Additional links + Sinking DA
-
Hello from a tired SEO
I slept badly last night when I discovered last evening our Domain Authority had slumped. I've found that my client is now receiving followed backlinks from links placed in the footers of two good quality/related sites.
My question is should I ignore the reduction and keep link building around these - or - should I ask for these links to be removed?
Another factor in the mix is we have gone from about 300 links to 600 in a month. I have been working hard on our blog and site content with feeds to technorati.
Any advice for a tired novice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
-
Thanks Rand, I needed that. I've just been informed by my son's school that the council want to withdraw his funding - the UK is pretty dire at the moment. He has SEN. Still puts things in prospective.
-
That is fantastic to hear! So glad we could be helpful. Congrats on getting off the ground; the first steps are the hardest ones. Thrilled to have you here at Moz
-
Hi Rand
I nearly fell off my chair when I saw your face on this answer!
You've probably grasped that I am a struggling novice working on her own. The only thing that got me through Wednesday night was the thought that I could ask for help in the morning. I'm pretty sure that the additional links are not detrimental and that (having read the PA/DA link) the score we now have is a fairer reflection on our true DA.
I've set up our social profiles, established a blog and content strategy, followed all the 'make it readable advice' and am now doing the reaching out to other bloggers method you suggested. (I've even got one genuine backlink to our piece on Finnish Digger Sitters) that was a proud day http://socialmedianordic.com/author/ingeborgv/page/2/.
My initial job with an old school SEO was a far cry from what I'm learning now. Your site is awesome, I really can't thank you enough.
Catherine
-
Hi Catherine - Wayne's responses were great, but I just wanted to jump in with another voice.
I'd say that if you think the links are actively hurting you in Google/Bing or could be perceived by someone on the search quality/webspam team as manipulative, go ahead and get rid of them. But, if they're editorial links that send you traffic or are just good in quality, don't sweat it!
Remember also that we just updated the PA/DA models - discussed here - http://www.seomoz.org/blog/introducing-seomoz-updated-page-authority-and-domain-authority - which might be responsible for the scoring changes.
-
Ok I'll chill - don't like the idea about the paper cup!
You're a star!
Thanks
Catherine
-
Sounds like you might be sweating a bit too much.
Also sounds like you're thinking with the right intentions: keep close tabs on your competitors; eek out the links that they have garnered from "good neighborhoods" and make sure you're using best practices with regard to anchor text.
I can tell you from experience, if you continue to stress over the "unexpected" in the SEO world, you may find yourself drooling into a paper cup at your local mental health facility! It's actually what most of us (the good ones, anyway!) thrive on with regard to SEO: THE RAPID CHANGE!
The entire premise of SEO, at least for me, has been about rolling with the tide and realizing you'll never be ahead of the curve, or even caught up. It sounds as if you aren't a coder, etc., so just do your best to recognize the standards and best practices set forth in Webmaster Guidelines, and you're going to be ok.
Now, quit losing sleep
-
Thanks Wayne Stats on organic keywords keep going up. And I'm thinking of links from other sites (following the trail or my competitors).
Thank your for the reassurance - it's very hard learning this job on ones own sometimes, particularly when the unexpected happens. That's happened to me twice this week and it's unnerving
Yours sincerely
Catherine
-
Hi there, Catherine!
What about your traffic? Have you seen any reduction in organic since the "slump"? This might tell you a bit more than your Domain Authority (DA). (Not dismissing DA by any means, but sometimes it's not a clear-cut indicator of how well/poor you're doing in the SERPs.)
I wouldn't remove the footer links if the sites are reputable and its done in an honest/non-spammy fashion. I'm sure you can look at it and determine if it's "creepy" or not Keep in mind though, footer links are certainly not given the weight they perhaps once carried! Also, if you're asking whether or not to keep building links from the same two sites, my suggestion would be to set your sights on different domains.
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
-
Disvowing Links?
I ran a report through SEM rush and it came back with 174 toxic links ( score 100-60). I have been reading mixed reviews about what to do. Most of the websites are not relevant and appear to be linking to the images. Should I disavow these links? Would it help SEO? Or should I leave it be?
Link Building | | higherimages0 -
Internal Linking - Post links vs Side Bar Links behaving differently
Hi, I have a question regarding the internal linking behavior. My website is www.hindimeaning.com which is approx 3 years old. I have approx 450 posts. Now i have a widget on right sidebar "Popular posts". A widget below my posts "Related Posts". And a simple html CSS menu above the posts (I removed menu around 6 month before so currently it will not show.) I crawled my site with moz crawler (same are the result from google crawler as well) and it shows menus links as internal links. While sidebar widget "Popular posts" and "Related Posts" are not showing as internal links. If we talk theoretically what i learn till now is "every link on a page behaves as internal link". Then why the widget links are not showing as internal links. Thanks, Mahesh Kumar
Link Building | | chaudhary04890 -
Link or Ad
I recently requested a link back from a site that is ranking 2nd for a term that i'm working on and they said they would gladly give me the link and remove my competitors but would also like me to have an ad on the same page for an annual fee that i could link to a landing page. I know that paying for links is no good and google can penalize you. so do i pay them and do a no follow to the landing page from the ad and call it a day? and how does google differentiate an ad from a link?
Link Building | | CHiP_RuN0 -
How many links is too many?
I know this is a bit of a difficult one to answer but would appreciate some opinions.
Link Building | | Entrusteddev0 -
Neighborhood links
Hi, If my company offers carpet cleaning services, what neighborhood links partner I need to find. Can anybody list down the neighborhood. Thanks.
Link Building | | younus0 -
How to improve (ASAP) the linking root domain, the followed linking root domains and the linking C-Blocks? Linkbuilding (or whatever) techniques.
I have a small site (.com) like any website in my sector. 30-90 pages. I have no crawls errors. Everythings is fine, just I need to improve my linking root domain, the followed linking root domain and the linking C-Blocks. Example: my competitors have 300 (one of them have 1300) of total links. I have 30. Anyone know some good strategies? techniques? tips? I just dont want to be in a farm directory, I want free links. I'm already running two strategies but it works so slowly. I want something faster at this moment. Also, any recommendation will be thankful.
Link Building | | NicoDavila0 -
NEW LINKS
Hi If you plan to add new links to a site which currently has very few inbound links what is the maximum amount you could add in any one day before it is deemed by Google to be suspicious and unatural. I am referring ot manually added links, not robotic. Thank you 🙂
Link Building | | PH2920 -
Does linking to a subdomain give link juice to the main domain?
I have a few domains that I'm going to use for link building, will the link juice from the sub domains transfer to the main domain?
Link Building | | Vsky0