Persistent Unnatural Links in Webmaster tools
-
We recently were notified about unnatural links from two websites (totalling a few thousands links each). We went to the websites and asked them to remove the links, which they apparently did.
After this we applied for reconsideration to Google, explaining the situation, however they came back and said we still have links. We noticed there were still links, however there were less than before, and so we once again asked the sites to remove all the links.
Now we are sure all the links are gone as when we click a random link and view the page source there is no reference to our site, however WebMaster tools is not updating the link list, claiming we still have thousands of links.
Do we have to apply for another reconsideration request to get them to re-crawl the sites to get rid of the links, or should it happen automatically?
-
Thanks for the answers everyone. I'm currently going through and making a spreadsheet of the sites who are linking more than 100 times.
Some of the sites I have no idea why there are links or why there are hundreds for them for that matter. We are going to contact them all (if we can find their contact details) and then apply for reconsideration.
Thanks for the tips everyone.
-
I'm guessing that you have other links that you probably think are ok but are unnatural in the eyes of Google. I have found that most webmasters, when evaluating their links tend to be too lenient.
Any link that was built by you or an SEO for the point of increasing your Google rankings is considered unnatural in the eyes of Google. It may have been the two websites you mentioned that set off the penalty, but now that you've got a penalty you've got to come totally clean.
You need to make an attempt to contact each website that has a potentially unnatural link to your site using all means possible - email address from site, contact form, and email from whois data. If you can't get a link removed then you need to show in your reconsideration request a copy of every attempt to get the link removed. That usually does the trick, but it's a lot of work!
-
It's so hard to tell whats natural and what's not in Google's eyes, i think the rule of thumb here is, if you have paid someone to do link building for you question those links and start there, also look out of poor directory submissions too (there are some good directorys) however you know the ones i mean.
Download the links in WMT and start there,
It's an absolute pain in the backside as you will never know what links your removing and how Google views them
Make a Google doc's account, list every single link you can find, Visit every single one of those links and catalogue what has been done, if its been removed note is has been removed , if you have requested the removal note that down too so in your next reconsideration request Google can see you have been actively trying to resolve the issues, and don't forget to link in that Google doc
If you have used a 3rd party who's is getting your link building for you be honest and name them, if you know you have done wrong apologise and tell them it will never happen again,
Never say its a competitor as that is very highly unlikely, you may have 1000's of links so good luck and it wont be easy,
-
Hi eXia,
Yes, you shall again have to apply for the reconsideration. But before applying, make sure clean your overall link profile. You should only have natural links (or should appear as natural, which Google can't detect).
Once you're sure that there are no thin quality, unnatural links, you can again apply for reconsideration.
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
-
Change of address form in Webmaster Tools
I have changed my domain from .co.uk to .com and tried to submit a change of address form in Google Webmaster Tools. However it seems because I redirect my home page onto www.domain.com/index.php I cannot submit the form as it is not a domain name. Is there a way round this? It is not currently an option to move away from www.domain.com/index.php Thanks in advance
Technical SEO | | TheHutGroup0 -
Sitemap errors have disappeared from my Google Webmaster tools
Hi all, A week ago I had 66 sitemap errors related to href langs in my GWT. Now, all the errors are gone, and it shows no errors. We have not done any work to fix the errors. I wonder if anybody has experienced the same thing, of Google suddenly changing the criteria or the way they report on errors in Google Webmaster Tools. I would appreciate any insights from the community! Best regards Peru
Technical SEO | | SMVSEO0 -
Google index graph duration in Google Webmaster Tools
Hello guys, I wonder, my sites are currently being indexed every 7 days, exactly. At Index Status page in GWT. However, this new site gets updated almost everyday, how can I ask google to index faster and more frequently/almost daily? Is it about SItemap.xml frequency ? I changed it today to Daily. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | mdmoz0 -
Manual Webspam Error. Same Penalty on all sites on Webmaster Tools account.
My URL is: www.ebuzznet.comToday when i checked webmaster tools under manual spam section. I got Manual spam and reason was Thin content with little or no added value. Then I checked other sites from same webmaster tools account, there are 11 sites, all of them received same manual action. I never received any mail, no notification on site messages section regarding this manual action. I just need confirmation whether it is something to do with any error in webmaster tools or all of the sites really received manual spam actions.Most of the article on sites are above 500 words, quality content (no spun or copied).Looking for suggestions, answers
Technical SEO | | ndroidgalaxy0 -
Link Juice
When we say "link juice", does it mean that a particular page has link juice ( due to backlinks pointing towards the page ) or each link on that page has link juice which it passes to the target page I suppose "link juice " is different from Pagerank ?
Technical SEO | | seoug_20050 -
Why would a link shown on OSE appear differently than the page containing the link?
I recently traded links with a site that I will call www.example.com When I used open site explorer to check the link it came back with a different page authority as www.example.com/index.htm yet the link does appear on the www.example.com page. Why would this be?
Technical SEO | | casper4340 -
If you add a no follow to a time sensitive link, will it get picked up as broken link 404 in WMT report?
We have a client who publishes deals that are time sensitive. Links to the deals expire and so Google's crawlers are picking them up and finding a 404 If I no follow them, will the 404's still get picked up and reported in WMT? The same question applies to SEOMoz Pro.
Technical SEO | | Red_Mud_Rookie0