Which links to disavow?
-
I've got a new client that just fired their former SEO company, which was building spammy links like crazy! Using GSC and Majestic, I've identified 341 linking domains. I'm only a quarter of the way through the list, but it is clear that the overwhelming majority are from directories, article directories and comment spam. So far less than 20% are definitely links I want to keep.
At what point do I keep directory links? I see one with a DA of 61 and a Moz spam score of 0. I realize this is a judgement call that will vary, but I'd love to hear some folks give DA and spam numbers. FWIW, the client's DA is 37.
-
Thanks to each of you for taking the time to respond with such a great mix of information and opinions. It is very helpful. Now to plow through all the data!
-
Hi Rich,
Patrick already recommended few articles and give you suggestion that which link to disavow. I would like to add one more article in which you will find step by step method to find which link to disavow @The Ultimate Guide To Cleaning Up Your Link Profile Step By Step
Hope this helps.
Thanks
-
Hi there
Finding links in which to disavow isn't the hardest thing in the world to do, but it should be done with care. You need an surgeon's knife, not a hatchet.
The best way to assess backlinks are to ask the following questions:
-
Does this link help my website?
-
Does it send quality traffic?
-
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
-
Don't be quick to discount nofollow links - nofollow's do provide value, so as long as they pass your sniff test, don't remove them simply because of this tag
These links don't provide any value, and the higher the spam score the more reason you have to remove it. Although, you should get second opinions from tools like Majestic, Ahrefs, and Search Console as well. Going through this assessment will help give you a better idea of links to remove or disavow.
Hope this helps - good luck!
-
-
Hi Rich,
To the best of my knowledge, most of the directory type links are unlikely to get you penalized. If anything, those types of links are likely to be devalued as Google learns more about their inclusion process etc.
I'd keep most of the directory links unless there is something that is clearly off-the-rails bad!
Look forward to hearing insights from others.
Ricky
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 necessary is it to disavow links in 2017? Doesn't Google's algorithm take care of determining what it will count or not?
Hi All, So this is a obvious question now. We can see sudden fall or rise of rankings; heavy fluctuations. New backlinks are contributing enough. Google claims it'll take care of any low quality backlinks without passing pagerank to website. Other end we can many scenarios where websites improved ranking and out of penalty using disavow tool. Google's statement and Disavow tool, both are opposite concepts. So when some unknown low quality backlinks are pointing and been increasing to a website? What's the ideal measure to be taken?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vtmoz0 -
Link from Google.com
Hi guys I've just seen a website get a link from Google's Webmaster Snippet testing tool. Basically, they've linked to a results page for their own website test. Here's an example of what this would look like for a result on my website. http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.impression.co.uk There's a meta nofollow, but I just wondered what everyone's take is on Trust, etc, passing down? (Don't worry, I'm not encouraging people to go out spamming links to results pages!) Looking forward to some interesting responses!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | tomcraig860 -
Thousands of Links from mrwhatis.net
Google WMT shows that there are thousands of links pointing to the pages of my website from mrwhatis.net. Among the links, hundreds of them have the same anchor text. Here are some examples. http://mrwhatis.net/a-canon-in-music-for-kid.html
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | pianomother
http://mrwhatis.net/canon-chords-piano-in-c.html
http://mrwhatis.net/canon-d-major-piano-chord.html
http://mrwhatis.net/canon-d-major-piano-mp3-free-downloa.html
http://mrwhatis.net/canon-d-major-piano-sheet-fre.html and more.... The links pointing to my site on the above pages share the same link title "Canon In D Sheet Music | Canon In D Music Score". My question is - are these links considered unnatural links by Google based on your experience? Why and why not? I want to get some ideas before I ask Google to disavow these links. Thanks. John0 -
Are footer links important?
We currently display a list of links in the footer of our site to help boost SEO. They were put in place years ago and in a recent discuss with our UX team they requested we remove them from the site. Do footer links have any value? Or is this an old dated practice that no longer works? If we remove the footer links should we expect to see if have an impact on our SEO traffic?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Mivito0 -
Need suggestion for link-building
Link Building Question i want to get rank in google for www.topnotchlawsuitloans.com so have to build backlinks with lawsuit loans alt tag but main question is this have to build or gain backlinks for this domain only or one of my website sub domain www.topnotchlawsuitloans.com/lawsuit-funding-philadelphia.html on page #6 so have to build backlink for this URL ??? what are the effective strategy to gain backlinks for main page or all sub pages have to build backlinks ?? how many back-link per keyword & per page is good for website.???
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JulieWhite0 -
Counting over-optimised links - do internal links count too?
To whit: In working out whether I've too many over-optimised links pointing to my homepage, do I look at just external links -- or also the links from my internal pages to my homepage? In other words, can a natural link profile from internal pages help dilute overoptimisation from external links?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Jeepster0 -
Does Google WMT download links button give me all the links they count
Hi Different people are telling me different things I think if I download "all links" using the button in WMT to excel, I am seeing all the links Google is 'counting' when evaluating my site. is that right?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | usedcarexpert0 -
Competitors and Directory Links
Hi guys, wanted to get some input and thoughts here. I'm analyzing many competitor links for a specific client (even other clients actually as well) and come across a pretty heavy directory backlink profiles. has anyone here had success with directory listings? Seem many of the competitors backlinks are coming from directories. What say you?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PaulDylan1