Our site has too many backlinks! How can we do a bad backlink audit?
-
Webmaster Tools is saying we have close to 24 million links to our site. The site has been around since the mid 90s and has accumulated all these links since.
We also have our own network of sites that have links in their templates to our main site. I'm fighting to get these links "nofollow"'d but upper management seems scared to alter this practice.
This past year we've found our rankings have dropped significantly and suspect it's due to some spammy backlinks or being penalized for doing an accidental link scheme network.
24 million links is too many to check manually for using the disavow tool and it seems that bulk services out there to check backlinks can't even come close.
What's an SEO to do?
-
How many domains do those 24 million links come from? It's possible you could find that they distill down into a manageable number of domains to manually review. I think that tools like Link Detox can help in an initial review of links and perhaps you can use that as a first pass to find as many spammy ones as possible. Then, I would take all of the links that were marked as suspicious or healthy, and visit one link from each domain manually.
In my experience, the only sites that I am seeing recovering from link based issues (either manual penalty or Penguin) are ones who have been EXTREMELY thorough on their audits. It sure is a lot more work to evaluate links by hand but I think it is necessary.
-
Thanks, we'll check it out. Have you had any experience using this tool?
-
I was afraid of an answer like this
Thanks for the tips. Are you aware of any database or list of spam sites I could easily run our backlinks through to cut down the list?
-
Agreed. It's been a company practice to do these types of links for years but with penguin/panda, I'm afraid it's only hurting us.
It's a tough case to change these links. They do bring traffic to the site so I'm hoping a nofollow is good enough.
Thanks for your input.
-
Try using Link Detox
-
Going along with Rob L.'s question, what about spammy keyword links on one of your SUBDOMAINS? Ie, news.domain.com? Will this hinder your rankings as well?
Back in the pre-penguin days we created poor content loaded with keyword links in blog.domain.com and news.domain.com. I don't use them anymore and thinking I just blow up those subdomains.
Thoughts?
-
We also have our own network of sites that have links in their templates to our main site. I'm fighting to get these links "nofollow"'d but upper management seems scared to alter this practice.
This past year we've found our rankings have dropped significantly and suspect it's due to some spammy backlinks or being penalized for doing an accidental link scheme network.
Those spammy backlinks might be the ones from your own network of sites? I hope that they don't have money terms as anchor text and are in a big block in the footer? If they do then upper management might want to reconsider in an effort to get your traffic back.
-
Use spreadsheets and other tools like OSE and Majestic and dig in. Roll up your sleeves and get after it. I wouldn't start with Webmaster tools, it's not the best, but whatever you do export your reports to excel and start narrowing 'em down.
Remove domains you know are good or search for domains you know are bad, etc.
Filter search in OSE to remove nofollows and internal links.. There are things you can do to narrow this down but it will be a daunting task, no question.
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
-
Will including a global-site link in all 100 local-sites footer be considered spammy?
If I am a car manufacturer brand site(global), and I request all my location-specific domains include a link to the global site in their footers, would this trigger a red flag for Google? There are roughly 100 location-specific sites, but I would like to come up with a long term solution, so this number could be larger in the future. Is it best practice to only follow the footer link on each location-specific site Homepage, and nofollow the rest of the footer links on each site? Is it best to only include one followed link to the manufacturer brand site (global) on each location-specific domain? Is it best to not put this global link in the footer, but rather towards the top of the page only on the homepage?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Jonathan.Smith0 -
Pharma Hack/Grey hat SEO. Cannot get site to rank, tons of incoming bad links
I have been working on a website trying to get it to show up in the SERPs again. It is being indexed which is great, it has some errors that I'm fixing now. But for the most part it should be ranking. It don't show any penalties going on, but when I did a backlink search we keep getting the cialis, viagra etc inbound links. First thought was Pharma Hack. But it's not a WP site and I recently rebuilt it. So whatever bad code could have been there it's not anymore. It doesn't show up in google either for the search site:www.mysite.com viagra cialis etc... So I'm wondering if anyone has any insight in a direction to point me? I don't understand what would be causing this to still not rank. Only thing it ranks for is it's name. Any suggestions would be very appreciated.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | WeBuyCars.com0 -
Forcing Google to Crawl a Backlink URL
I was surprised that I couldn't find much info on this topic, considering that Googlebot must crawl a backlink url in order to process a disavow request (ie Penguin recovery and reconsideration requests). My trouble is that we recently received a great backlink from a buried page on a .gov domain and the page has yet to be crawled after 4 months. What is the best way to nudge Googlebot into crawling the url and discovering our link?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Choice0 -
SEO for Career sites and sup-pages
For main job categories: We manage several career pages for several clients but the competition for the main keywords (even several long tail) is from big names like Indeed and similar job boards?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | rflores
What would you recommend? For job posts: Since the job posts that our clients post are short lived (80% live less than a month) would it still be incorrect to purchase backlinks? or is it always a big no Thanks for your help. And if a similar question has been asked I would appreciate if you could point me to it. I could not find one.0 -
Many sites added some excerpts of my Blog post and linking back ? Most of them are Spamy site !
Many sites added some excerpts of my Blog post and linking back ? Most of them are Spamy site ! Some are great blogs, but some blogs just copy some excerpts and link back to them - which i never approve. Will it affect my blog. i ask them to remove it. no use. !
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Esaky0 -
Link idea? good or bad?
OK so my website ranks fairly well for keywords i would say 50-60 % are ranking in the top 3 my DA is 15 and PA is 28 I have a few other sites that i blog on that i own they have a DA of 11 and PA of 20 i was thinking of just guest posting on those using a keyword Anchor text that im not ranking for and seeing what that would do. I was thinking of creating a few other sites and just blog about random stuff for 3-6 months generate traffic and start guest posting redirecting links back towards me. Is this bad?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | gslc0 -
Infographic submission sites potentially offering paid links....
Good Morning/Afternoon fellow Mozzers, I recently created an infographic and am now looking to get it distributed via as many publications as possible. I discovered some great sites with collections of infographics.However I have discovered a multitude of sites offering to review and feature the infographic, or "express" submissions so the graphic features faster for a price..... links below. http://www.amazinginfographics.com/submit-infographics/ http://infographicjournal.com/submit-infographics/ 2 questions 1. Is this considered as buying links? My instincts say Yes. 2. Some sites offer mix of free and "express" paid submissions. If the answer to Q.1 is yes, should I avoid them all together even if my graphic gets picked up free? Thanks in advance for the feedback.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | RobertChapman0 -
Is this site penalized?
So I am working on a potential new client and they run several very well established and well ranking ecommerce sites. They have 1 site which is new and underperforming which they want me to "start" on as a trial. The idea being that if they like the progress I would take over SEO on the other sites. After a little research I am concerned that this site may be have a penalty. The site is www.discoverhookah.com The MOZrank and MOZtrust are actually pretty good considering the site is 6 months old, but if you look at the links they are ALL junk. They seems to be some reciprocal linking as well. I believe this is something they have done on their other sites and been ok with because they are 10+ years old and very trusted, however for a new site this link profile worries me. I do not have their analytics yet but looking at their traffic in compete.com shows a HUGE drop off shortly after the site went up (like from 2500 to under 100 visitors). I dont really trust compete.com's numbers outside of being and good indicator for trends, but it has me concerned. The client did tell me they are getting virtually no traffic. I am waiting on the crawl report to confirm its not a crawl or onsite problem but i dont think it is. I have 2 concerns: 1. I am taking this site on the cheap in order to establish a successful project, so I can work on their other sites, and I dont want to walk into a losing situation on the cheap! 2. I believe their webmaster is following some misguided SEO strategies but she has been with them for a long time. I dont think she wants to do theor SEO anyway, as she is very busy with maintenance and development, but if I could prove a penalty it would go a long way in helping me win the whole account from an SEO standpoint.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BlinkWeb0