How can I block incoming links from a bad web site ?
-
Hello all,
We got a new client recently who had a warning from Google Webmasters tools for manual soft penalty. I did a lot of search and I found out one particular site that sounds roughly 100k links to one page and has been potentialy a high risk site.
I wish to block those links from coming in to my site but their webmaster is nowhere to be seen and I do not want to use the disavow tool.
Is there a way I can use code to our htaccess file or any other method?
Would appreciate anyone's immediate response.
Kind Regards
-
Hi Yiannis,
As far as I'm aware, there isn't really a way to "block" a link. The link is seen on the other site. Returning a 404 for the page being linked to doesn't change the fact that there are a 100K links from one site pointing at your site. The only options I'm aware of are to 1.) contact the owner of the website with the links and ask them to remove the links and 2.) if that doesn't work disavow the links.
I understand your hesitancy to use the disavow tool, but quite frankly, this is exactly what it is intended for.
If you feel comfortably with the links being there and think Google has already dealt with them, then do nothing, but if you want to do something about the links, you either have to get them removed or disavow them.
BTW - My understanding of the partial manual actions is that often times Google not only deals with the suspicious links (devaluing them), but they also penalize the pages/keywords they think you were attempting to manipulate. So, just because it was a partial action and not a full site action doesn't mean it's not effecting some of your rankings. It's just not going to affect all your rankings for all your pages.
Kurt Steinbrueck
OurChurch.Com -
Hi eyepaq and thanks for your reply, much appreciated
The reason I do not want to use the disavow tool is because
- Google sent on the message that "took targeted action on the unnatural links instead of on the site’s ranking as a whole", meaning they took care of the problem 2) Ranking and traffic looking solid
- I have seen a lot of cases where people used it and lost rankings (some never recovered).
My thoughts were to block the spammy links and monitor if the traffic will be affected (which I doubt as it seems most of it is for branded searches). If then I face de-index, drops then use the disavow/reconsideration request.
What do you think?
-
Hi,
If you are talking about one or only a few sites then it's easy.
Just build a disavow file as there is no down side to that . The disavow with domain:domainname.com (not individual pages) and upload it via Web master Tools. After sumbiting the file - send a reconsideration request explaining the situation and mentioning the disavow file. You should be safe after that.
Alternatively - but to be honest I don't see the reason why not going with the first option - is to return a 404 if the referral is that domain.
Hope it helps.
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
-
Main Site and eCommerce Site URLs for SEO
My client currently has a main website on a url and an eCommerce site on a subdomain. The eCommerce site is currently not mobile friendly, has images that are too small and are problematic - and I believe it negates some of the SEO work we do for them. I had to turn off Google Shopping ads because the quality score was so low. That being said, they are rebuilding a shopping cart on a new platform that will be mobile friendly BUT the images are going to be tiny until they slowly replace images over several months. Would you keep the shopping cart on a subdomain, or make it part of the main website URL? Can it negatively impact the progress we have made on the main site SEO.
Technical SEO | | jerrico10 -
Can I safely block my product listing from search? Does it even make sense?
Hi, I've an ecommerce website with more than 50k urls and only 10% or so are getting crawled regularly by Google.
Technical SEO | | GhillC
Product listing pages represent roughly 80% of these 50k pages. Trying to improve this, I was thinking to remove altogether all (most?) of my product listing from search (via Robot.txt) to keep only the product pages themselves and the product categories. My organic situation since Jan 2019:
Users: 2,300,000 (of which 9% are visiting product listing pages)
Page views: 8,000,000 (of which 5% are product listing pages). Am I about to unleash armageddon (or more like harakiri) on my website by doing so or actually get Google to crawl much more relevant resources (product pages, product categories, blog content and so on)? Thanks,
G0 -
Tools/Software that can crawl all image URLs in a site
Excluding Screaming Frog, what other tools/software to use in order to crawl all image URLs in a site? Because in Screaming Frog, they don't crawl image URLs which are not under the site domain. Example of an image URL outside the client site: http://cdn.shopify.com/images/this-is-just-a-sample.png If the client is: http://www.example.com, Screaming Frog only crawls images under it like, http://www.example.com/images/this-is-just-a-sample.png
Technical SEO | | jayoliverwright0 -
Is it problematic for Google when the site of a subdomain is on a different host than the site of the primary domain?
The Website on the subdomain runs on a different server (host) than the site on the main domain.
Technical SEO | | Christian_Campusjaeger0 -
Linking Domains in Open Site Explorer Report No Longer Exist. Help.
Hello to all, I have a number of Linking Domains on our Open Site Explorer Report that no longer exist. I've run URL checks on just a sample of the list, and found that approx. 35% of that sample are from now dead Linking Domains. Can someone help? If these Linking Domains are defunct, how can I remove these? Does Google reflect negatively on these dead Linking Domains in our SERPs? Has anyone experienced this before? What action did you take?
Technical SEO | | -Al-0 -
How can you get the right site links for your site?
Hello all, I have been trying to get Google to list relevant site links for my site when you type in our brand name, Loco2 or for when Loco2 comes up in a search result. Different things come up when you search Loco2 and Loco 2. We would like site links to look like how they do when you search Loco 2. However Loco2 is our brand name, NOT Loco 2. Does anyone know why Google is doing this and whether we can influence results? We have done as much as possible via Google webmaster, in terms of specifying the links we DO NOT want Google to list for Loco2. However, when you search "Loco2", results only show simple site links. Ideally what we want is: Loco2 to be recognised as the brand NOT Loco 2 The same results (substantial, identical) for Loco2 as for Loco 2 (think o2 and o 2) For the site links to reflect the main pages of our site (Times & Tickets, Engine Room forum etc.) Many thanks in advance! Anila
Technical SEO | | anilababla0 -
Reciprocal link building a bad idea?
Reciprical Link Building or one way traffic? Good morning from 8 degrees c but very sunny wetherby UK Regarding link acquisition ive had it in my head that the best idea is to secure inbound links only i.e avoid reciprocal link building so that when your source links to you you dont give them a link back. But is this no longer valid when targeting inbound links to increase rank? Is it ok to link back or will that "leak SEO juice" or whatever we decide to call it this week.
Technical SEO | | Nightwing0 -
Are lots of links from an external site to non-existant pages on my site harmful?
Google Webmaster Tools is reporting a heck of a lot of 404s which are due to an external site linking incorrectly to my site. The site itself has scraped content from elsewhere and has created 100's of malformed URLs. Since it unlikely I will have any joy having these linked removed by the creator of the site, I'd like to know how much damage this could be doing, and if so, is there is anything I can do to minimise the impact? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | Nobody15569050351140