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.
What tools/techniques you use to check if a domain has been penalized?
-
If we think to buy expired or otherwise dropped domains, what tools or techniques you would recommend to check if there has bad SEO history?
We could of course, check with Google itself if the site is indexed and ranks, but I am asking if there is a particular tool out there that would provide more information if a website had been shady.
Thanks so much, guys!
Lily
-
Thanks Lily.
Redirecting old sites is unlikely to give you a rankings boost, especially if they have changed hands and have expired / dropped. You really need to buy them before they expire and don't change two many details.
Think about seomoz.com to moz.com - all the link juice have been transfered, and so it should, its just a rebrand, same servers, so owners, etc. But if they brought so ramdon site and redirect do they deserve the link juice? No, and google doesn't think so either.
-
That's a great explanation, Julian! Thanks for adding up.
Yes, the main idea is to redirect them at some point, that's why I want to be 100% sure they won't harm the rankings.
Lily
-
What are you trying to achieve by buying dropped domains? Are you planning to redirect them to your own sites for link juice? If you do that be very careful, there are lot better ways to get link juice.
To check a domain I would:
- search on google for the website name, e.g. "seomoz" does it rank? (doesnt too much if it doesnt the keyword might be competitive)
- search for the url, e.g. seomoz.com if it doesnt rank number 1 for this i would walk away
- does it have sitelinks under the domain name, if yes thats a good sign
- grab some text from the site and search for it (ensure you are using a clear browser, e.g. no cookie history, so personalised search doesn't kick in), if its a couple of sentences it should rank for that
- grab a few meta titles and search for them, if they dont rank for the complete title there could be a problem
- does the site have page rank - a red flag if it doesnt
- ask the site owner for the last years analytics traffic, the overall traffic graph would be fine
- look at its moz rank, does it seem to match how it ranks, e.g. if very high moz rank but not ranking for the site name there could be a problem
that should do it.
-
-
I was looking more for how to spot shady link profile. A tool for that. Anyway, I guess there isn't such tool. Thanks, guys!
-
Yes, they are for email spam blacklist.
-
These appear to be tools to check if the site has been black listed for email spam. While it's good to check for when buying a domain, it won't tell you if Google has penalised the site.
-
Here are a couple:
If you also want to check if email was blacklisted:
-
Is there a site on the domain at the moment, or has there been one recently?
If there is you could see how well indexed it is (site: command), see if it ranks for it's own brand terms, and even moderately competitive terms.
You can also run the site through opensiteexplorer and see how dodgy the external link profile is.
-
That was a great idea for checking on traffic behavior compared to the algorithm updates! Thanks, David.
However I am asking if I do not have access to Analytics and GWT. If the domain is expiring and I consider buying it. Any ideas for that scenario?
Lily
-
One of the most obvious ways is to compare organic search traffic to the dates new algorithms go live. Checkout the Google Algorithm Change History page. There is even a chrome plugin called Chartelligence that overlays the algorithm change dates over your traffic data.
Also checkout webmaster tools for messages for unnatural link warnings from Googs themselves.
Hope that helps!
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
-
Best way to check/find lost links?
Hi all As everyone, we have seen a decrease of domain authority and external links during the last months. with open site Rand is explaining the reason in this in this post, but I still would like to have a look to the links that in theory I have lost during the last months. I thought Majestic was the best option but I have been trying to get the info and I see nothing clear. When I download the fresh or history links, I only see links that are live (in theory, because in history I get a lot not existing but I can not see it without a manual check). The option of lost links is just giving me 1000 links per day, but after downloading some and checking I see that this lost link report is showing me links that are working (but it looks that majestic couldn't access when they did the crawling and show them as lost). Also the numbers of lost links are totally different if you use fresh or historic... Anyone could recommend me a good way to find out links that I really lost? Thanks
Link Building | | AutoEurope1 -
Would you consider these domains spammy or at risk for penguin penalty?
I'm doing a bit of competitor backlink auditing and am curious how you view these domains? I also am doing this for others as a comparison and growing reference maybe of domains that they can crosscheck with their own backlink profile and make sure these aren't on there, in preparation for penguin algo release to core. Either chime in with known domains to be spam, and I will create a live list based on answers here. Domain Domain Rating directoryworld.net 64
Link Building | | Deacyde
prlog.ru 60
torchbrowser.com 60
jzip.com 58
localbiznetwork.com 58
gimpsy.com 54
pageonepower.com 52
nashvillelife.com 49
2thetopdesign.com 49
seocounsel.com 48
healthywealthyaffiliate.com 48
hollinslegal.com 48 On a working Disavow list either in root domain or extended url form seocourt.com
wldirectory.com
onpaco.com
lostdirectory.com
ligginit.comligginit.com
alivedir.net
tiptopdirectory.com
onemilliondirectory.com
submittolinkdirectory.com I've read that sitewide footer links even from parent company sites will only count as one, regardless of how many links they have, I was wondering if that was true as well?0 -
Using Schema markup for backlinks
Hi, Is there any benefits for using schema markup for backlinks. Using for Article directory submission,Drupal Submission etc.. mUz1umK.png?1
Link Building | | ruddyhapiq0 -
Is www.indexkings.com safe to use?
Does anyone know if www.indexkings.com is a safe site to use to index a url in the eyes of Google?
Link Building | | SEOQuest720 -
Blog. vs /Blog
I need to be able to explain to a client the difference from an SEO perspective between Blog. vs /Blog. www.website.com/Blog vs Blog.website.com The client wants to know which one will help there website with SEO. I belive both will but /Blog will more. I'm looking for a tangible answer only centered around this subject. Thanks,
Link Building | | cfield_splashmedia.com0 -
Unique Domains vs. Total Links?
At what point is there diminishing returns from getting multiple links from one website? Edit: To clarify, when doing competitor research I come across lots of sites that have say 500 linking domains with 5000 total links. When setting goals and calculating the types of links I should go after, I'm not certain which number is the one actually helping the site to rank.
Link Building | | ErikDster0 -
It is ok to link together multiple domains on the same ip?
I have multiple domains (more than 50) in the same niche. All domains are on the same ip. It is ok to link them together, or to create a piramid link between them?
Link Building | | maldiniii0