Fastest Way To Remove Footer Link? (post-Panda)
-
Hello,
I have a website with 1k+ links pointed directly to an inner page and home page from blogspot domains. There are 3 links in the footer that points to different locations.
1st anchor text points to the person who designed the page template and links to their website (this doesn't affect us)
2nd anchor text uses a direct keyword that I am trying to rank for and links to the inner page.
3rd anchor text uses my website name and links to the home page
I know that these are not good links and the content inside the pages are irrelevant to my own website. The links are embedded into the template on the footer and is site wide.I have already contacted the designer and have the links removed but those that have downloaded the templates still have the footer link.
What would be the best way to remove all these footer links? Trying to contact each individual person who is using the template is not working out as most have not responded and some of the websites have not seen an update in years! Any thoughts?
If you need additional information feel free to send me a direct message so I can send you an exact link.
-
Unfortuneatly you're in a pickle, and there aren't many good solutions.
The first thing I would ask is if you are sure these links are hurting you. Even though they may be 'bad', it's possible Google doesn't see them that way and has passed no filter or penalty.
If you determine the links are bad then basically, your options are:
- Removal
- Disavow
- 404 or 410 the URL
It's true you need to be careful when using the disavow, but if you've been hit by a penalty or think you've been hit by Penguin and have exhausted all other option, it's generally your best bet.
Cheers, Cyrus
-
Does anyone else have any other suggestions? I am really at a lost here and need help on this issue.
-
Thank you but the inner pages that are affected by these 1k+ links also have tons of good links that are pointed to it. These are blog postings dating back from 1-2 years ago from relevant websites. I fear that if I change the url and try to contact the webmaster for the "good" links to point to the new url that they will not be around.
Is there any way I can change the URL and have all incoming links get redirected to the new URL but excludes the redirection from specific domains? I do not want to ban the domains, just make them not 301 to the new URL for the inner pages.
-
I have tried sending out e-mails to all parties but have not receive a response yet. Some of the websites are more than a year old with no new updates.
I am fearful of using the disavow tool because oft this - http://www.e2msolutions.com/blog/why-should-you-not-think-about-disavowing-links-the-alternates-are-here/
Any other ideas on how I can remove these links?
-
If the inner page only has these links pointed at it, and a considerable number, you might consider recreating the page with a new url, manually outreaching to webmasters to re-point natural, editorial links.
It's difficult to shake these types of links, and so far disavow, at face value, doesn't seem to be the answer in my opinion.
-
You could try and exact match query search ( using " ) and try individually contacting all parties , if that does not sound like a feasible option you might want to consider using the link disavow tool
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
-
What is the fastest way disassociate an old URL with a new domain name?
We have a client with an old domain which was spammy (bad links). Until two months ago, it was forwarding to his current domain and (I believe) causing a penalty. Two months ago we transferred ownership of the spammy URL to a third party and setup an unrelated blog for Google to pick up on. Google did pick up on the URL. After two months Google Webmaster Tools is still showing 200 links from the old domain, to the new domain (from the spammy domain). Also, when you search the company name, the spammy domain still appears in the results (page two). Is there a faster way disassociate the old domain entirely from the business? I.e., just delete the domain, forward the domain to another website, etc.? If you have experience in this, I'd love to hear from you. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mgordon0 -
Base href + relative link href for canonical link
I have a site that in the head section we specify a base href being the domain with a trailing slash and a canonical link href being the relative link to the domain. <base <="" span="">href="http://www.domain.com/" /> href="link-to-page.html" rel="canonical" /> I know that Google recommends using an absolute path as a canonical link but is specifying a base href with a relative canonical link the same thing or is it still seen as duplicate content?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Nobody16116990439410 -
Unnatural links to your site—impacts links
I got message in my Google webmaster tool: Unnatural links to your site—impacts links Does anyone knows the difference between "Unnatural links to your site—impacts links" and "Unnatural links to your site" Thank you Sina
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SinaKashani0 -
Will Canonical tag on parameter URLs remove those URL's from Index, and preserve link juice?
My website has 43,000 pages indexed by Google. Almost all of these pages are URLs that have parameters in them, creating duplicate content. I have external links pointing to those URLs that have parameters in them. If I add the canonical tag to these parameter URLs, will that remove those pages from the Google index, or do I need to do something more to remove those pages from the index? Ex: www.website.com/boats/show/tuna-fishing/?TID=shkfsvdi_dc%ficol (has link pointing here)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | partnerf
www.website.com/boats/show/tuna-fishing/ (canonical URL) Thanks for your help. Rob0 -
Dummy links in posts
Hi, Dummy links in posts. We use 100's of sample/example lnks as below http://<domain name></domain name> http://localhost http://192.168.1.1 http:/some site name as example which is not available/sample.html many more is there any tag we can use to show its a sample and not a link and while we scan pages to find broken links they are skipped and not reported as 404 etc? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mtthompsons0 -
Do I even bother to remove links
Hi, I'm noticing increasing numbers of scraped directory links pointing back to the websites I manage. Much of this info appears to be scraped from a well known (and respected) directory. I don't build links to an of the websites I manage - and none have more than 200 linking root domains currently - not that many. The problem is I focus on quality links and the scraped links are incredibly weak on the whole. Diluting the quality links. I've noticed a certain paranoia in the SEO community about removing / disavowing links, and yet I'm tempted to ignore the rubbish (unless part of a major negative SEO push) and just get on with the job, focusing on quality content that drives natural links, and social media work.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | McTaggart0 -
Cross linking between categories
Is it useful for SEO to cross link between TOP level categories, let's say I have a Home page and then 2 sub categories, one about green widgets one about red widgets
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics
Should i create a link from the green widget to the red widget or should I leave those are separate silos ? I know that within a silo i need to cross link ( from green widget 1 to green widget 2 etc... ) but how about about from the main category to the other main category ?0 -
Do I have any harmful links? If so, what should I do?
URL in question: www.nasserilegal.com/criminal.html I'm using OSE and see some questionable backlinks. At first glance, if you look at the page authority and domain authority, they look great. Once you go to the actual pages, they look spammy. If the links are hurting the rankings for the site, should I try to remove the links manually or just ignore and continue to build good quality links or even build a new site? I noticed for the last couple of weeks, the rankings started to slip. Thanks in Advance, Lucas
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | micasalucasa0