Does Google differentiate between a site with spammy link building practices from a victim of a negative SEO attack?
-
I've be tasked with figuring out how to recover our rankings as we are likely being hurt by an algorithmic penalty. I have no idea if this was the workings of a previously hired SEO or the result of negative SEO, **how does Google differentiate between a site with bad/spammy link building practices from a victim of a negative SEO attack? **
-
Thanks for the replay Marc, that clears up my confusion.
I had chance to ask John Mueller (from Google) what to do about spammy backlinks and he automatically assumed I was up to no good. I've never bought a crappy link in my life. Previously hired SEOs and/or unscrupulous competition were likely the culprits. We can take accountability for ignorantly hiring shady link builders but apologizing for being a victim of negative SEO is flat out ludicrous.
-
In general Google doesn`t differentiate between them - if you get the chance or better take the chance to get in a dialog or direct contact with Google (f.ex. using the reconsideration request) they can get this information. But I doubt that they care about that. Unfortunately you have to do the same work in both cases: clean up the mess.
It
s imaginable that your chances to recover are much better if you
ve been a victim than an ex-black hat (website)
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
-
Google webmaster is not crawling links and site cache still in old date
Hi guys, I have been trying to get my page indexed in Google with new title and descriptions but it is not getting indexed. I have checked in many tools but no useful. Can you please tell me what could be the issue? Even I have set up And Google webmaster is not crawling links I have built so far. Few links are indexed but others do not. Why this is happening. My url is: https://www.paydaysunny.com thanks
Technical SEO | | ksmith880 -
Page for Link Building
Hello guys, My question is about link building and reciprocal links. Since many directories request a reciprocal link, makes me wonder if is not better to create a unique page in the website only for this kind of links. What do you guys recommend? Thanks in advance, PP
Technical SEO | | PedroM0 -
Site Wide Links
I have a link on pr 3 home page website placed in the side bar. It is on a WordPress website that spans a couple hundred pages and the side bar is on every page. The majority of the pages are not ranked or have any pr. Can this affect me negatively?
Technical SEO | | raph39880 -
Google couldn't access your site because of a DNS error
Hello, We've being doing SEO work for a company for about 8 months and it's been working really well, we've lots of top threes and first pages. Or rather we did. Unfortunately the web host who the client uses (who to recommended them not to) has had severe DNS problems. For the last three weeks Google has been unable to access and index the website. I was hoping this was going to be a quickly resolved and everything return to normal. However this week their listing have totally dropped, 25 page one rankings has become none, Google Webmaster tools says 'Google couldn't access your site because of a DNS error'. Even searching for their own domain no longer works! Does anyone know how this will effect the site in the long term? Once the hosts sort it out will the rankings bounce back. Is there any sort of strategy for handling this problem? Ideally we'd move host but I'm not sure that is possible so any other options, or advice on how it will affect long term rankings so I can report to my client would be appreciated. Many thanks Ric
Technical SEO | | BWIRic0 -
Google Links
I am assuming that the list presented by Google Webmaster tools (TRAFFIC | Links To Your Site) is the one that will actually be used by Google for indexing ? There seem to be quite a few links that there that should not be there. ie Assumed NOFOLLOW links. Am I working under an incorrect assumption that all links in webmaster tools are actually followed ?
Technical SEO | | blinkybill0 -
What is the value in Archiving and how can I avoid negative SEO impact?
I have been very busy reducing GWT duplicate content errors on my website, www.heartspm.com, created on a Wordpress platform. Each month, blog entries are being archived and each month is generating a duplicate description by Google. We post 2-3 blog entries per month and they don't really go out of date. Most are not news related butr rather they are nuggets of information on entomology. Do I need to use the archiving feature? Can I turn it off? Should I switch to archive perhaps once per year instead of every month and how is that done? How do I stop Google from creating its' own meta-description, duplicates each month for these archive entries? Should I have the archive as NOINDEX, FOLLOW? I'm not the programmer, but I have some technical know how, so I have a lot of half baked ideas and answers that could use some polishing. Thanks for your help and suggestions. Gerry
Technical SEO | | GerryWeitz0 -
Link Building - Quality,Quantity, or both?
Hello SEOMozzers, As I embark on yet another client's link campaign I ask myself where best to spend resources(time and money) on link building. Typically I provide a mix of blogroll links, article syndication contextual links, social media posting and high PR one way links. I would like to know if anyone here finds one form of link to carry weight over the rest. I have my suspicion and my own theory on it but I would like to know what the moz concensus is.
Technical SEO | | TheGrid0 -
If I redirect my WordPress blog to my main site, will it help my main site's SEO?
I have separate sites for my blog and main website. I'd like to link them in a way that enables the blog to boost my main site's SEO. Is there an easy way to do this? Thanks in advance for any advice...
Technical SEO | | matt-145670