Google sending warnings about Artificial or Unnatural links in Google Webmaster Central
-
Has anyone seen warnings about Artificial or Unnatural links notice show up in their Google Webmaster central yet? I just looked at each of our clients and had not but after reading the Search Engine Land article at http://searchengineland.com/google-warning-more-about-bad-link-networks-117079 I was wondering what your thoughts were regarding this topic?
We are not purchasing links for our clients sites but definitely going out their and building links. Article concerned me that I may run into issues for my link building clients. Thoughts?
-
Similar story here, got lots of sites, got warning ion 2 I least expected, was using some article blogs a while back, but only as part of a wider link profile. No penalty from warning, am hoping it's just a wake up call. Wish things were clearer, google needs to be more transparent.Fixing anything they don't like is also ridiculously difficult.
-
I have access to dozens of legitimate websites and knowledge of their SEO. One of the sites received the notice from Goggle, but had no rankings drop. Another site had sudden rankings drop for permutations of a keyword (went from averaging position 8 to averaging position 23).
I looked into what made these sites / keywords unique.
We did not knowingly use any blog networks. (and if we had links from them, it would have been low quantity)
We had many anchor text links. The quantity was similar or less than other website which received no penalties or warnings.
The website that received the warning did have some pure spam PR backlinks, but they were removed 7 months ago.
What seemed to make the website which received the warning unique was the high percentage of anchor text links to natural social and forum links. The website had less than 1,000 links total. Other websites with 2,000 to 10,000 links (and a similar to slightly larger quantity of anchor text links) received no warning,
What seemed unique about the site that received a drop for one set of keywords was that the site was having ranking problems with that keyword and a push was made to make more inbound links with that keyword. (we talking 10's of links, not hundreds or thousands.)
These sites have competition with 10,000 to 50,000 inbound links I would call "unnatural" we haven't seen those website dropping in rank.
It seems to me that google was very upfront when they state "over optimization". It is relational to your total link profile.
-
I have access to dozens of legitimate websites and knowledge of their SEO. One of the sites received the notice from Goggle, but had no rankings drop. Another site had sudden rankings drop for permutations of a keyword (went from averaging position 8 to averaging position 23).
I looked into what made these sites / keywords unique.
We did not knowingly use any blog networks. (and if we had links from them, it would have been low quantity)
We had many anchor text links. The quantity was similar or less than other website which received no penalties or warnings.
The website that received the warning did have some pure spam PR backlinks, but they were removed 7 months ago.
What seemed to make the website which received the warning unique was the high percentage of anchor text links to natural social and forum links. The website had less than 1,000 links total. Other websites with 2,000 to 10,000 links (and a similar to slightly larger quantity of anchor text links) received no warning,
What seemed unique about the site that received a drop for one set of keywords was that the site was having ranking problems with that keyword and a push was made to make more inbound links with that keyword. (we talking 10's of links, not hundreds or thousands.)
These sites have competition with 10,000 to 50,000 inbound links I would call "unnatural" we haven't seen those website dropping in rank.
It seems to me that google was very upfront when they state "over optimization". It is relational to your total link profile.
-
I had three show up for one of our test sites. All came on 3/29. All said the same thing.
Funny thing is, while it said that we had to request re-inclusion into the index, the site remains well ranked on other terms.
This makes us think that the infractions are for getting exact match anchor text links (they were the ones that got the messages). Compared to the other organic links we earned (variations of the anchor text in the links).
So, this latest wave of penalties applies to keywords, not the site, which is a step in the right direction.
We are already anticipating what the next penalized type of link will be, and we are already actively testing.
-
Having artificial or unnatural links isn't strictly limited to purchasing links. Are you doing anything else that might not be considered above board by Google? I'd start there and examine your clients' backlink profiles and make adjustments if needed.
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
-
What are the best link-building strategies for 2024, considering Google's evolving algorithms?
Link-building remains a crucial part of SEO, but with Google's algorithms constantly evolving, many traditional techniques are becoming less effective. I'm interested in learning about the latest link-building strategies that are expected to be successful in 2024. What approaches or tools should we focus on to ensure our efforts align with Google's current best practices and avoid potential penalties?
Link Building | | Ibrahim-Khuzam0 -
Refferal links
I have a site where I can pick up where my hits came from. So if somebody clicks from another website link to visit my website, I will then pick up from which website they came from and also which page they landed on. Will google penalize me for this and see this as paid advertising?
Link Building | | Heinwest0 -
Does link have any value?
I recently received a link, but upon inspecting the page source on the site I did not see the link in the coding. Is this a link with any SEO value? Is google able to see this link? Note: Upon inspecting the actual link on the page, I do see coding with a followed link, but on the page source, only the actual table in which it is listed shows in the coding, with none of the content - including our link, showing.
Link Building | | whiteonlySEO0 -
A few questions about unnatural links
i have just had another reconsideration request rejected by Google. In my rejection message they have given me 3 examples of unnatural links, but two of them I have had nothing to do with. My website is http://www.seoco.co.uk Here are the 3 links they mentioned: http://www.pyjamapeople.com/articles/authors/107/David-Eaves http://www.timeandattendance.co.uk/blog/?tag=access-control http://www.worx.at/blog/und-punkt/ the 1st one is just a website that republished one of my articles, I never submitted there or anything. Do I need to contact every single website that republished one of my articles and get those removed? Are they not classed as natural? Also, the page is not even cached by Google, why are they telling me to get rid of links that are not even in their index? The 2nd link is a client site and is definitely unnatural, I removed my link from the main part of the site a while ago but the blog footer was not updated, I will take care of that one. The 3rd link is a totally natural blogroll link that I had nothing to do with. What do you think I should do about it? Should I mention to Google on my next reconsideration request that it is in fact natural, or should I just bite the bullet and get it taken down? Also, there are a few pretty decent links out there that I am thinking about getting taken down on good sites, what do you think I should do with these two: 1. http://www.webcredible.co.uk/user-friendly-resources/search-engine-optimisation/directory-submission.shtml 2. http://www.webpronews.com/10-reasons-why-i-hate-shout-outs-on-digg-2007-10
Link Building | | Eavesy1 -
When does Google Webmaster update your links to site??
Hi everyone We removed a load of links from a site over 2 months ago but they still show in Google webmaster tools. I understand Google will not be reading this links as they were removed so long ago. However I just was interested when Google might update these as not showing as linking to us anymore. I like to try and keep things tidy and its a bit frustrating it would be good to be 100% sure what Google is counting at any given time. Cheers James
Link Building | | tempowebdesign0 -
What do you do if you have been hit by recent Google updates but cannot remove the links?
We have a potential new client who did their own SEO about 6-7 years ago.They ranked really well for years then obviously recently got hit. Some of the links they have are shocking, directories, articles sites etc. They did not use links farms but the links do not look great at all. The problem is they do not have log ins to remove these links manually themselves. Asking for a reconsideration with Google will not get us anywhere due to more recent link building issues we are trying to resolve. They have sent removal requests at least 10 times to these sites but no response. Has anyone overcome these types of issues previously and can give any tips? This would be a good client for us so keen to see what I can do to get them on-board.
Link Building | | tempowebdesign0 -
Text Link vs image link?
Which passes most link juice a text link or an image with the correct 'alt' attribute? Do the pass the same amount or is one more valuable than the other?
Link Building | | SamCUK0 -
SEOs and web developers frequently leave links to their site in the footer of their clients' sites. Does this negatively impact the site with the links?
Does this provide any SEO value to the receiving site? Has anyone experienced problems doing this?
Link Building | | KatMouse2