Should I fix a high quality link when the website linking was complaining? What would you do?
-
While reviewing 404 errors in Webmaster Tools, I noticed that a client had a link from a high authority, well respected forum, to a page which no longer exists.
When I checked out the linking post, it was from 2004 and showed a campaign against the company for it's advertising tactics. I'll spare the details but the company has since changed their ways.
It's tempting to implement a 301 to get the link juice from this DA 80 post, but since the reason for the link is a negative one and the co-citations are not going to be positive, is it better to just let this link go?
Or what about something more up-front, such as setting up a page which states the company's mission statement and commitment to quality and standards and 301 redirecting to there? Even if we let this link be broken, a potential customer could be put off, so it might be a good idea to address this past issue on site?
Let me know your opinions on whether there is a way to benefit from this link or whether we are better off allowing the 404.
-
As a side note...why not get the client to contact the forum and make an official statement so they can clear up any misconceptions that a potential customer may have?
-
That is a very good point, thanks for making it.
As it turns out, after having done a bit of digging, it seems that they have a few other links from this website which are not as negative, which relate to a competition they ran. However, I still think it's worth preserving the link and addressing the concerns. Links from DA sites don't grow on trees and surely it's worth doing a bit of reputation management?
I'll speak to the client and see what they want to do.
Thanks both!
-
Can you see any traffic coming through that link in recent analytics?
If people are flooding in that might make you want to handle it differently than if nobody uses that link.
-
Thanks for the reply Dennis.
I can't really let it slip through my fingers. Awkward conversation with the client coming up!
If for any reason, they won't go for the idea of addressing the issue up front, do you think it would be harmful to 301 redirect the old link to the home page?
-
I would totally recreate the exact same url and put an update about how the company has changed and stuff like that
Id make it super professional and a bit long to make people believe it (if ever, somehow, someone finds that old link)
A link is a link and Ill take it, especially a great link that is "easy"
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
-
My question is in regards to possible conflict in creating an additional website under a new domain for our company.
Our companies, Vulcan Information Packaging and ATC both live under the domain “www.binders.com”. This is a great thing as far as us dominating in the binder industry. However, in the next 2-3 years and forward, we want to build our presence as a company who offers packaging products such as boxes, marketing kits, and other forms of packaging. Obviously, the “binders.com” brand/domain does not contribute much to this effort and can be confusing to customers visiting the site. Essentially, we want to build an additional branding for our company in the packaging industry. Keeping this in mind, we own the domain “www.vulcaninformationpackaging.com” and we are considering building a new website using this domain which contains the word “packaging”. This new site would only promote and contain packaging related products. This new website will advertise and direct traffic to our company Vulcan Information Packaging, which is the same company “binders.com” directs traffic to. So my question is to determine whether doing this might be a practice that Google and other search engines might frown upon. I tend to think it will be fine because we will be promoting and driving traffic for non-binder products where as, binders.com is heavily in binder related products. thank you, Dominic Zaidan
Branding | | dzaidan0 -
My Website is not Coming in Google News. What should I do ? Already verified.
Hello Friends I verified my site in Google News but all articles are not coming in Google News. When I type www.example.com in Google news then only few stories shows but not coming on daily basis. What to do my fellow members ?
Branding | | sourabhrana0 -
Pages with High Priority Issues 404 Errors
Hi there, I need some help on how to go about fixing the many 404 errors that i have on the site http://goo.gl/arwlON Many of the 404 errors are images that were on the CDN and now i have not joking 6k 404 errors and a good percentage are the cdn images that I deleted of 3 years work as I did not need them. Would you guys/gals be able to help me on best solution to fixing them? Thank you for your help in advance.
Branding | | blinky510 -
Making the most from a Press Release being featured on news websites
We have recently sent out a press release to targeted publications and have been lucky enough to be featured on a hand full of quality news websites which all feature links to our main URL. A minor draw back is some of the sites have just used the press release with minimal changes so we are a tiny bit worried about duplicate content issues but the sites are all high quality with a Domain Authority of 65+. Anyway I am wondering how best to capitalise on these. A few ideas I have:- 1. Go to our Company Google Plus page and +1 them. 2. Go to our Twitter profile and favourite the "tweets" that have been sent out mentioning each article. 3. Go to our Facebook page and "Like" the articles on each of the sites. 4. Setup a Squidoo page called "My Company featured around the internet" and link to the news pages. 5. Setup a Tumblr page called " MY Company featured around the internet" and link to the news pages. We are not sure if featured the links/urls on our "Press" section will undermine any benefit of link juice - we were thinking of doing a PDF of the pages and hosting the PDF on our site.
Branding | | JohnW-UK0 -
Link local online newspaper ad to newspaper's spash page or my site?
We just started advertising on the web version of our local newspaper. They suggest our ads go to a "splash page" they created for us on their site. The page haslinks , images and text taken from each of our main categories,. Plus links and feeds from our twitter and facebook pages. And a google map. This page shows a page authority 1 with 0 links. Is there any reason to link our ad to a page like this rather than going direct to our website page? Thank you Handcrafter
Branding | | stephenfishman0 -
Why does Tripadvisor rank higher than official hotel website?
Hello, I am trying to figure out why Tripadvisor is ranking higher for "Royal Lahaina Resort" than our official site RoyalLahaina.com website. Could any of you help here. It is confusing because our RoyalKona.com and our HawaiiHotels.com (Hotel Chain Group) ranks 1st but for one of the hotels it comes in second to trip advisor. Please help!
Branding | | TSpike10 -
Facebook Like my website or fan page??
Should I want people facebook liking my website or my fan page? Is there a way to link the two? Here is my dilemma... People liking my website will obviously have an effect on rankings within bing and google possibly. BUT - People liking my fan page will allow me to engage with them in the future about givaways, sales and so on. I'm stuck, is there a way to link these? Or if not, which do you recommend?
Branding | | Hyrule0 -
What are the best Guest Blogging websites? services?
Does anyone know of any guest blogging websites that offer a good (white hat) service? We're looking for websites that website owners may subscribe to that actually are pursuing guest bloggers to post on their site. We're looking for white-hat only websites. Thanks,
Branding | | iAnalyst.com0