A few questions about unnatural links
-
i have just had another reconsideration request rejected by Google. In my rejection message they have given me 3 examples of unnatural links, but two of them I have had nothing to do with.
My website is http://www.seoco.co.uk
Here are the 3 links they mentioned:
- http://www.pyjamapeople.com/articles/authors/107/David-Eaves
- http://www.timeandattendance.co.uk/blog/?tag=access-control
- http://www.worx.at/blog/und-punkt/
the 1st one is just a website that republished one of my articles, I never submitted there or anything. Do I need to contact every single website that republished one of my articles and get those removed? Are they not classed as natural? Also, the page is not even cached by Google, why are they telling me to get rid of links that are not even in their index?
The 2nd link is a client site and is definitely unnatural, I removed my link from the main part of the site a while ago but the blog footer was not updated, I will take care of that one.
The 3rd link is a totally natural blogroll link that I had nothing to do with. What do you think I should do about it? Should I mention to Google on my next reconsideration request that it is in fact natural, or should I just bite the bullet and get it taken down?
Also, there are a few pretty decent links out there that I am thinking about getting taken down on good sites, what do you think I should do with these two:
2. http://www.webpronews.com/10-reasons-why-i-hate-shout-outs-on-digg-2007-10
-
Hi again David,
I haven't heard of this particular company - could be good if the 40 penalties stat is true, but get your research in and you should be fine.
Also check out the Recommended Providers list - there could be some good options on there too.
-
I didn't do too much research, I just looked at the moz profile and the elance.com page.
I take it you are from New Jersey. I love Kevin Smith man, he is one of my favourite film directors.
-
I don't know this person... He has a blog here that you can read with google translate... http://faktor.biz/ban-lub-filtr-od-google/
I have gotten great work from people who live in non-English speaking countries. Fantastic work... and gotten really bad work from people who live in New Jersey. Stay away! lol
-
I received a message from a Moz user called Faktorbiz before who claims to have taken care of over 40 penalties, I have checked out his prices and I might be able to afford him. I am a little concerned that he is from a non-English speaking country though, can anybody vouch for this guy?
-
they did not believe me when I said I had nothing to do with those two links, but I can assure you that I am telling the truth.
I believe you. I have sites that have never received linkbuilding work and they have links from all kinds of spammy mash-up sites, computer-built directories, etc. Awful.
Google is incompetent and thinks that they ain't.
-
Hi Egol, I would like to hire someone who knows what they are doing, but people like Marie Haynes are too busy and I don't think I could afford her anyway.
I agree that Jane and Andy were quite generous in their responses, I got far less generous replies from the people at Google webmaster forums - they did not believe me when I said I had nothing to do with those two links, but I can assure you that I am telling the truth. They basically said that all of the links that I mentioned were pure spam and had to go.
Do you know anyone who you could recommend to help me out who is very affordable?
Once I get a few more opinions I will come up with an action plan that will hopefully get this nightmare of a Google penalty lifted.
I know you are an old school SEO who has been at it for years and I appreciate your response, thanks.
-
I think that you have received generous opinions from Jane and Andy.
I am looking to get as many opinions as possible on the questions I have asked.
So, when you get 50 opinions how are you going to decide what to do?
If I was in your situation, I would go straight to a person who has done a lot of successful reconsideration requests for Penguin, hire them to look at your links and give you copies of their communications with Google. I think that will be more efficient than listening to fifty people kibitzin' and then shooting into the dark.
-
Both the answers I have are great and I appreciate them, but I am looking to get as many opinions as possible on the questions I have asked. Please feel free to chime in and give me your two cents
-
Hi David,
Sorry I missed out those ones! I'd say you'd want to remove the "search engine optimisation" anchor text for sure if you're under penalty / suspicion in general. The recent furore about guest blogging has been quite focused on footer author bio links too unfortunately. I can't say for sure whether all or many footer bios are going to get nuked or considered very suspicious, but I would say that I'd be wary of the practice if you're already penalised. It seems ridiculous, but sadly you aren't the only person who's wrestling with nofollowing or removing what were otherwise considered to be good links.
Perhaps start with changing these to purely brand links, either the company name or your name. If you're still having trouble after getting rid of the links Google has cited, move on to removing or nofollowing these types of links. I agree that it's painful to consider removing links without being sure if they're hurting.
-
Hi Jane, thanks for the response, what do you think I should do about the 2 articles I mentioned at the bottom of my question? Should I leave them as they are? Try to get the anchor text changed or get them nofollowed or removed?
-
Hey David,
That is really infuriating - they pick off natural and scraped links way too often.
http://www.pyjamapeople.com/ certainly looks like it contains some questionable links, so whilst you had nothing to do with the placement, they're going to get snide about it. Agree with Andy that you'd be best asking for removal but if you have no luck, include it in a disavowal and explain the situation.
It's really annoying that they cite blogroll links as unnatural when linking to sites you like has been common practice in blogging since blogging began. Unfortunately, if they're calling it out, you'll need to do something about it. It could be that the site has been selling links to others and you've been caught up in the mix despite not actively seeking the link.
I'm a fan of removing links rather than just relying on disavowal, but of course you can't be sure that the webmasters will cooperate. If a link consistently brings visitors, I'd try to nofollow instead. Again, I totally sympathise here because examples 1 and 3 seem ridiculously totalitarian and pedantic (what's wrong with Google just nullifying any authority they passed?) but there's not too much we can do once they cite specific examples, even if they're wrong.
-
Hi David,
If Google are mentioning links, then I would do something about them all. There is obviously a reason why they don't like them, and although you consider the Blogroll link to be natural, this is amongst the sorts of links that Matt Cutts has said they don't want to see. They don't know you didn't ask for it.
If you have no joy with requests to have them removed, just disavow and then advise Google again.
If you are worried about the other sites, change the links so they are not keywords (just something like visit me at <url>. You could even go for a mention and remove any direct links altogether? Perhaps see if the links can be no-followed as well, but as these are not your sites, you will need to make the request.</url>
-Andy
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
-
Effects of a bad link linking to a image
i am getting a lot of links from wallpapers sites.. One person has created 1000's of similar sites that are linking back to my images. My guess is images do not pass link value positive or negative. But I am not sure what the potential effects would be. Does anyone know who linking to images might effect SEO especially when there coming from horribly low quality auto generated sites.
Link Building | | KentH0 -
Should I ask sites that link to me to update links that redirect?
I have found some links to my site that go through a single 301 redirect to get to my site. Should I contact these websites to ask them to update the link, or is that not worth the time?
Link Building | | RCF0 -
Pagerank question
Hi, SEO friends I have a question and i'm very thankful if you could help me. My website was a pagerank 4 but recently I checked it, and my new pagerank is 0 or the result is: N/A, I don't understand what it's going on. Even this one has 4,627 external links. Could you help me, please?
Link Building | | Arkix0 -
Another Footer Links question
I have reposted this as a new question as I posted in an old 'Answered' question but not had a reply. Footer links We have generated new business from links that we have on client sites linking back to us. The new client will call/email us saying "we see you did example.com website, which we like, would you mind quoting for a redesign our website". Without that link we may never have got that new piece of business. We always ask the client if we can place on link on their website and they all say ok. We don't do this for purely for SEO. The only thing we have done previously is to include the link in the footer of every page on the client site, which we are now in the process of changing to being only the client home page. With that in mind, is the following ok to do? Place text/image link in footer of client home page Link to be "nofollow" which goes to specific page on our own website e.g. oursite.com/portfolio/clientname.php on oursite.com/portfolio/clientname.php page we link back to client's home page, again this would be a "nofollow"
Link Building | | NeilD0 -
Question about ranking and links
Hi, Some back ground info first: My DA/PA is 42, the competitors who show up in the search engines for the term I am after have DA/PA 55/60. I have been creating anchor text links which target the term im after through guest blogging usually blogs with DA/PA 40+, I did this consistently with a guest post every 3 days for about a month so that's around 10 guest posts. And I also did some brand name blog comments, but these were no-follow and added sig to some forums. This moved me from page 5 to page 1, position 4. I then stopped and over the last 3 weeks it slipped to position 6 then to position 8. The competition doesn't look to actively target this term looking at the data from opensite explorer there main anchor text is there brand names. Why would I be slipping through the results? Not moaning just want to understand why so I can counter it. I was thinking about going for social signals through a blog to help.
Link Building | | activitysuper0 -
Why does my website have 2,000+ links, but only 16 linking root domains?
Why does my website have 2,000+ links, but only 16 linking root domains?
Link Building | | thestudio40 -
There is a New link to my Site but I can see it on link report ?why ?
Hi I found out using link campaign and Open site explorer that my competitors where getting links from this page http://www.visitgreece.gr/en/activities/land_sports/golf So I conatc the admins and added our golf courses too Is the dunes and the bay course in the middle of the page But this happened 3 weeks ago and still this linking domain is not appaering in my campaign why is that any ideas ? does it take so much time to appera to SEOmoz ? Or the problem is because they are linking 2 diffrent sites ? my site is www.costanavarinogolf.com Thanks a lot in advance for your help
Link Building | | grzontan0 -
Link Location: In main page or inner "Link" page?
My question is what´s best of Link Building: have it in main page or in internal Link Pages. I have the problem that have to reduce the number of outgoing links in my mainpage to rank better, but do not want to miss any linkjuice. How Linking in Main Page or Internal Pages affects SERP for your website? And should they be Follow or not Follow? Thanks in advance Maria Jesus
Link Building | | goperformancelabs0