Incoming links which don't exists...
-
I believe our site is being penalized/held back in rankings, and I think this is why...
We placed an advert on a website which they didn't make "no follow" so we had hundreds of site-wide links coming into our site. We asked them to remove the advert which they did. This was 4 months ago, and the links are still showing in GWMT. We have look into their pages which GWMT is saying still link to us, but these a number pages aren't being indexed by Google, and others aren't being cached.
Is it possible that because Google cant find these pages, it can tell our link has been removed? And/or are we being penalized for this?
Many thanks
-
If these are all coming from one site, and you're worried about them, this is actually a good case for the disavow tool. You can disavow an entire domain in a single line:
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2648487?hl=en
As Michael said, getting Google to actually recrawl/recache all of those pages can take quite a while. With the ad gone, it's probably a non-issue and they'll eventually clear out, but disavow would remove any lingering doubt.
Unfortunately, there's no way to tell if you've been penalized without knowing more about the site, traffic, etc. I'd say its unlikely for a paid link from a single site, especially if that link was subsequently removed. Googles isn't usually that aggressive about it, especially if your site generally has solid authority/reputation.
-
As soon as you place a link on a site that is site wide you have to wait potentially months for Google to crawl every page on that site, which is why GWT might still be showing the detail. GWT is not the decider as to whether Google takes some action.
As long as you have rectified with either a no-follow or removal you are fine and have done the right thing.
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
-
SEO Adjustments Where Content Isn't Front And Centre...
So I am wondering what people think for a SEO strategy for sites where (1) the interaction is a one-off event and (2) content is not often shared or something that people want. Specificially regarding two sites this applies to: Site 1 is basically a mortgage site. So customers interact with the site once and then most likely never again once their mortgage is sorted. Mortgages aren't great content pieces and customers don't really read a lot of the content - it's part of the reason loan officers/mortgage professionals exist... Site 2 is also for a one off purchase but it's an embarrassing problem that nobody would share content for because they don't want people to know that they sought help for this. This also makes getting backlinks hard. Also it is a one off purchase, never to be made again... Am interested in how people would adapt their SEO strategies to these circumstances - where content development and promotion is limited...
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | GTAMP0 -
Is it possible to rank in google mexico when you don't have a local site?
Hello, someone is asking me why we don't rank in google mexico search engine. I mentioned we don't have a google mexico site, but have a USA site, so we may rank, but not as well as if we had the mexico site. IS there anyway to improve rankings or tips? THanks! Laura Robinson
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lauramrobinson321 -
Website Isn't Ranking & I'm Not Sure Why Based On The Data
Hi Moz Community,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ErrickG
I am having an issue that has been killing me for some time and I could really use another opinion. One of my client’s websites hasn't been ranking for some time and I can't put my finger on it. There are no issues showing up in the webmaster tools. If you compare the site with the tops ranking sites for the websites number one keyword, the website is just as good as everyone else. My clients website is the first one on the left in the attachment. We have better quality content but instead of showing up on page 1,2,3 the site is on page 21. I am just at a lost. Anyone have any thoughts outside looking in. Thanks,
Errick rrLJZ2G0 -
What can you do when Google can't decide which of two pages is the better search result
On one of our primary keywords Google is swapping out (about every other week) returning our home page, which is more transactional, with a deeper more information based page. So if you look at the Analysis in Moz you get an almost double helix like graph of those pages repeatedly swapping places. So there seems to be a bit of cannibalizing happening that I don't know how to correct. I think part of the problem is the deeper page would ideally be "longer" tail searches that contain the one word keyword that is having this bouncing problem as a part of the longer phrase. What can be done to try prevent this from happening? Can internal links help? I tried adding a link on that term to the deeper page to our homepage, and in a knee jerk reaction was asked to pull that link before I think there was really any evidence to suggest that that one new link made a positive or negative effect. There are some crazy theories floating around at the moment, but I am curious what others think both about if adding a link from a informational to a transactional page could in fact have a negative effect, and what else could be done/tried to help clarify the difference between the two pages for the search engines.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | plumvoice0 -
I've seen and heard alot about city-specific landing pages for businesses with multiple locations, but what about city-specific landing pages for cities nearby that you aren't actually located in? Is it ok to create landing pages for nearby cities?
I asked here https://www.google.com/moderator/#7/e=adbf4 but figured out ask the Moz Community also! Is it actually best practice to create landing pages for nearby cities if you don't have an actual address there? Even if your target customers are there? For example, If I am in Miami, but have a lot of customers who come from nearby cities like Fort Lauderdale is it okay to create those LP's? I've heard this described as best practice, but I'm beginning to question whether Google sees it that way.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RickyShockley2 -
Robots.txt file - How to block thosands of pages when you don't have a folder path
Hello.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Unity
Just wondering if anyone has come across this and can tell me if it worked or not. Goal:
To block review pages Challenge:
The URLs aren't constructed using folders, they look like this:
www.website.com/default.aspx?z=review&PG1234
www.website.com/default.aspx?z=review&PG1235
www.website.com/default.aspx?z=review&PG1236 So the first part of the URL is the same (i.e. /default.aspx?z=review) and the unique part comes immediately after - so not as a folder. Looking at Google recommendations they show examples for ways to block 'folder directories' and 'individual pages' only. Question:
If I add the following to the Robots.txt file will it block all review pages? User-agent: *
Disallow: /default.aspx?z=review Much thanks,
Davinia0 -
Googlebot Can't Access My Sites After I Repair My Robots File
Hello Mozzers, A colleague and I have been collectively managing about 12 brands for the past several months and we have recently received a number of messages in the sites' webmaster tools instructing us that 'Googlebot was not able to access our site due to some errors with our robots.txt file' My colleague and I, in turn, created new robots.txt files with the intention of preventing the spider from crawling our 'cgi-bin' directory as follows: User-agent: * Disallow: /cgi-bin/ After creating the robots and manually re-submitting it in Webmaster Tools (and receiving the green checkbox), I received the same message about Googlebot not being able to access the site, only difference being that this time it was for a different site that I manage. I repeated the process and everything, aesthetically looked correct, however, I continued receiving these messages for each of the other sites I manage on a daily-basis for roughly a 10-day period. Do any of you know why I may be receiving this error? is it not possible for me to block the Googlebot from crawling the 'cgi-bin'? Any and all advice/insight is very much welcome, I hope I'm being descriptive enough!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | NiallSmith1 -
My site links have gone from a mega site links to several small links under my SERP results in Google. Any ideas why?
A site I have currently had the mega site links on the SERP results. Recently they have updated the mega links to the smaller 4 inline links under my SERP result. Any idea what happened or how do I correct this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | POSSIBLE0