Cutting off the bad link juice
-
Hello,
I have noticed that there is plenty of old low quality links linking to many of the landing pages. I would like to cut them off and start again. Would it be ok to do the following?:
1. create new URLs (domain is quite string and new pages are ranking good and better than the affected old landing pages) and add the old content there
2. 302 redirect old landing pages to the new ones
3. put "no index" tag on the old URLs (maybe even "no index no follow"?)or it wouldn't work?
Thanks in advance
-
Hello all,
Thank you for your answers,
Oleg, I am not that keen on meta refresh, as it is poor user experience - apparently it needs to be about 10 sec, as shorter time G. may treat as 301. Wonder what is the shortest time I can use which will lose the link juice but wouldn't disturb my visitors.
Gagan, in regards to 301 redirecting the bad page to 404 page..isn't that easier just to make it 404 without redirect?
Mike, what do you think is the best solution to keep the traffic but cut off bad links to specific landing pages.
I will be testing 302 soon from old URL to new one. Wonder if I ALSO should put 404 on the old one...or maybe no index...or it doesn't matter? What are your thoughts?
-
Does it seems perfectly okay to make the site page (linked by spam links) to have 301 redirect to show 404 error page
As if its a CMS system where many other pages are linked through other subcategories too of the component, so the option of cutting down the bad page, which is hurt by low quality links is through 301 redirect to land to 404 error page. Will it diminish or rather make completely off the value of all spam links pointing to it and finally does not affect the site at all.
-
Upon further research, you are correct. A noindexed page is still crawled and indexed, just not in SERPs. So any links will still be followed and the page is still a part of the website. With this in mind, I think you should 404 the page and redirect via meta refresh after some time. Reach out to the webmaster's of the good links and ask them to change the new URL.
I still don't think a 302 is the way to go in this scenario. Ideally, you'd experiment with different options and see which produces the best results.
-
Personally I would go with Oleg's original suggestion: "If your rankings are being hurt by these links, I would move them to a new URL and 404 the old page. I would then go through the link profile for the old URLs. Find all the high quality links and contact the webmasters asking to change it to the new URLs."
-
Sure, But Oleg said, "If you noindex the page, G won't be able to access it and it will lose all its authority".
If in case the page loses all its authority - does it still will pass on the negative value to the domain or other pages due to low authority or spam backlinks pointing to it
If its true, then may be making the page cut off from site by marking it 404 is a better way !!
-
NoIndex won't cut the links. It will just remove the page from the SERPs. So you'll still be hit with the bad links to your site and organic traffic will be cut off.
-
Sure, thanks
Does it mean if we noindex it - can it be safely presumed that all the low quality links pointing to that url will be nullified and it will not have any negative effect to the site. I mean there wont be any need for making the page 404, if we still use that page as regular part of the site, like for filling forms etc.
Many thanks, once again for your detailed reply
-
So his goal is the have users redirect to the new page without having Google pass the link authority to the new URL.
If you noindex the page, G won't be able to access it and it will lose all its authority. But any user that visits the page will still be redirected to the new url. There is no such thing as a 404 redirect.
Meta refresh is another way to redirect users to a new page without passing authority. As long as the time is greater than 0 (meta refresh of time=0 is treated similar to a 301), it shouldn't pass authority. So same deal, noindex the page and set up a redirect for users, not bots.
-
Hello Oleg,
Am also interested in knowing more about it
Does marking a noindex, follow or noindex, nofollow to that page is a better way than 404 redirect ?
Also, i dint get you for meta refresh redirect. What does it mean like ?
-
302 by definition is "Temporary Redirect", which is not applicable here. According to this 302 experiment, 302's did actually pass some authority down (which may or may not hurt you). I do see the UX advantage to having the old URL redirect to the new page though.
Another alternative is to block the page via robots and set up a redirect or noindex the page and set a timed meta refresh redirect to the new page.
-
Thank you Oleg,
I have checked and have a few .gov.uk links going to some of those pages which generates some traffic, so not sure if 404 on them is the suitable in the situation.
On the other hand why 404 is better than 302? They both stop link juice passing but 302 passes the traffic.
-
If your rankings are being hurt by these links, I would move them to a new URL and 404 the old page. I would then go through the link profile for the old URLs. Find all the high quality links and contact the webmasters asking to change it to the new URLs.
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
-
Which is Important? Backlinks or Internal Links? For SEO purpose.
Which is Important? Backlinks or Internal Links? For SEO purpose.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BBT-Digital0 -
How many links can you have on sitemap.html
we have a lot of pages that we want to create crawlable paths to. How many links are able to be crawled on 1 page for sitemap.html
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | imjonny0 -
How to dismantle a link building scheme?
My team performs SEO only in the real estate space. While doing some research recently we came across a semi-elaborate link building scheme by one of our competitors. This SEO firm built a dummy real estate resource site with lots of general content, nofollow links to brands (e.g. NYT, Fannie Mae etc.) for validation and links for high-valued keywords pointing to their clients' sites. Basically the whole site is a clever front to help their clients rank. Still, it seems to be working for them (at least for now), which I'm guessing is due to lack of strong competition and the site being quite old. Oh, and they also charge to become "affiliates" on the site, i.e. paid links disguised as non-paid. I reported the scheme via the Search Console. Anything else we could do? Have any of you had experience dealing with this kind of link scheming before? Any guidance is appreciated. Thank you!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | willthefrench0 -
Ever seen this tactic when trying to get rid of bad backlinks?
I'm trying to get rid of a Google penalty, but one of the URLS is particularly bizarre. Here's the penalized site: http://www.travelexinsurance.com. One of the external links Google cited as not being natural that links to the penalized site is: http://content.onlineagency.com/index.aspx?site=6599&tide=769006&last=3111516 In the backlink profile of the penalized site, there are about 100 different backlinks pointing to www.travelexinsurance.com from content.onlineagency.com/... So when I visit http://content.onlineagency.com/index.aspx?site=6599&tide=769006&last=3111516 it actually is displaying content from http://www.starmandstravel.com/787115_6599.htm, which you can see after clicking the "Home" button. That company is a legit travel agency who I assume knows nothing about content.onlineagency.com and is not involved in whatever is going on. And that's the case for every link from content.onlineagency.com. So I'm just wondering if someone can help me understand what sort of tactic content.onlineagency.com is using. One of my predecessors I fear used some black hat tactics. I'm wondering if this is a remnant of that effort.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Patrick_G0 -
Suggest me a best plan for linking building chart for small static website.
Hi Everyone, Can any one suggest me a clear idea for off page link building chart i.e) Our page is a 24 page website we like to plan for off page activity like bookmarking, classifieds, directory bla bla bla. So how many links we are supposed to post and in how much day time gap example: 15 Links in bookmarking, 10 links in classified, weekly one article submission, after one week the same cycle goes on.....
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | dineshmap0 -
Can i send a disavow if a detect a spam link
I have detected than one web domain is generating 2400 links to my site should a use a disavow tools, as it is imposible to have contact from webmaster and no response to your emails My web as not been warned or penalized, but i dont like this link, and i want to inform google of that,. If google acepts the disavow file, should i still see on my webmaster tools that web links, or will they desapear thanks
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | maestrosonrisas0 -
Penguin Update and Infographic Link Bait
Is it still ok to use infographics for link bait now that the penguin update has rolled out? Are there any techniques that should be avoided when promoting an infographic? Thanks
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | eddiejsd1 -
Link Wheel & Unnatural Links - Undoing Damage
Client spent almost a year with link wheels and mass link blasts - end result was getting caught by google. I have taken over, we;ve revamped the site and I'm finishing up with onsite optimization. Would anyone have any suggestions how to undo the damage of the unnatural links and get back into googles favour a little quicker? Or the best next steps to undo the damage.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | ravynn0