Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Backlinks from Chinese Big sites
-
Hello,
I wish I know your position regarding backlinks from chinese websites. I am able to get a text link(from homepage) from a very big site in chinese. It has PR8 and over 10M users monthly. My site is in english. Will it help me ? Will I be penalised (my site is 5 years old, PR4) and some decent traffic(6-7k daily)
Thanks!
-
Will a home page link from a PR8 chinese site help me? Will my site be penalized?
Maybe yes, maybe no. If the link isn't devalued by search engines, then yes it will provide some help. What kind of devaluation can happen?
1. The link could be completely devalued if Google suspects the site involved is receiving or making a payment for the link
2. The link can be partially devalued if it is a footer link or otherwise not used in content (i.e. a list of links)
No one except a current Google or Bing employee who decides to break the company's NDA (non-disclosure agreement) can properly answer your question. In other words, we are guessing.
What we do know is Google is a very intelligent entity with some of the best minds on our little planet working to ensure their results are not manipulated. What makes sense is Google locates sites which sell links and then adds that site to a penalty list and devalues all of their links. This could have already happened for the Chinese website you are considering. None of the SEO tools you depend on such as Open Site Explorer have any idea if a link has been devalued, so you simply see a high DA/PA site.
My recommendation is instead of trying to manipulate the system with such an effort, why not put that same money towards legitimate efforts? Even if your link does work for now, it can be devalued tomorrow or a year later. When it happens you will wind up back on these forums asking "why did my site drop in rankings all of the sudden?" We see it all the time.
If you have money to burn and desire improvement, some suggestions are:
-
if you really want links, focus on the few accepted directories who offer links with value: BOTW, Yahoo, BBB, Dmoz. Also consider any niche directories for your industry.
-
spend the money on trust symbols which add value to sites such as Verisign, TRUSTe, organizations like GBB.org, etc. Also consider any niche symbols related to your site.
-
hire an SEO for a site analysis. Most sites have opportunities on page. Improve your site so it naturally ranks better. On page SEO is half the battle.
-
hire a quality content writer. Most SEOs agree "content is king". Even for those who disagree, they understand content has a big impact on your rankings. Look for "best of the web" content, not just average internet content
-
invest in graphics. Improve the look and feel of your site. Make it an award winning site to where it is discussed by graphic designers and other sites about how amazing your site appears. Create an infographic for your niche which others will naturally link to
-
create a useful widget which your site's visitors can use and will offer a backlink
-
hire an expert to write or officially review an article. Articles written by doctors, attorneys and other experts add credibility to your site.
-
hold a content and give away a prize. If the contest is performed correctly, you can gain a lot of social media and other attention.
-
create videos for your site. Quality, original media can make a big impact. This works for images as well.
You can pay a SEO to perform quality link building as well. Rather then hiring a permanent SEO, you may wish to hire a dedicated, intelligent college student who is capable of learning SEO basics and your niche. Let's say your site is a health food store. This link builder can then read the overwhelming number of health blogs and forums daily, offering comments and feedback as appropriate and occasionally linking back to your site with helpful information.
The list goes on but the point remains the same. There is a huge number of quality, white hat methods to grow your site in a sustainable way which provides real value and will last for years? It doesn't make sense to pay for links which may offer no value at all to visitors and may offer no value to you either.
-
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
-
So many links from single site?
this guy is ranking on all high volume keywords and has low quality content, he has 1600 ref domains check the attachment how did he get so many links from single site is he gonna be penalized YD2BvQ0
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SIMON-CULL0 -
Shopify Site with Multiple Domains?
Hey there! My client has a website on Shopify. I don't even know how to open this can of worms, but let me try. The site URL is: https://mobilityequipmentforless.com/ However, there is another (older?) URL that gets updated as the main site gets updated and shows the exact same content. It's a straight duplicate, but is it's own URL and doesn't redirect to the main site. https://www.powerchairrecyclers.com/ And this isn't the SITE.Shopify back-end site name that was used for set up initially. I just have no idea what's going on here. Not sure if it's a serious error that needs to be fixed, or if it's something weird with how Shopify work. Any insight would be immensely helpful. Thanks! Mike
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | naturalsociety0 -
Google cache is showing my UK homepage site instead of the US homepage and ranking the UK site in US
Hi There, When I check the cache of the US website (www.us.allsaints.com) Google returns the UK website. This is also reflected in the US Google Search Results when the UK site ranks for our brand name instead of the US site. The homepage has hreflang tags only on the homepage and the domains have been pointed correctly to the right territories via Google Webmaster Console.This has happened before in 26th July 2015 and was wondering if any had any idea why this is happening or if any one has experienced the same issueFDGjldR
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | adzhass0 -
Multiple Ecommerce sites, same products
We are a large catalog company with thousands of products across 2 different domains. Google clearly knows that the sites are connected. Both domains are fairly well known brands - thousands of branded searches for each site per month. Roughly half of our products overlap - they appear on both sites. We have a known duplicate content issue - both sites having exactly the same product descriptions, and we are working on it. We've seen that when a product has different content on the 2 sites, frequently, both pages get to page 2 of the SERPs, but that's as far as it goes, despite aggressive white hat link building tactics. 1. Is it possible to get the same product pages on page 1 of the SERPs for both sites? (I think I know the answer...) 2. Should we be canonicalizing (is that a word?) products across the sites? This would get tricky - both sites have roughly the same domain authority, but in different niches. Certain products and keywords naturally rank better on 1 site or the other depending on the niche.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AMHC0 -
Blog On Subdomain - Do backlinks to the blog posts on Subdomain count as links for main site?
I want to put blog on my site. The IT department is asking that I use a subdomain (myblog.mysite.com) instead of a subfolder (mysite.com/myblog). I am worried b/c it was my understanding that any links I get to my blog posts (if on subdomain) will not count toward the main site (search engines would view almost as other website). The main purpose of this blog is to attract backlinks. That is why I prefer the subfolder location for the Blog. Can anyone tell me if I am thinking about this right? Another solution I am being offered is to use a reverse proxy. Thoughts? Thank you for your time.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ecerbone0 -
Why is my client's site not ranking anymore? Like big time!
Ok, I'm reaching out to all of you Moz'rs for some help with this one. My client's site has dropped off the face of google in a real short period of time. It went from page 1 (avg rank 3 to page 6 (avg rank 50) and below in the matter of 2 weeks. Here's some facts: 1. DA is a 22 and homepage PA is a 31. It outranks all other sites in its competitive set. 2. The homepage used to be the page that displays for keyword searches, now its the FAQ page, which has a lower PA of 23. Why has the home page seemingly vaporized? And, why is the FAQ showing as the first result? What should I start checking. I feel paralyzed, not sure where to start. More info: a. There are no alerts present in Webmaster Tools. b. For some reason the homepage (domain.com) was 301'd to domain.com/home.html. Domain.com is indexed by Google, however, domain.com/home.html is not. If this is the issue, what is the best way to handle it? Thanks in advance for your help!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | rhoadesjohn1 -
Using Folkd for Video Backlink
Hi Mozzers, What are your thoughts on using www.folkd.com for video SEO? We have a few company videos and would like to possibly get a backlink by either embedding one of our youtube videos on our site or self hosting the video. Are bookmarking sites like this spammy?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Travis-W0 -
Removed Site-wide links
Hi there, I have recently removed quite a lot of site-wide links leaving the only link on homepage's of some websites, since doing this I have seen a dramatic drop on my keywords, going from position 2-3 to nowhere. Has anyone else experienced anything like this, should I expect to see a return on these keywords? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Paul780