Backlink quality vs quantity: Should I keep spammy backlinks?
-
Regarding backlinks, I'm wondering which is more advantageous for domain authority and Google reputation:
- Option 1: More backlinks including a lot of spammy links
- Option 2: Fewer backlinks but only reliable, non-spam links
I've researched this topic around the web a bit and understand that the answer is somewhere in the middle, but given my site's specific backlink volume, the answer might lean one way or the other.
For context, my site has a spam score of 2%, and when I did a quick backlink audit, roughly 20% are ones I want to disavow. However, I don't want to eliminate so many backlinks that my DA goes down. As always, we are working to build quality backlinks, but I'm interested in whether eliminating 20% of backlinks will hurt my DA.
Thank you!
-
Backlinks are always about quality not quantity. Google does not like too many backlinks and especially spammy backlinks. I would suggest you to go with quality backlinks if you want long term and sustainable results otherwise there will always be a threat of getting penalized by google if you focus on spammy backlinks.
-
It's a myth that your DA drops because you put links in disavow. Disavow is a google only (or bing) tool, where lets say you get spammy links from a rogue domain and there's no way you can get 'm removed.
MOZ cant read your disavow file either you file into google. So i'm not sure on how the link is being put here. With MOZ, or any other tool, they just calculate the amount of incoming, FOLLOW links and presume your DA on some magical number. Thats all there is to it. Again, PA/DA has nothing in common at all with Google as Google maintains their own algorithm.
-
Hello again,
Thanks for the clarification and the link. I've read through that and a few other sources across the web, but none of them seemed to answer my question the way you did, so thanks! Our backlink profile is pretty balanced with spammy and definitely not spammy, so I'm not super concerned about it, but I appreciate the reminder.
-
I should also clarify, these may hurt you if they are your only links. If you have very little equitable links, this may cause Google and other search engines to falsely recognize you as spam. So just be careful and be on the look out for extra suspicious spam links. The balanced approach is the best approach: don't worry but stay aware!
Here is a more technical write-up from Moz that I reccomend: https://moz.com/help/link-explorer/link-building/spam-score
-
No problem Liana.
- That is correct. Google understands that you don't have control of 3rd party sites, so instead of penalizing you, they minimize/ delete the effect the spam site links have.
- Yes, but only kind of. It may or may not increase PA/ DA, but according to Google it shouldn't hurt you.
But yeah that's the gist of it! Instead taking the time investigating and disavowing links, you could spend that time cultivating relationships with other websites and businesses that could give you nice quality linkage.
Hope this answer works for you.
-
Hello Advanced Air Ambulance SEO!
Thanks for the quick and thorough response. Please confirm if I understand you correctly:
- I can leave spammy backlinks alone (not spend time disavowing them) _unless _I see a manual action in Search Console, which would indicate that Google sees an issue and is penalizing my site until I disavow the links. Without this manual action, there's no indication that the spam links are hurting my rankings or DA.
- Leaving spammy backlinks that don't incur a manual action may actually increase DA since leaving them maintains a higher volume of backlinks (albeit some spammy), and backlink quantity is a contributor to DA.
Thank you!
-
Hi Liana,
As far as spammy links, Google has done well detecting whether or not they are intentional, aka black hat. If they aren't, Google does not penalize you for these links, so it's best to leave them.
As far as a strategy for generating links to your website, you should always focus on high quality over quantity. High quality links give you exponentially more return than high quantity of bad links.
I recommend this article Google wrote for us to understand when and how to disavow links.
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2648487?hl=en
In short, rarely do you ever need to disavow links, even if they have a high spam score. You are only hurt when they sense you are gaming the system and in the case that they detect or suspect unethical backlinking, you will be penalized with a "manual action". You can check if you were penalized, as well as disavow flagged backlinks, in the Google Search Console.
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
-
Spanish United States Vs Puerto Rico Hreflang
Hey Moz, So we are trying to figure out weather it is the same if we have Hreflang for "US-ES" vs "US-PR", IF we do "US-PR" for Puerto Rico for its own links we then have to create 3 parts to our site, PR Spanish PR English US Spanish We looked at Apple as an example and they had a "Latin America" for their Hreflang and labeled everything has either "es-419" is that the same concept as having just "us-es" for Puerto Rico? ( see attached screenshot ) We are trying to figure out what would be more effective and weather or not "US-ES" search results will appear for Puerto Rico also. PZVwg16
Technical SEO | | uBreakiFix0 -
Received A Notice Regarding Spammy Structured Data. But we don't have any structured data or do we?
Got a message that we have spammy structured data on our site via webmaster tools and have no idea what they are referring to. We do not use any structured data using schema.org mark up. Could they be referring to something else? The message was: To: Webmaster of <a>http://www.lulus.com/</a>, Google has detected structured markup on some of your pages that violates our structured data quality guidelines. In order to ensure quality search results for users, we display rich search results only for content that uses markup that conforms to our quality guidelines. This manual action has been applied to lulus.com/ . We suggest that you fix your markup and file a reconsideration request. Once we determine that the markup on the pages is compliant with our guidelines, we will remove this manual action. What could we be showing them that would be interpreted as structured data, and or spammy structured data?
Technical SEO | | KentH0 -
Categories in Places Vs Local
Say you are listed with both Google places and Google Local. Places still allows custom categories, while Local limits you to preset categories. Which is the better strategy: to build service pages following custom services available in Places, or build out service pages following the (allowed) preset categories in Local.
Technical SEO | | waynekolenchuk0 -
301 vs 302 & Link Juice
Has any one come across any recent cases of a 302 link passing more link juice than before?
Technical SEO | | CeeC-Blogger0 -
HTACCESS redirect vs. forwarding
I'm having trouble using htaccess redirect to redirect a subdomain to a new domain on a different server. Tech support at godaddy suggested I forward the subdomain. The subdomain has already been cached by google. Will forwarding in this way have the same affect (SEO wise) as an htaccess redirect??
Technical SEO | | triple90 -
Google is keeping very old title tags in the SERPs for my site. How can I fix this?
Hi Around 6 months ago a site I work with changed its brand. One company became two. Despite changing the title when a new site went live around 6 months ago Google still picks up the old title for certain search results relevant to the old title. When a search result is relevant to the new title it shows that. It's very frustrating as we are trying to re-brand and do not want the old brand name showing for some very important search results. Thanks in advance for your help Paul
Technical SEO | | pauldoffman0 -
Why do I get duplicate pages, website referencing the capital version of the url vs the lowercase www.agi-automation.com/Pneumatic-grippers.htm
Can I the rel=canonical tag this? http://www.agi-automation.com/Pneumatic-grippers.htm****http://www.agi-automation.com/pneumatic-grippers.htm
Technical SEO | | AGIAutomation0 -
302 vs. a href="nofollow"
we came across one thing the we did not asked to programm by our intention. we have a magento shop and on the produktpage we have those "compare" buttons. these link have a session id and the follow a 302 back onto the same page. so i beleive the idea is that google will just not follow 302s and thats it. so my questions is: is this right what we beleive if so why is a 302 better compared to a a href="nofollow" ???
Technical SEO | | kynop0