Are there tools out there to determine when a link linked to your site? I want to know when a link farm was done a site.
-
In Webmaster Tools I discovered that a client of mine with signed up for or hired another company to get links. The links are poor quality and from other countries, so it looks like a link farm was done. I want to know when they links were linked to the site, and not sure how to find that information out. Does anyone know how to find this out?
-
If you know the sites in question, look in your analytics refferal data for any traffic from them.
-
Ahrefs and Majestic SEO both track historical link acquisition, though the reliability of this information isn't the greatest given that they're reporting when they found the link, not when it was actually created. Obviously, Google has more resources to crawl the web and would find the link sooner than these services would. Despite this problem, it should still be enough to give you a rough feel for when a large chunk of links were created.
-
Ahrefs and Majestic SEO both track historical link acquisition, though the reliability of this information isn't the greatest given that they're reporting when they found the link, not when it was actually created. Obviously, Google has more resources to crawl the web and would find the link sooner than these services would. Despite this problem, it should still be enough to give you a rough feel for when a large chunk of links were created.
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
-
How does google know if rich snippet reviews are fake?
According to: https://developers.google.com/structured-data/rich-snippets/reviews - all someone has to do is add in some html code and write the review. How does google do any validation on whether these reviews are legitimate or not?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | wlingke0 -
How to deal with link echoes of former hacked websites?
Hi all, I'd know which is the best way to deal with link echoes of former hacked websites that Webmaster tool reports. to clarify: when you download the backlink report from Webmaster tool you'll have a list of backlinks discovered, but if you follow one of those links you will see that on that page there is no link to your website. the source code is also clean, no hidden links or other dodgy technique. Since that the topic is usually miles away from my industry I have to assume at some point that site has been hacked by a spammer who placed that backlink. In this case what should I do? Ignore it, disavow the domain or what? Moreover, which is the best procedure when you have to face a site which points a lot of backlinks from only its sub-domains? For example: this dodgy spammy website : http://px949z32.com/ is apparently a desert, but when you do site:http://px949z32.com/ you'll discover 55,200 results! Would be it be enough to just disavow the root domain http://px949z32.com/?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | madcow78
As I don't want to wait too long before taking any action, my plan is to disavow all those domains without any mercy, although I can't find a current backlink in one of their pages. I will do this, as at the minute my concern is they will be hacked again and I have to face the same issue again and again Thanks to all, P.0 -
When to NOT USE the disavow link tool
Im not here to say this is concrete and should never do this, and please if you disagree with me then lets discuss. One of the biggest things out there today especially after the second wave of Penguin (2.0) is the fear striken web masters who run straight to the disavow tool after they have been hit with Penguin or noticed a drop shortly after. I had a friend who's site who never felt the effects of Penguin 1.0 and thought everything was peachy. Then P2.0 hit and his rankings dropped of the map. I got a call from him that night and he was desperately asking me for help to review his site and guess what might have happened. He then tells me the first thing he did was compile a list of websites back linking to him that might be the issue and create his disavow list and submitted it. I asked him "How long did you research these sites before you came the conclusion they were the problem?" He Said "About an hour" Then I asked him "Did you receive a message in your Google Webmaster Tools about unnatural linking?" He Said "No" I said "Then why are you disavowing anything?" He Said "Um.......I don't understand what you are saying?" In reading articles, forums and even here in the Moz Q/A I tend to think there is some misconceptions about the disavow tool from Google that do not seem to be clearly explained. Some of my findings with the tool and when to use it is purely based on logic IMO. Let me explain When to NOT use the tool If you spent an hour reviewing your back link profile and you are to eager to wait any longer to upload your list. Unless you have less than 20 root domains linking to you, you should spend a lot more than an hour reviewing your back link profile You DID NOT receive a message from GWT informing you that you had some "unnatural" links Ill explain later If you spend a very short amount of time reviewing your back link profile. Did not look at each individual site linking to you and every link that exists, then you might be using it WAY TO SOON. The last thing you want to do is disavow a link that actually might be helping you. Take the time to really look at each link and ask your self this question (Straight from the Google Guidelines) "A good rule of thumb is whether you'd feel comfortable explaining what you've done to a website that competes with you, or to a Google employee" Studying your back link profile We all know when we have cheated. Im sure 99.9% of all of us can admit to it at one point. Most of the time I can find back links from sites and look right at the owner and ask him or her "You placed this back link didn't you?" I can see the guilt immediately in their eyes 🙂 Remember not ALL back links you generate are bad or wrong because you own the site. You need to ask yourself "Was this link necessary and does it apply to the topic at hand?", "Was it relevant?" and most important "Is this going to help other users?". These are some questions you can ask yourself before each link you place. You DID NOT receive a message about unnatural linking This is were I think the most confusing takes place (and please explain to me if I am wrong on this). If you did not receive a message in GWT about unnatural linking, then we can safely say that Google does not think you contain any "fishy" spammy links in which they have determined to be of a spammy nature. So if you did not receive any message yet your rankings dropped, then what could it be? Well it's still your back links that most likely did it, but its more likely the "value" of previous links that hold less or no value at all anymore. So obviously when this value drops, so does your rank. So what do I do? Build more quality links....and watch you rankings come back 🙂
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | cbielich1 -
Site being targeted by hardcore porn links
We noticed recently a huge amount of referral traffic coming to a client's site from various hard cord porn sites. One of the sites has become the 4th largest referrer and there are maybe 20 other sites sending traffic. I did a Whois look up on some of the sites and they're all registered to various people & companies, most of them are pretty shady looking. I don't know if the sites have been hacked or are deliberately sending traffic to my client's site, but it's obviously a concern. The client's site was compromised a few months ago and had a bunch of spam links inserted into the homepage code. Has anyone else seen this before? Any ideas why someone would do this, what the risks are and how we fix it? All help & suggestions greatly appreciated, many thanks in advance. MB.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | MattBarker0 -
Beating the file sharing sites in SERPs - Can it be done and how?
Hi all, A new client of mine is an online music retailer (CD, vinyls, DVD etc) who is struggling against file sharing sites that are taking precedence over the client's results for searches like "tropic of cancer end of things cd" If a site a legal retailer trying to make an honest living who's then having to go up against the death knell of the music industry - torrents etc. If you think about it, with all the penalties Google is fond of dealing out, we shouldn't even be getting a whiff of file sharing sites in SERPs, right? How is it that file sharing sites are still dominating? Is it simply because of the enormous amounts of traffic they receive? Does traffic determine ranking? How can you go up against torrents and download sites in this case. You can work on the onsite stuff, get bloggers to mention the client's pages for particular album reviews, artist profiles etc, but what else could you suggest I do? Thanks,
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Martin_S0 -
Retail Site and Internal Linking Best Practices
I am in the process of recreating my company's website and, in addition to the normal retail pages, we are adding a "learn" section with user manuals, reviews, manufacturer info, etc. etc. It's going to be a lot of content and there will be linking to these "learn" pages from both products and other "learn" pages. I read on a SEOmoz blog post that too much internal linking with optimized anchor text can trigger down-rankings from Google as a penalty. Well, we're talking about having 6-8 links to "learn" pages from product pages and interlinking many times within the "learn" pages like Wikipedia does. And I figured they would all have optimized text because I think that is usually best for the end user (I personally like to know that I am clicking on "A Review of the Samsung XRK1234" rather than just "A Review of Televisions"). What is best practice for this? Is there a suggested limit to the number of links or how many of them should have optimized text for a retail site with thousands of products? Any help is greatly appreciated!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Marketing.SCG0 -
Getting sites unbanned in bulk
Prior to the Panda update we had 1 main site, and 300 or so satellite sites. The satellite sites all had an identical template with identical content. The satellite sites all got flagged, and the main site persevered. We'd like to TRY to get all of these sites unbanned in bulk. My question is...how 'DIFFERENT' should these sites be? I know that a real google employee will be looking. All of these sites will be in the same industry...so how 'different' can the content really be? I am going to try to do this in sets of 10 and purchase a different template for EACH city/satellite site, as well as having varying categories, but realistically how doomed/successful do you think this endeavor will be? Any advice? realistic timeline?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | ilyaelbert0