Is Brand name anchor text on a widget Spam
-
We have partial match penalty in WMT on one of our smaller sites.
There are a few (less than 10) instances of widgets linking to us using our Brand Name as the anchor text. Would this fail a reconsideration request do you think?
The widget links without the no-follow attribute.
-
Thank you Tom - I like it - if in doubt, take it out.
We will contact the businesses with the widget and ask them to remove. If we can't get hold of them, do you think disavow will be satisfactory before filing a reconsideration?
Additionally, I have read recently there is an option to remove URLs from within WMT (a section called "optimisation.") But I cannot see this - and wonder if I have misunderstand.. (It looks to me the only section in WMT regarding link removal is an option to remove pages from within your own website from the index?) Is there a section in WMT to remove inbound links from third party websites?
Thanks indeed for your help
-
Hey Simon
So, the anchor text itself won't be seen as spam, as it's a brand name. So there won't be any "anchor-text" trigger here.
Having a follow link in an embeddable widget has been identified in the past as an unnatural link scheme by Google. Of course, that doesn't mean that it doesn't work - in fact it continues to do so for big websites who abuse it on a much bigger scale than just 10 times.
However, that doesn't mean that it would not trigger a penalty for you. If your question is implying that you are filing a reconsideration request because you currently have a penalty, I am quite confident that Google would want you to remove those widget links (and for you to testify that you have done). When it comes to reconsideration requests and link audits - if in doubt, take it out.
I feel any frustrations that you may have as it can often seem to be one rule for the big boys and another for everyone else. But my advice here would be to remove those links, as much as it pains me to say.
Hope this helps.
Tom
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
-
How to deal with hundreds of externally-generated images with no alt text?
Hi all This is a good one. I work for a webdev company who has clients in the transport industry. Part of our work on their sites involves pulling in transport-related offers from a feed. This includes both text and images, which our site template turns into viewable pages. The problem is that Moz has flagged that these images don't come with alt text, and there are _hundreds and hundreds of them. _I can't add alt text to them all, there just isn't the time or resources. Besides, the list is updated frequently, and new images are pulled in. So... what do? Would it be prudent to noindex them all by default setting? I'm stuck! Many thanks,
On-Page Optimization | | tomcowles
Tom0 -
Why would a competitor brand appear in our meta? - (i've never seen this before)
Why would competitor sweetwater appear in americanmusical.com meta? For example, Google: site:americanmusical.com ext:pdf rebate You will see this result: PDF]Nord Stage 2 EX $500 Rebate Form - Sweetwater <cite class="_Rm">https://www.americanmusical.com/ItemFiles/Rebate/NordStage2EX_05312017.pdf</cite>Your page is not mobile-friendly.May 31, 2017 - REBATE DETAILS: To receive your $500 rebate, send your completed form with a copy of your invoice or receipt and UPC codes to either the.
On-Page Optimization | | seo20170 -
Branding vs. Keyword Optimization for Company title.
I have a new SEO client that I am working on putting together an optimization strategy and have come across something that has me second guessing. Reach out to Moz Community... The client is a doctor who runs a tattoo removal clinic out of his office. Technically they are two separate businesses: doctors office and tattoo removal clinic. The tattoo removal clinic is my client. They have an independent website where they generate leads. The website is not the brand name. It is [city]tattooremoval.com. The logo on the site, heading, footer all reflect the web URL. The actual brand name for the company is used in all the directory listings, facebook page, google+, basically everywhere else on the internet. When drafting up new meta titles, putting together content, everything really, the website URL has primary keywords included making it way more convenient to use that. However I'm not sure how it will look to the search engines about having everything pointing to the site be one company title and when you get to the site not see the company title in the logo or titles and such. The company name is just down in the corner somewhere on the page. Anyone with any experience to a similar issue? On one hand I think I'm over thinking it, not having the brand name on the home page title tag shouldn't be a huge deal if the website delivers value to the customer. On the other hand I don't see a lot of companies that do this online in general (especially with larger brands), although research shows a many of companies in this niche using the [city] + keyword (or vise vera).
On-Page Optimization | | bricegump0 -
How can I maintain my website's authroity if I change the domain name?
I have 2 sites. Site A is doing well and growing, but has a low Domain Authority. Site B is older, has a higher authority but I want to retire it as the site's topic is well dated. Can I move all of my content on site A, to site B, change site B's name to Site A's name keep its higher authority and add all of the content and 301 redirect from site A to site B? Whew, Thanks for any thoughts, Jeff Strassman
On-Page Optimization | | biggieshaws0 -
How to optimize for a product by two names
So let us assume I am selling an item on my website and it comes in a large array of varieties. Let us also assume that this item is commonly referred to by two different names. (i.e. Cover & Case, Car & Automobile, Notepad & Notebook) Both of these names that are used, in regards to this product, have, for the sake of argument here, the exact same search volume. I want to make sure that I rank for both terms. In my Title Tags I am currently thinking about the following methodology to help that cause. "GE Motors Super Fast and Awesome Car / Automobile" "Ghostwriter Kids Notebook / Notepad" "Super Soft Pillow Cover / Case" Notice I have the space in between the words and the / but my question is if this is necessary or not? What is Google's policy on how they view that / ? Can I do this and still have Google see it as two different words? "GE Motors Super Fast and Awesome Car/Automobile" "Ghostwriter Kids Notebook/Notepad" "Super Soft Pillow Cover/Case" Apologies if this is a fairly basic question but cannot seem to find this information.
On-Page Optimization | | DRSearchEngOpt0 -
Is Googlebot seeing text in my 'Read More' bar and could they even be penalising me for it?
Hi guys. Our web developers have put a read more bar that contains the on page SEO text for our webpage. By default, the read more bar is not expanded and you cannot see the text within. If you click 'Read More', the box expands and the text is shown on the page. I was wondering if googlebot is seeing this text at all - it's really important that it does because it contains all the on-page SEO text. I also wondered if this type of approach is still considered 'white hat'? If it's not, could google be penalising us for it? Thanks,
On-Page Optimization | | CarlDarby0 -
Main navigation with pictures & Alt Tags vs Text/ Link based Navigation
Hi, do I loose an opportunity to rank better if I use a navigation with Alt-tagged Pictures in comparison to a Text/ Link based main navigation? Thanks, Sebastian
On-Page Optimization | | Naturalmente0 -
Anchor Texts on Internal Links on my Site Question
[Hey folks, Anchor text question for internal links on my site. We all know that proper anchor text is important for rankings, both in links pointing to your site and links on your site. Google webmaster tools is showing my top internal anchor text links to be letters. This is because of navigation on the site which is in a global footer on hundreds of thousands of pages. Do you think that this dilutes or minimizes the relevance of the real anchor texts that we are targeting which trail behind these, or if this went away it would have no effect on the rest of the anchor texts on the site. How would you handle this, we can just get rid of this navigation because it's passing PR and helping the pages get spidered. Thanks in advance. Anchor text 1. g 2. q 3. d 4. v 5. k 6. t 7. o 8. u 9. a 10. p 11. m 12. r 13. e 14. x 15. y 16. l 17. i 18. z 19. c 20. j 21. s 22. b 23. f 24. h 25. w 26. n](mailto:acaldarea@hotmail.com)
On-Page Optimization | | irvingw0