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.
How can I block incoming links from a bad web site ?
-
Hello all,
We got a new client recently who had a warning from Google Webmasters tools for manual soft penalty. I did a lot of search and I found out one particular site that sounds roughly 100k links to one page and has been potentialy a high risk site.
I wish to block those links from coming in to my site but their webmaster is nowhere to be seen and I do not want to use the disavow tool.
Is there a way I can use code to our htaccess file or any other method?
Would appreciate anyone's immediate response.
Kind Regards
-
Hi Yiannis,
As far as I'm aware, there isn't really a way to "block" a link. The link is seen on the other site. Returning a 404 for the page being linked to doesn't change the fact that there are a 100K links from one site pointing at your site. The only options I'm aware of are to 1.) contact the owner of the website with the links and ask them to remove the links and 2.) if that doesn't work disavow the links.
I understand your hesitancy to use the disavow tool, but quite frankly, this is exactly what it is intended for.
If you feel comfortably with the links being there and think Google has already dealt with them, then do nothing, but if you want to do something about the links, you either have to get them removed or disavow them.
BTW - My understanding of the partial manual actions is that often times Google not only deals with the suspicious links (devaluing them), but they also penalize the pages/keywords they think you were attempting to manipulate. So, just because it was a partial action and not a full site action doesn't mean it's not effecting some of your rankings. It's just not going to affect all your rankings for all your pages.
Kurt Steinbrueck
OurChurch.Com -
Hi eyepaq and thanks for your reply, much appreciated
The reason I do not want to use the disavow tool is because
- Google sent on the message that "took targeted action on the unnatural links instead of on the site’s ranking as a whole", meaning they took care of the problem 2) Ranking and traffic looking solid
- I have seen a lot of cases where people used it and lost rankings (some never recovered).
My thoughts were to block the spammy links and monitor if the traffic will be affected (which I doubt as it seems most of it is for branded searches). If then I face de-index, drops then use the disavow/reconsideration request.
What do you think?
-
Hi,
If you are talking about one or only a few sites then it's easy.
Just build a disavow file as there is no down side to that . The disavow with domain:domainname.com (not individual pages) and upload it via Web master Tools. After sumbiting the file - send a reconsideration request explaining the situation and mentioning the disavow file. You should be safe after that.
Alternatively - but to be honest I don't see the reason why not going with the first option - is to return a 404 if the referral is that domain.
Hope it helps.
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
-
Best Web-site Structure/ SEO Strategy for an online travel agency?
Dear Experts! I need your help with pointing me in the right direction. So far I have found scattered tips around the Internet but it's hard to make a full picture with all these bits and pieces of information without a professional advice. My primary goal is to understand how I should build my online travel agency web-site’s (https://qualistay.com) structure, so that I target my keywords on correct pages and do not create a duplicate content. In my particular case I have very similar properties in similar locations in Tenerife. Many of them are located in the same villa or apartment complex, thus, it is very hard to come up with the unique description for each of them. Not speaking of amenities and pricing blocks, which are standard and almost identical (I don’t know if Google sees it as a duplicate content). From what I have read so far, it’s better to target archive pages rather than every single property. At the moment my archive pages are: all properties (includes all property types and locations), a page for each location (includes all property types). Does it make sense adding archive pages by property type in addition OR in stead of the location ones if I, for instance, target separate keywords like 'villas costa adeje' and 'apartments costa adeje'? At the moment, the title of the respective archive page "Properties to rent in costa adeje: villas, apartments" in principle targets both keywords... Does using the same keyword in a single property listing cannibalize archive page ranking it is linking back to? Or not, unless Google specifically identifies this as a duplicate content, which one can see in Google Search Console under HTML Improvements and/or archive page has more incoming links than a single property? If targeting only archive pages, how should I optimize them in such a way that they stay user-friendly. I have created (though, not yet fully optimized) descriptions for each archive page just below the main header. But I have them partially hidden (collapsible) using a JS in order to keep visitors’ focus on the properties. I know that Google does not rank hidden content high, at least at the moment, but since there is a new algorithm Mobile First coming up in the near future, they promise not to punish mobile sites for a collapsible content and will use mobile version to rate desktop one. Does this mean I should not worry about hidden content anymore or should I move the descirption to the bottom of the page and make it fully visible? Your feedback will be highly appreciated! Thank you! Dmitry
Technical SEO | | qualistay1 -
Help Setting Up 301 Redirects from Coldfusion Site to Wordpress Site.
I have created a new website and need to redirect all of the previous pages to the new one. The old website was built in coldfusion and the new site is built in wordpress. One of the pages I'm trying to redirect is www.norriseal.com/products.cfm to http://norrisealwellmark.com/products/. This is what I have in my .htaccess file <ifmodule mod_rewrite.c="">Options +FollowSymlinks
Technical SEO | | MarketHubb
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
Redirect 301 /products.cfm http://norrisealwellmark.com/products/</ifmodule> The result of this redirect is http://norrisealwellmark.com/products.cfm How do I prevent the .cfm from appending to the destination URL?1 -
URL Structure On Site - Currently it's domain/product-name NOT domain/category/product name is this bad?
I have a eCommerce site and the site structure is domain/product-name rather than domain/product-category/product-name Do you think this will have a negative impact SEO Wise? I have seen that some of my individual product pages do get better rankings than my categories.
Technical SEO | | the-gate-films0 -
Does my "spam" site affect my other sites on the same IP?
I have a link directory called Liberty Resource Directory. It's the main site on my dedicated IP, all my other sites are Addon domains on top of it. While exploring the new MOZ spam ranking I saw that LRD (Liberty Resource Directory) has a spam score of 9/17 and that Google penalizes 71% of sites with a similar score. Fair enough, thin content, bunch of follow links (there's over 2,000 links by now), no problem. That site isn't for Google, it's for me. Question, does that site (and linking to my own sites on it) negatively affect my other sites on the same IP? If so, by how much? Does a simple noindex fix that potential issues? Bonus: How does one go about going through hundreds of pages with thousands of links, built with raw, plain text HTML to change things to nofollow? =/
Technical SEO | | eglove0 -
Why is Google Webmaster Tools showing 404 Page Not Found Errors for web pages that don't have anything to do with my site?
I am currently working on a small site with approx 50 web pages. In the crawl error section in WMT Google has highlighted over 10,000 page not found errors for pages that have nothing to do with my site. Anyone come across this before?
Technical SEO | | Pete40 -
Staging site and "live" site have both been indexed by Google
While creating a site we forgot to password protect the staging site while it was being built. Now that the site has been moved to the new domain, it has come to my attention that both the staging site (site.staging.com) and the "live" site (site.com) are both being indexed. What is the best way to solve this problem? I was thinking about adding a 301 redirect from the staging site to the live site via HTACCESS. Any recommendations?
Technical SEO | | melen0 -
Do web pages have to be linked to a menu?
I have a situation where people search for terms like, say 1978 one dollar bill. Even though there never was a 1978 one dollar bill. I want to make a page to capture these searches but since there wasn't such a thing as a one dollar bill I don't want it connected to the rest of my content which is reality based. Does that make sense? Anyway, my question is, can I publish pages that aren't linked to my menu structure but that will be searchable or, am I going to have to figure out a way to make these oddball pages accessible through my menu?
Technical SEO | | Banknotes0 -
What are the pros and cons of moving one site onto a subdomain of another site?
Two sites. One has weaker sales. What would the benefits and problems for SEO of moving the weak site from its own domain to a subdomain of the stronger site?
Technical SEO | | GriffinHansen0
