Should I literally delete all the articles I published in 2010/2011?
-
We became a charity in December and redirected everything from resistattack.com to resistattack.org. Both sites weren't up at the same time, we just switched over. However, GWT still shows the .com as a major backlinker to the .org. Why?
More importantly, our site just got hit for the first time by an "unnatural link" penalty according to GWT. Our traffic dropped 70% overnight. This appeared shortly after a friend posted a sidewide link from his site that suddenly sent 10,000 links to us. I figured that was the problem, so I asked him to remove the links (he has) and submitted a reconsideration request.
Two weeks later, Google refused, saying..
"We've reviewed your site and we still see links to your site that violate our quality 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 haven't done any "SEO link building" for two years now, but we used to publish a lot of articles to ezinearticles and isnare back in 2010/2011. They were picked up and linked from hundreds of spammy sites of course, none of which we had anything to do with. They are still being taken and new backlinks created. I just downloaded GWT latest backlinks and it's a nightmare of crappy article sites.
Should I delete everything from EZA/isnare and close my account? Or just wait longer for the 10,000 links to be crawled and removed from my friends site?
What do I need to do about the spammy article sites? Disavow tool or just ignore them?
Any other tips/tricks?
-
Thanks Carson. I deleted all my EZA/isnare/squidoo and closed the accounts. All the spam sites had taken the content published at EZA so I gathered all of them using GWT and majesticseo. After checking all of the backlinks I ended up disavowing 550 domains.
As you say, there were some good links too, and only a handful of pages that the articles linked to, so my next step is to stop them redirecting. I've also contacted all the good linkers and they are updating to the .org too.
We're getting there
Fingers crossed.. just goes to show that even something as justifiable as articles can bite you.
-
I'd hate for you to throw the baby out with the bath water - there are some good links you'd want to keep, and starting from scratch is a real pain. This is what I'd do:
-
Look at all the pages you did build artificial links to in OSE. Consider dropping (410/404 instead of 301) pages that are mostly sending artificial links.
-
Pages that you didn't build artificial links to should be fine. Continue to 301 them as you are.
-
Evaluate the pages you did build links to, and try decide which option is easier. An example would be the home page.
-
Remove the bad/article links manually. If you can't, just do your best and then disavow and resubmit.
-
Don't 301 the page (just kill it and 410 or similar), and then try to salvage any of the good links by having them changed to the .org.
There are at most 200 linking domains once you combine links from all your tools - it shouldn't be hard to see fairly quickly whether the site is a spam/article domain or a legitimate site. Also, if your friend's site is relevant there shouldn't be a problem if he links with branded (non-commercial) anchor text.
Most people only have a handfull of pages they build links to - review those and hopefully you can start over fresh with the good links you had.
-
-
Thanks. It's going to be a long weekend
-
Looking at the back links for .org, I'd think seriously about just dropping that 301 from the home page of the .com site and any other pages that have bad links going to them.
I'm not sure why OSE shows links that are pointing to the .com site as back links to the .org site. I'd go ahead and delete those accounts, since it seems all those links point to .com anyway.
I'd be working to distance myself from the .com site as much as possible.
-
Thanks Chris. The redirect from .com to .org just started in December 2012. Every page on .com was 301'd to the relevant page on .org - so after 6 months of telling google about this I'm still amazed that the .com still stays in the index.
But then, some of my top backlink domains according to GWT don't link to me any more. Google is super slow in updating it seems. One was a forum that had a link in my signature that I removed 6 months ago- still shows at #4 backlink domain.
-
180 days is the best practice for leaving a 301 in place. You could remove that redirect and that will leave all those links pointing to the .com unaffiliated with the .org site.
How did you do your 301s? page by page or did you 301 the whole domain to the .org site? There are still a few URLs left in the index for that domain
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
-
Google Bot / SEO and Cookies
Hi, I'm trying to monetise my website via a paid subscription / paid content strategy. The plan is, after the user is on the website for 1min 30secs or clicks 3 map markers or visits 3+ pages A popup will appear asking for a signup + payment Cookie will be set for 6 months, if a users returns and cookie is detected (php) they will be redirected to sign up page My site relies heavily on organic SEO, so my question is: Will google bot be presented with this sign up stuff? Does google bot set cookies? will everything be indexed properly... And what affects on SEO?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | thinkLukeSEO0 -
Our Web Site Is candere.com. Its PA and back link status are different for https://www.candere.com, http://www.candere.com, https://candere.com, and http://candere.com. Recently, we have completely move from http to https.
How can we fix it, so that we may mot lose ranking and authority.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Dhananjayukumar0 -
Why is Google ranking irrelevant / not preferred pages for keywords?
Over the past few months we have been chipping away at duplicate content issues. We know this is our biggest issue and is working against us. However, it is due to this client also owning the competitor site. Therefore, product merchandise and top level categories are highly similar, including a shared server. Our rank is suffering major for this, which we understand. However, as we make changes, and I track and perform test searches, the pages that Google ranks for keywords never seems to match or make sense, at all. For example, I search for "solid scrub tops" and it ranks the "print scrub tops" category. Or the "Men Clearance" page is ranking for keyword "Women Scrub Pants". Or, I will search for a specific brand, and it ranks a completely different brand. Has anyone else seen this behavior with duplicate content issues? Or is it an issue with some other penalty? At this point, our only option is to test something and see what impact it has, but it is difficult to do when keywords do not align with content.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lunavista-comm0 -
Best way to show content from articles I am published/featured in
Hi. I was wondering what was the best way to show my audience articles that my client is featured in. My client is specifically a surgeon, who has been referenced in many articles around his specific field of cosmetic surgery. An idea posed is to repost the entire article but just reference back to the original article. Is there an SEO friendly way of doing this? I have seen this done before, like search engine journal's author Larry Kim might repost something he wrote or published on wordstream onto search engine journal sometimes, but makes the reference that it was originally posted on wordstream. I know the standard thinking is to always just write new and unique content, but there is already a good amount written about our client and referencing his work, how can we use this to our advantage and give new or prospecting patients information regarding his credibility? Our client really does not want us to write articles for him, and he does not have the time to write them either. Again Question: How can we leverage articles and studies that have already been published online that is featuring our client and show them in full onto our own website?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Ideas-Money-Art0 -
Backlink for Old publised Article
Hi There, Suppose if a website abc.com published an article in 2014 and that article got indexed after few days as Google normally do. If we give backlink from abc.com article published in 2014 to recently published website, Is there issue if backlink given? or If the abc.com article contented updated first and then backlink is given, that would be the correct way? because updated content will re-index and at the time of re-indexing backlink will be fount by Google bot. Rajiv
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | gamesecure0 -
Should you include domain / brand in Meta Title
Hello, I am trying to come up with a strategy for creating meta title information for my eCommerce store. I have read mixed reviews on the examples below. The first includes the company / brand in the meta title and thus is included in SE results. The second does not. Probably not a 'right' answer here so I look forward to answers with rationale... also open to a completely difference strategy all together! 1MR Vortex by BPI Sports - $Company_Name OR 1MR Vortex by BPI Sports - Pre Workout Supplement Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 6thirty0 -
Google Authorship. Is there a way to check all the articles by one author?
Hey guys, Is there any search query or website where I can get a list with all the articles by one author? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Felip30 -
Can literally any site get 'burned'?
Just curious what people think. The SEOMOZ trust on my site has gone up, all while Google is dropping us in rankings for lots of keywords. Just curious if this can happen to anyone or once you are 100% 'trusted' you're good. We went from 120,000 page views down to about 50,000. All while doubling content, improving the design(at least from a user perspective), and getting more natural links. Seems counter intuitive to Google's mantra of ranking quality. I would guess 'authority' sites never get hit by these updates right? So when you make it you've made it.(at least from a dropping like a rock perspective, obviously you have to keep working). I'm guessing we just need a bunch more quality links but would hate to work on building links, quality content, trust etc for it to be something so finicky long term.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | astahl110