Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Do other sites linking to my page with a low domain authority affect my rankings?
-
Hello, my page authority 30, I see other page with an authority of 21 for example linking to us. Is this good or bad, does this affect our ranking? A lot of these don't have anchor text, I'm guessing we should reach out to these webmaster to include anchor text with the keywords we want to drive traffic to this page or make as descriptive as possible?
Thanks!
Laura
-
Backlinks from DA 21 sites are nothing to sneeze at. I'll take them all day long. Moz actually just rolled out a great tool called "Spam Score". The lower a spam score the better. It will show you the spam score for any links that Moz has found. Spammy links can affect your rankings, so spammy links should be investigated and possibly disavowed. If your site's own spam score is low, I wouldn't get my panties in a knot.
-
Hi there
A lot of this will come down to common sense and research. A couple of things I would point out:
Anchor text - Try and steer clear of exact match anchor text. It can trip spam filters if you have too much of that going on in your backlink profile. Try to make more use of branded anchor text. You can read morehere.
nofollow links - Don't disregard links because they are nofollow. They can be valuable and important, especially if that link is relevant to your business and helps expands your visibility to your audience. There's a great article here about nofollow.
PageRank - Google doesn't update this metric anymore. You can read more here. There are metrics elsewhere via OSE and more below that I list that you can find just as useful.
All in all - the best way to define a bad link is to use your own intuition and common sense:
-
Does this link help my website?
-
Is this link relevant to my website?
-
Would I trust this site (that's linking to me) if I landed on it?
-
Is the website or content in which I am being linked from topically relevant to my website?
-
If you check metrics - does anything about the metrics (domain authority, page authority,Majestic, SEMRush traffic/ranking data, etc) make me feel uneasy?
-
Are the links from directory templates? (example)
-
Inspect URLs with blatant spam words
-
Free
-
Porn
-
XXX
-
Submit
-
Directory
-
Paid
-
Links
-
URL
-
Sex
-
etc.
-
Check for multiple domains and URLs on the same IPs
-
This can usually show link farms or spam
Google views backlinks as who you associate with. If you hang out with shady people, you're probably a shady person. If you hang out with intelligent people, people probably think you're intelligent. Same applies for Google.
Hope this helps! Good luck!
-
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
-
Unsolved How to Disavow links with Google Console
I have a list of links I want to disavow, but I can't because I have a domain property so google console does not let me submit anything. What do I do?
Link Explorer | | Ryka12340 -
Internal Links is reporting "0" value
Open Site Explorer is reporting "0" value under "Total Internal Links" as well as "Internal Links" metrics for my website. I have a good interlinking of pages throughout the site.
Link Explorer | | anupjain
Is there an issue with OSE (Open Site Explorer) crawler ? OR There are some crawling problems with our Website's structure ?
Can anybody please give an idea or recommendations on this ?
Domain: https://www.traveltoindia.org/0 -
Ranking keywords are not showing for my site
Hi, I have started my website 6 months ago and many of my site's keywords are ranking but when I explore my site Get YoWhatsApp in Moz site explorer, it doesn't show ranking keywords there, I'm a little bit confused about this, when my site's keywords will be shown there? Atqd4Bf
Link Explorer | | GetYoWhatsApp0 -
My Website's Links Are Not Showing In Moz Link Explorer
Hello Team, I was analyzing my domain (https://www.amzonestep.com) in link explored but there are many websites that are not showing there. Questions
Link Explorer | | amzonestep
1. Is this reason website's DA is not increasing 2. Is there wrong steps taken by me for this website. Well, I know there are many factors work in increasing DA but what is should do if these kind on links are not indexing in MOZ. I things these are one of the factors my DA is not Increasing. Please save my job guys. The company has sent me an ultimatum mail of 2 months that they will take back the projects from me. Please save my job. Thanks & Regards Aashirvad Kumar moz.png Screenshot-2020-02-19-at-11.48.21-am.png0 -
How is Moz DA affected by spam links? Disavow file?
So it does not appear that moz let's you upload your disavow file. So when moz calculates your DA how do spammy links factor in? After digging through our GA it appears our site was hit with the 2016 penguin update and never recovered. Our weekly visitors were 2k, then dropped to 500 and have stayed close to that level for a while. We've used the disavow tool, without success over the past 3 years. During that time we have done link out reach and built around 10 legit good quality DA links since. But we have not recovered. At this point i'm thinking I should just remove the disavow file. Moz says our spam score for our domain is 5%.
Link Explorer | | jessicapremier0 -
How do you check for .gov and .edu backlinks using the new link explorer?
I'm trying to do an audit but I can't seem to figure out how to find .edu and .gov backlinks from the new link explorer. Can someone please help? I'm trying to learn how as open site explorer will be replaced by the link explorer. Thank you!
Link Explorer | | AFARiva1 -
Not existing domains linking to my website (spam)
Hello, When i run my platform www.taobao.nl through https://moz.com/researchtools/ose/ i see a lot of nasty adult domains that link to my platform. These give a very negative (spam)score to my platform. I already disavowed quite a few via Webmastertools, but they keep coming. When i check the names in the Whois, they don't even seem to exist! (anymore) What could cause this and how can i end it?? Thanks for your help! Sander
Link Explorer | | benhond1 -
Why doesn't my site show up in Moz Site Explorer
I started this website about 2 months ago, www.guyetteroofing.com. I know it still needs a lot of work, but I can't find any information on it on the site explorer tool.
Link Explorer | | billyguyette1