing with links to your domain that the previous owner set up
Hey everyone, I rebranded my company at the end of last year from a name that was fairly unique but sounded like I cleaned headstones instead of building websites. I opted for a name that I liked, it reflected my heritage - however it also seems to be quite common. Anyway, I registered the domain name as it was available as the previous owner's company had been wound up. It's only been in the last week or two where I've managed to have a website on that domain and I've been tracking it's progress through Moz, Google & Bing Webmaster tools. Both the webmaster tools are reporting back that my site triggers 404 errors for some specific links. However, I don't have or have never used those links before. I think the previous owner might have created the links before he went bust. My question is in two parts. The first part is how do I find out what websites are linking to me with these broken URL's, and the second is will these 404'ing links affect my SEO? Thanks!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | mickburkesnr0 -
Footer Link in International Parent Company Websites Causing Penalty?
Still waiting to look at the analytics for the timeframe, but we do know that the top keyword dropped on or about April 23, 2012 from the #1 ranking in Google - something they had held for years, and traffic dropped over 15% that month and further slips since. Just looked at Google Webmaster Tools and see over 2.3MM backlinks from "sister" compainies from their footers. One has over 700,000, the rest about 50,000 on average and all going to the home page, and all using the same anchor text, which is both a branded keyword, as well as a generic keyword, the same one they ranked #1 for. They are all "nofollows" but we are trying to confirm if the nofollow was before or after they got hit, but regardless, Google has found them. To also add, most of sites are from their international sites, so .de, .pl, .es, .nl and other Eurpean country extensions. Of course based on this, I would assume the footer links and timing, was result of the Penguin update and spam. The one issue, is that the other US "sister" companies listed in the same footer, did not see a drop, in fact some had increase traffic. And one of them has the same issue with the brand name, where it is both a brand name and a generic keyword. The only note that I will make about any of the other domains is that they do not drive the traffic this one used to. There is at least a 100,000+ visitor difference among the main site, and this additional sister sites also listed in the footer. I think I'm on the right track with the footer links, even though the other sites that have the same footer links do not seem to be suffering as much, but wanted to see if anyone else had a different opinion or theory. Thanks!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | LeverSEO
Jen Davis0 -
What means a back door link. Please explain and I will give you credit
Some one is asking me to do a back door link to each other, what dose it mean?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Joseph-Green-SEO0 -
Cross linking websites of the same company, is it a good idea
As a user I think it is beneficial because those websites are segmented to answer to each customer needs, so I wonder if I should continue to do it or avoid it as much as possible if it damages rankings...
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | mcany0 -
Is it worth getting links from .blogspot.com and .wordpress.com?
Our niche ecommerce site has only one thing going for it: We have numerous opportunities on a weekly basis to get reviews from "mom bloggers". We need links - our domain authority is depressing. My concern is that these "mom bloggers" tend to have blogs that end with .blogspot.com or .wordpress.com. How do I screen for "reviewers" that are worth getting links from and how can I make the most of the community we have available to us?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Wilkerson1 -
Why would links that were deleted by me 3 months ago still show up in reports?
I inadvertently created a mini link farm some time back by linking all of my parked domains (2000 plus) to some of my live websites (I was green and didn't think linking between the same owner sites / domains was an issue). These websites were doing well until Penguin and although I did not get any 'bad link' advices from Google I figure I was hit by Penguin. So about 3 or 4 months ago I painstakingly deleted ALL links from all of those domains that I still own (only 500 or so - the others were allowed to lapse). None of those domains have any links linking out at all but old links from those domains are still showing up in WMT and in SEOmoz and every other link tracking report I have run. So why would these links still be reported? How long do old links stay in the internet archives? This may sound like a strange question but do links 'remain with a domain for a given period of time regardless'? Are links archived before being 'thrown out' of the web. I know Google keeps archives of data that has expired, been deleted, website closed etc, etc for about 3 years or so (?). In an effort to correct a situation I have spent countless hours manually deleting thousands of links but they won't go away. Looking for some insight here please. cheers, Mike
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | shags380
