NoFollow & Directory Scraper Backlinks

[National-Homebuyers]

I was wondering how important it was to remove/disavow:

1. NoFollow backlinks - many ("buy viagra" etc).
2. Directory backlinks - many questionable/generic directories.

Obviously the focus is the equity passing links but both of the above constitute a significant proportion of backlinks to the site - I've seen that "scrapers" are seen as natural and obviously NoFollow do not pass link juice - but does the sheer number have a bearing and therefore make them equally important to address?

Thanks in advance for your responses.

Regards

[MarieHaynes]

If you've got viagra spam pointing at your site you likely won't be able to remove them.  So should you disavow?  Disavowing a nofollowed link won't accomplish anything as disavowing is simply asking Google not to count the link and a nofollow link is already not being counted.  However, when you have loads of nofollowed links from spam attacks this is one situation where I often do go ahead and disavow these.  The reason for this is that one tactic that spammers can use is to point a bunch of nofollowed links at a site and then one day turn them all to followed.  If you've got them disavowed then you've got that covered.

Also, if you have viagra links pointing to your site, make sure you don't have a hack within your site.  Try doing a google search for site:yourdomain.com viagra and see what comes up.

For directories, I don't worry about things like dmoz scrapers and 100searchengines and stuff like that, unless somehow you managed to sneak a keyword anchored link into dmoz.  I wrote a thorough article on my thought process for auditing directory links here:

http://searchenginewatch.com/sew/how-to/2360254/is-that-directory-link-unnatural

[Ray-pp]

Regardless of the nofollow attribute, having spammy links in your link portfolio can hurt your SEO and cause a penalty. If you've identified links that are clearly on spammy site, proactively dissavow those links. Don't think that just because they have a nofollow attribute that your site is safe from penalty, because they are not.

Edited for directories - it all goes back to the quality of the link and website linking. If the directory is legitimate and useful to users, then consider it a good link. If the directory is a hodgepodge of links that was only generated to be a link farm, then get rid of it before it does you harm, because it isn't doing you any good.