Backlinks that we have if they are 404?
-
Hi All,
Backlinks that we have if they are 404?
Open site explorer shows 1,000 of links and when I check many are 404 and those are spammy links which we had but now the sites are 404
I am doing a link profile check which is cleaning up all spammy links
Should i take any action on them? As open site explorer or Google still shows these links on the searches.
Should we mention these URL's in disallow in Google webmaster.
Thanks
-
If you delete the page (URL) with the link (clickable words that takes the visitor to another URL), Google will eventually recognize that the URL no longer exists and drop it from the index. That may take anywhere from a few days to a month or more.
Once the URL is out of the index, whatever links were on that URL won't count against you.
You may use the URL removal tool in Google webmaster tools to try to speed up the process of removing the URL from the index. There is no need to use the disavow tool for a URL that resolves to a 404 page.
-
Thanks
To be more clear here is the details
1. We have spammers who first post irrelevant content on our site
2. We delete them in 1 or 2 hrs and within this time
3. They spam many other sites with the post link of our on those sites
Now the link they posted is deleted and 404.
i have 4 questions
a. Many of these links that are on spam sites are 404. Should i take any action
b. All these pages are 100% made just to spam or even the sites are made to spam. Should i take any action
c. Some sites itself are down and guess they are shutdown as they were made just to spam. Should i take any action
d. Should i disallow all such links
I havent received any penalty notice but my traffic has dropped by 70%
-
Your question is a little unclear but I think you're saying that you have backlinks that point to certain pages and now you have 404'd those pages. If this is the case then Google treats those links as dead. According to John Mueller of Google, links going to 404'd pages don't count towards PageRank.
-
If the links are coming from URLs that no longer exist, then think of them kind of like ghosts. Their likenesses are still showing up on reports to give you a scare but their bodies aren't around and can't do you any harm. Eventually they'll fade away from the reports any they'll be nothing more a distant memory. So, no, non-existent links don't need to be disallowed.
Sorry, I was watching a ghost movie last night.
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
-
404 Hurricane Update Page After?
Hi All, I am wondering if anyone could help me decide how I should go about handling a page i plan on removing and could possibly use later on. So, a perfect example is: Let's say a company in Florida posted a page about the stores hours and possibly closing due to the incoming hurricane. Once the hurricane passes and the store is reopened, should I 404 that page since another hurricane could come after? The url for the company is www.company.com/hurricane so this is a url that we would want to use again. I guess we could just 410 and name each url www.company.com/hurricane-irma & www.company.com/hurricane-jose for each new hurricane. I am just wonder what is the best practice for a situation like this. Thanks for the help!
Technical SEO | | aua0 -
What server issues might cause temporary and repeated Soft 404/500 Errors that appear to be functioning correctly when checked later from Google Webmaster Tools?
We are experiencing unknown server issues (we think) which are causing Soft 404/500 errors at unpredictable times on 2 websites. When we check on the pages, they’re fine but still show errors in Moz/Search Console. What are some measures we can take to protect from this or figure out what is causing this? Example URL for Soft 404 Error: https://www.advancedtraveltherapy.com/jobs/any/occupational-therapist/any/ Example URL for 500 Error: https://www.advancedtraveltherapy.com/job-detail/ms/physical-therapist/87529740/ Example URL for Soft 404 Error: https://www.advancedtravelnursing.com/search/searchresults.php?jobState=CA&tempType=g&specialties= Example URL for 500 Error: https://www.advancedtravelnursing.com/job/ma/registered-nurse/emergency-room/87108662/
Technical SEO | | StaffingRobot0 -
404 errors
Hi I am getting these show up in WMT crawl error any help would be very much appreciated | ?ecaped_fragment=Meditation-find-peace-within/csso/55991bd90cf2efdf74ec3f60 | 404 | 12/5/15 |
Technical SEO | | ReSEOlve
| | 2 | mobile/?escaped_fragment= | 404 | 10/26/15 |
| | 3 | ?escaped_fragment=Tips-for-a-balanced-lifestyle/csso/1 | 404 | 12/1/15 |
| | 4 | ?escaped_fragment=My-favorite-yoga-spot/csso/5598e2130cf2585ebcde3b9a | 404 | 12/1/15 |
| | 5 | ?escaped_fragment=blog/c19s6 | 404 | 11/29/15 |
| | 6 | ?escaped_fragment=blog/c19s6/Tag/yoga | 404 | 11/30/15 |
| | 7 | ?escaped_fragment=Inhale-exhale-and-once-again/csso/2 | 404 | 11/27/15 |
| | 8 | ?escaped_fragment=classes/covl | 404 | 10/29/15 |
| | 9 | m/?escaped_fragment= | 404 | 10/26/15 |
| | 10 | ?escaped_fragment=blog/c19s6/Page/1 | 404 | 11/30/15 | | |0 -
Backlink management: 301 redirect unsuccessful.
I am managing my company's spammy backlinks using Open Site Explorer. Our company owns a few URLs that are related to our company or are iterations of our main URL. All of these additional URLs have 301 redirects to our main domain. Open Site Explorer has identified one of these URLs as having a spam score of 8 indicating a 56% chance of Google crawler penalization. Obviously, this is a red flag. Instead of being redirected to our main domain upon visiting the URL, I was directed to what seems to be an automatically generated, generic webpage with links that seem to have been generated by keywords from our main domain. I have seen this type of webpage before when incorrectly typing in URLs from other pages. They tend to look the same. They have a black background with the URL written in grey at the top and a rectangular related links bar. Is anyone familiar with my problem and could you offer any advice? Thanks, Ben
Technical SEO | | SOLVISTA0 -
Odd 404 pages
Evening all, I've performed a Screaming Frog technical crawl of a site, and it's returning links like this as 404s: http://clientsite.co.uk/accidents-caused-by-colleagues/js/modernizr-2.0.6.min.js Now, I recognise that Modernizr is used for detecting features in the user's browser - but why would it have created an indexed page that no longer exists? Would you leave them as is? 410 them? Or do something else entirely? Thanks for reading, I look forward to hearing your thoughts! Kind regards, John.
Technical SEO | | Muhammad-Isap0 -
My website backlinks decreased month over month for 3 campaigns what is the reason?
My link metrics have decreased for several campaigns, loss of links range from 500-1500. Why is that ? Is there a new update or something that would cause this issue? I find it weird that three separate campaigns would decrease in external links when we have not done anything to remove links on our end.
Technical SEO | | rap791 -
404 Errors & Redirection
Hi, I'm working with someone who recently had two websites redesigned. The old permalink structure consisted of domain/year/month/date/post-name. Their developer changed the new permalink structure to domain/post-name, but apparently he didn't redirect the old URLs to the new ones so we're finding that links from external sites result in 404 errors (once I remove the date in the URL, the links work fine). Each site has 3-4 years worth of blog posts, so there are quite a few that would need to be changed. I was thinking of using the Redirection plugin - would that be the best way to fix this sitewide on both sites?Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks, Carolina
Technical SEO | | csmm0 -
Fixing a wordpress 404 error for /feed and /comments/feed?
I have a wordpress site that does not have a blog currently. I'm getting a 404 for /feed and /comments/feed. Anyone know how I can fix?
Technical SEO | | DM50