Will removing old (3 years+), low quality inbound links potentially improve my rankings?
-
I have a client site with thousands of old very low quality links purchased from directories etc over several years - I am certain these are doing nothing for the current rankings and I advised them to stop buying these links 18 months ago when I first started working with them, but do you think pro-actively getting old poor quality backlinks removed will potentially improve the site's rankings?
-
Don't do it. Very bad idea.
Consern your efforts with buildingt stronger links.
-
If you have better links to subsidise with the same money - go ahead. Otherwise leave them as they are. Link is a link, however if it looks reallys pammy than it's worth going through trouble of removal. If this was my site I would try to avoid a massive link drop and remove gradually.
-
Hi Simon,
Assuming your client's website has been around for a couple of years or more, these links will have no negative impact. Low quality links won't ever get an aged site penalised - going around and removing them would be hugely time consuming and you're better off focusing on building better quality links instead.
Good luck!
-
Fair enough - the last thing I need is another job on the list
-
No.
The sites in question would have to be in very bad standing to penalise sites they linked too and as these are just directories (or similar) they would have to actually be a recognised link farm to do this.
At worst they're going to be passing no value but can still count as a unique domain link for things like domain authority etc.
I would leave them unless you know they're actually harming you (and if they require monthly payment or similar then you could always just let them die off).
EDIT: On the other hand if you were going to be engaging in 'aggressive' link building and having these would push you over the edge (not that anyone knows where that is) in terms of having a really spammy backlink profile, then maybe.
If you're doing quality link building and getting more natural links, then I'd still leave them
-
True, some links that you can't control/communicate to get removed (scrapers) but at least you try
-
Interesting points. We are currently working on building quality links both with better content on the blog and site, also by pro-actively engaging with bloggers in the client's niche.
Some of the links do look very spammy as the client previously engaged what I'd politely call a questionable SEO firm who just bought a lot of links - this is going back a few years when it probably didn't cause the same penalty it would today, but I suspect some of these links are still hurting them a bit.
I'd love to know if anyone has actually set about removing low quality links as a tactic and seen an improvement in ranking as a result.
-
If the links have keyword rich anchor text, I would ditch them. In general you should only acquire directory links with brand as the anchor text in your link.
-
This is what I'm thinking too, FWIW. Of course, it's hard to remove links from real spammy pages since they are mostly auto-generated
-
Have you done this yourself and are talking from direct experience or is this just a "feeling"? Not bashing you, just curious because some answers like this are too easy to write what everyone assumes rather than real experiences. I'm very interested in this question too - I have a similar situation.
-
You should think more on lines of content creation and better interlinking between your pages and all. Social media is a big power today.
-
I am against this to be honest.
- True these links coming from low quality sites (and they are low quality) but the links have "Age"
- I only go back and remove links, if they look too spammy, or page looks like a link farm.
I would certainely see drop in rankings if these old Links has been removed and not being replaced with good one's
-
Hi Saibose,
Thanks for the quick reply, I'll add it to the job list as a fairly low priority.
Simon
-
You would be better off removing these low quality backlinks, but that would not reflect in rankings right away. Maybe over a period of time with targeted content and engaging people with social media and obtaining good contextual links would help in repairing your link profile.
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
-
Puzzled by high ranking page (#2 in SERPs) with zero/low page or domain authority
So, I get the smoothie that is page authority and domain authority and the link metrics that Moz uses to predict how well a page will rank for a certain keyword. I can look at a specific search term where we are on say, page 2 or 3, with a page authority of 1 and domain authority of 26, I get why competitors rank above us. But then I look at a keyword that is much more competitive, where we rank #2, which is awesome, where the landing page is also showing a page authority of 1, and domain authority of 26. How can we rank higher than competitors with a page authority of 56 and domain authority of 65? Their onpage optimization for the keyword is no worse, and sometimes better that ours but we maintain this ranking. By the way the competition also have hundreds if not thousands more linking root domains than our page. Any ideas why one keyword is a rockstar and one is a dud, with the same poor PA and DA?
Link Building | | seo-lab1 -
Domain Change, loss of inbound links ...
We're strongly considering a domain name change; this is purely for marketing reasons. We think in the long term, this will be a good thing. I believe we can mitigate the page redirection, branding changes, etc. My concern are the inbound links: from 200+ domains, 3,000+ links. So, I guess we can contact each of the top sites linking to us and hope they update our links. I'm not hopeful. I believe we'll loose must of the links. Has anyone been down this road and have experience to share?
Link Building | | jmueller0823
What should I expect, worst case? Is there a way to mitigate? Thanks much.
Jim0 -
Minimum Page Rank to get a link
Is there a minimum Page Rank that we have to be aware of when looking to get a link from a webpage?
Link Building | | echo10 -
Are the following considered bad links for Link Building.
I've been doing a lot of research lately on link building & I've read a lot about having a diverse amount of links. Social links, Blog links, comment links, footer links, No follow links, Directory links as well as links with Anchor text URL match, brand match, partial brand match, non-descriptive, and with keywords. But there is a lot of talk of removing those links that look like a site that's built just for link building purposes.... but Directories are basically built for link building are they not? I'm wondering if anyone can tell me if they feel links from the following directories would be bad links. (Non-Paid) http://www.yoganza.com http://www.wkool.com http://www.wee-directory.com http://www.voicelet.com www.hotfrog.ca http://www.webdirectorieslist.com http://multiplelistingboard.com http://mozdirectory.net http://freedirectorypr.info Industry specific below: http://bestautolinks .com http://automotivedome.com http://automobilebuzz.com http://craigsautolinks.com Thanks so much for the help!
Link Building | | DCochrane0 -
Old Non Relevant Links
I'm currently working on a project where most of the links are from irrelevant sources referring to the site of the past domain owner. My question is should I remove as many of these as possible or let them be for now. My gut tells me for every new link I build that I should attempt to remove some of the old ones but I'm not exactly sure on how to proceed with this situation. Thanks in advance for any input.
Link Building | | brandonschultz0 -
Will a link from a competitor help me to out rank them?
Greetings mozers, One of my competitors and I both rank on the first page for our main keyword. They have 37k+ links, me only like 300 or so. My company actually has a business location though. This other site is just a listing of locations and they build sites for most of my competitors. If I were able to get listed on their site, would that make me a stronger competitior with them? And we would probably only get a brand term link from them but not a main keyword anchor text. Will it be as effective to get the link from them if it's only for my brand name? Thanks, Cy
Link Building | | Nola5040 -
3-Way Link Exchange Method - Does it Work?
Hello People, I have been searching for a service to help us with our link building and have been talking to a company that uses the 3-Way link exchange method and my question is: Does it work well? Below I pasted an email from this company explaining their method. Thanks in advance to everyone! =============================== Our success rate is about 80%. For one way links, we use 3 way link exchange method for making links. Suppose your site is A. My website is B. My friends website is C and friend's client's site is D. I will add a link on B linking to D and my friend will add a link on C linking to A. This is the procedure we use for making links. We check the quality of the website before putting link on it. The site will be completely relevant, no spam links will present there and the page will be minimum of PR1. ================================
Link Building | | k9byron0