Removing inbound links
-
How can I remove inbound links?
-
Thanks for the responses Guys!
The reason I wanted to know more about removing links was because a website that I look after had stopped receiving GA stats. I looked at the inbound links and found a few that where completely unrelated to the site (one from Japan and not translatable).
I did search for the Disavow tool from Google, but decided to try to contact the sites first to see if I can get the links removed that way.
On closer inspection, and much worry, I discovered that the GA tracking had stopped! How could that happen? As far as I know I am the only one with access to FTP... Worrying, but fixed now and I have had an education about the Disavow tool and link removal along the way
One more question: Are nofollow links harmful to a site if they are inbound?
-
Is this in response to a notice from Google or general house cleaning? And you need to asses if those links are actually causing you any harm in the first place, for example are they nofollow?
First step in removing links is always to try and contact the webmaster and ask them to remove the links. this is important as this will then impact on all Search engines, not just Google which would be the case if you automatically went for Disavow tool. It also provides you an audit trail if in future you find you need to demonstrate to search engines, say through a reconsideration request, that you have made an effort to clean up your site and comply with webmaster guidelines, To find contact details for a website you can try contact details on the site itself or look them up with tools such as the whois directory.
If contact fails, or if they demand money for removal then you should consider using Googles Disavow tool. Again please note this will only impact Google's algorithm. It should only really be a last resort however. You can access this through Webmaster tools, just search for disavow tool in the help section to the top right and follow the links,
-
Google Disavow, always good fun lol
I would suggest that you ensure that this is required before going down this path.... it is very time consuming, can negatively effect your current rankings, and is often not required!
-
Before using Disavow you will need to make a concerted effort to manually have the links removed. A good tool to coordinate this would be Rmoov. I would use Disavow as the last thing, if all else fails.
-
Use Google's disavow tool - detailed description here: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2648487?hl=en
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
-
What impact has external links reported as http503
Hello I have 72 external broken links who are reported with a http 503 status. When I ask the owner of that site, he confirmed he has removed it from GA by using this status. My question is. Does this have an impact for the quality of my site? The site is available, there is no delay when you open the link. Thank you for your support. br
Moz Pro | | kjerstibakke
Kjersti Bakke0 -
Getting spam Links pointing to our wrong url, what to do?
Hey Mozzers, Looking in my Google Search Console (Webmaster Tools), I'm getting links pointing to bogus pages on my website that result in a 404. What does one do so you can tell Google that it has been "fixed"? Do i just 301 it to another website? If I add it to my disavow list, does Google remove the error in my webmaster tools? Thank you!
Moz Pro | | Shawn1240 -
Total External Links
Hi There, I'm looking at my link profile and my Total External Links dropped uber dramatically back in April. Any way to figure out what the heck happened? My only idea is that this was around the time we launched a new version of the website but I'm not sure it corresponds exactly and anyway the domain didn't change. Possibly some urls did but all have been redirected. Any ideas? Thanks, site is www.nationalpardon.org
Moz Pro | | NationalPardon0 -
Inbound Links to Subdomains
Hi I want to gather a list of sites that are linking to individual blog items. Is there a way of gathering this data easily in Open Site Explorer? I've tried putting in the url/blog domain in the search box, and this just brings up those sites that link to the blog home page. I want to see all the inbound links that link to ALL subdomains within a particular URL. Any help appreciated. thanks
Moz Pro | | goodge0 -
Discrepancy between followed links. How do you explain this?
My external followed links over time have gone from 346 in late November to 402. Total external links have gone from 400 to 457. Followed linking root domains dropped from 125 to 102 (How do I find out why?). Total Linking Root Domains Over Time dropped from 152 to 126. Linking C-Blocks dropped from 124 to 42. How did I increase my links but drop the other stuff?
Moz Pro | | EcommerceSite0 -
Links not appearing on Open Site Explorer
My site gained several new inbound links during December and only two of them are not all showing up on the latest Linkscape update. It seems to be the links that were created at the end of the month which are showing up, whereas a handful at the beginning of the month are nowhere to be seen. All the linking pages have been indexed by Google the links are do-follow, and one of the sites in particular is not obsure and has a DA in the 90's. I appreciate the Linkscape doesn't index everything, but I would have thought that more tof the results of my efforts would have shown up in OSE. I'd be really grateful if anyone could explain this to me please. Thanks Ben
Moz Pro | | atticus70 -
BOTW links not recognized by Open Site Explorer
Hi there, I was wondering if I buy a submission to the Best of the Web directory (waiting for the new directory list promised by the seomoz team 🙂 ) but when I get to the category on BOTW website that will fit for my website, I took some links already there and put them on open site explorer to see their value, I had the surprise they are not even recognized... So I am still wondering if it is worth or not... voilà , if anybody knows if this directory still has value...
Moz Pro | | thuraminho750 -
What is the best way to analyze all of the outgoing links from a website to determine which links are not beneficial?
I've recently been tasked with the SEO on an old site that was ranking somewhere on page two for desirable keyword phrases. The site was taken completely offline for a few months and started ranking on page one for the same desirable keyword phrases. The site has a lot of link partners and I think that some of the links from the site are going to undesirable pages and I'm looking for the best way to get rid of the links that are hurting the sites rankings.
Moz Pro | | kerrick-955310