Companies creating spammy links to charge money to delete them?
-
Hi all,
Yesterday I was checking out ahrefs.com and realizing that one of our main competitors was getting new spammy links to its website from junk directories, rusian forums, porn sites etc. I found it to be weird but I thought that maybe they hired a black hat company without knowing it.
Today I began finding the same type of spammy links pointing to our site. I'm completely sure we did not create them.I was checking out some of the new directory links and their listings consist of new pages including only our company's website and absolutely no descriptions. I did a little more research and find out that many of those new directories/listings belong to the same company ( seems to be located in Argentina, but I'm not sure). I also remembered paying that company long time ago to delete two links to our website that were included in their directories.
I have to tell you, I'm completely out of my mind and I really don't know what to do. The two possibilities I can think about are:
1- A competitor has hired somebody to point spam to our site, to our other competitor, and may be some other competitors in the industry.(because as I tell you before our main competitor in the area is getting new spammy links too)
2- These black hat companies that own directories and other junk websites are pointing spam to us to get paid to remove links.
Whether is #1 or #2 is getting out of control and I really don't know how to manage it (except from disvowing links as soon as I find them).
I would appreciate suggestions/advise. Thanks.
Ana
-
Sorry...didn't know about the no-sig thingy...am new to the Q&A area...but I hear you!
-
Thanks for your answer! There's no need for a signature line on Q&A answers, however. Interested people can click through to your profile page to see your contact info (and all of our links in Q&A are nofollowed in any case).
Signature lines tend to make the answer look a bit self-promotional and can result in thumbs down by some users.
-
As noted this is really a Negative SEO type of thrust, into the marketplace by folks who IMHO are idiots!
Disavow anything that looks shady....and also ensure that you check now every single week on the new IBLs....now that someone has started on you in your channel, it may be worse before it gets better, eh?
Oh - google for "Negative SEO" and read some of the lastest case studies too....knowledge learned is a good thing, eh!
Jim Rudnick
KKT INTERACTIVE Inc. www.canuckseo.com -
I see this sort of thing a lot and will not respond to companies who request payment to remove a link but instead just disavow the domain. Google will often ignore some of these sites as they are often aware it is happening but always best to disavow.
If everyone just chooses to ignore sites that charge for removing links then they will eventually just die off anyway, but whilst they are getting paid, they will continue to operate.
-
I don't believe there's any legal action that can be taken as it's not actually illegal for someone to link to your website; regardless of what harm it might cause you. Unfortunately, there's too much truth to the saying that law is always 10 steps behind technology.
However, I do believe that if the problem persists, you have the option of emailing Google support and reporting the website(s) in question - stating your case and the specifics may go a long way in ensuring that it doesn't happen again.
-
Thanks for answering. If that is the case , is there any legal action that can be taken against the blackmailer?
-
Hi Anagentile,
While paying a company to remove links to your website seems like a good idea, it tends to be a slippery slope - ending up exactly as you've summarized (like a blackmailer asking for more payment every time you pay).
If requesting that a website remove links to your own doesn't work, the next best option is to disavow the link(s). Check out Google's support in disavowing links here: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2648487?hl=en
I hope that helps you and that it works out OK; cheers!
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
-
Question RE: Links in Headers, Footers, Content, and Navigation
This question is regarding this Whiteboard Friday from October 2017 (https://moz.com/blog/links-headers-footers-navigation-impact-seo). Sorry that I am a little late to the party, but I wanted to see if someone could help out. So, in theory, if header links matter less than in-content links, and links lower on the page have their anchor text value stripped from them, is there any point of linking to an asset in the content that is also in the header other than for user experience (which I understand should be paramount)? Just want to be clear.Also, if in-content links are better than header links, than hypothetically an industry would want to find ways to organically link to landing pages rather than including that landing page in the header, no? Again, this is just for a Google link equity perspective, not a user experience perspective, just trying to wrap my head around the lesson. links-headers-footers-navigation-impact-seo
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | 3VE0 -
Should I Do a Social Bookmarking Campaign and a Tier 2 Linking?
I don't see anything bad in manually creating links on different (about 50) social bookmarking services. Is this method labeled as White Hat? I was wondering if it would be fine to create Tier 2 linking (probably blog comments) for indexing of the social bookmarking links? Please share your thoughts on the topic.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | zorsto0 -
Duplicate content or not? If you're using abstracts from external sources you link to
I was wondering if a page (a blog post, for example) that offers links to external web pages along with abstracts from these pages would be considered duplicate content page and therefore penalized by Google. For example, I have a page that has very little original content (just two or three sentences that summarize or sometimes frame the topic) followed by five references to different external sources. Each reference contains a title, which is a link, and a short abstract, which basically is the first few sentences copied from the page it links to. So, except from a few sentences in the beginning everything is copied from other pages. Such a page would be very helpful for people interested in the topic as the sources it links to had been analyzed before, handpicked and were placed there to enhance user experience. But will this format be considered duplicate or near-duplicate content?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | romanbond0 -
Strange Pingback/Blog Comment Links
On one of my sites I've noticed some strange links from Google Webmaster Tools recent links feature. They are pingbacks/blog comments but they are using keyword anchor text and linking to my site. I know we are not doing this. Should I be concerned about this possibly being negative SEO? Here's a sample (be careful, shady site)
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | eyeflow0 -
Hello i have been hit for external links
Hello my web has been hit for external links maybe because of the work of SEO consultants y had before. The web name is http://www.propdental.com Some seo consultants will try to use the disalow tools on webmaster tools other recomends to do another web with the content wich is very rich and start over again with a new domain I would like to know what is your opinion thank you very much
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | maestrosonrisas0 -
Link Building after Google updates!
Hello All, I just wanted to ask the question to start a discussion on link building after the Google Updates. I haven't been very proactive lately with regards to link building due to the updates and not wanting to get penalised! Are there any link building trends/techniques people are using since the changes? Thanks, seo_123
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | TWPLC_seo0 -
Good link networks?
Hey Mozzers, quick question about link networks. I've identified quite a few, like these: Build My Rank Unique Article Wizard Authority Link Network Article Ranks EZ Article Link Socialadr Linkvana SEO LinkVine Does anyone have experience using any of these? The basic premise is they own or their members own tons of different blogs. You write an article, give it to them, they publish it one one of those blogs. You include a link in your article. Done. They charge a monthly fee to use and all that, so is it worth it? Anyone had any success with them? Finding mixed things on forums online, and since many of their websites like awfully spammy, wanted to poll the Mozzers and get your thoughts.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | DanDeceuster0 -
Does your website get downgraded if you link to a lower quality site?
My site has a pr of 4. My friends site has a pr of 2 but I think that he is doing some black hat seo techniques. I wanted to know whether the search engines would ding me for linking to (i.e., validating) a lower quality site.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | jamesjd70