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
-
We have had this very same thing occur, XXX spammy links, among many others attacks.
We found this was a competitor wanting our market share. They hired kiddy scripters to do the dirty deed of the spammy links which apparently is easy to find people who are always trying to hack XXX sites. The end results is to ruin your Google backlinking ratings, i.e. in general hurt your overall Goolgle authority and rankings.
The secondary result it ties up your time and takes you away from running your business which also is to their advantage.
The sad part is that there is no way to protect your self from these low life tactics.
Unfortunately, we expeirenced simultaniously robo call attacks taking down our phone systems and over filing our voice mail and at the same time, had every email account know to the general public submitted to spammers to fil up our servers and mail boxes. Definetly a planned set of events.
They topped it off with constant DDOS attacks, and attempted SQL injections and any other thing they could think of. Of course this makes the customers unsure if were still in business because the site was up and down and of course they wondered if it was even safe to shop. This has gone on for 3 years, until we finally found a safe hosting arrangement, 12 moves later and have extra phone and email security measures in place. We are still fighting to get back in Google's good graces.
Again all taking time away from running your buisness.
So a few spammy links to keep up with disavowing, no problem. Count your blessings. (-:
-
Thanks for the complete answer!
I indeed added domains at the second level, so i should be good on that.
WRT the organic traffic. There are more issues to overcome https://moz.com/community/q/i-m-invisible
I figured these bad links might have something to do with that.
Regards, Sander
-
Just to clarify above and add a little bit.
The Disavow file to Google only goes to Google. Even when you submit it there, and Google confirms that it has the new copy, it takes a while (several months) for Google to then account for the domains you are Disavowing. i.e. Don't expect an immediate effect from Google in what you see in Search Console and/or in the SERPs. Also, side note, you should generally disavow at the domain level as once you have a bad link from a site, the whole site is probably not worth it and it makes your job easier if there are a bunch of links from the same domain. Also, spammers will use a subdomains to create copies of the main site and add even more crappy links to your site. Disavowing the domain takes care of the subdomain as well. The exception to this would be sites that are on wordpress, as all the subdomains would really be from different sites (you get the idea) so you would disavow at the subdomain level for those sites.
I have one site I run that gets a bunch of spam links to us built and so 1x to 2x a year I have to pull everything I can get from Moz, Majestic, Search Console, etc and find new domains to add to the Disavow file. It sucks, but it helps even though Google's official line that they can account for negative SEO.
There are tools such as CognitiveSEO that will aggregate links for you from various sources and then you can upload your Disavow file there and it will then know to filter out all the links it finds from those domains to help you weed out what you need to audit and I have found this useful.
Continuing from previous answers, Moz has no idea what the disavow file you sent to Google contains and will not take that into account when it is looking for links. You may see more links from the disavowed domains show up in Moz because of that. This is where tools like CognitiveSEO are helpful in being able to sort out things. I would hope that for MozPro members this would be a feature to add so that your OSE profile could account for Disavowed links. I have found Moz helpful in using the Spam score to decide if I should disavow domains for Google.
Regarding your point about finding links to your sites and then the sites no longer exist. That happens. The Moz link database and also Google's databases are not updated in real time. I have also seen that the links in Search Console are not up to date with what I see in Google search. If you go to the sites and they are 404/410 Gone, you are probably fine. I would say the disavow is a good conservative way to make sure that you are "safe" and would recommend that you move forward with that. If the sites are gone (as mentioned above) Moz should show them gone in the next update or two (depending on if they crawled those sites or not).
Bottom line on all this is, are you seeing less organic traffic to your site? All of the above may be a moo point if the bad sites that link to you are dead and potentially even Google is already ignoring them (and the disavow will make sure of that). Google does not look at the Moz metrics and so it does not matter if the links are included in the Moz index as long as you know they are taken care of. If your organic traffic is ok, then enjoy that coffee and relax as you submit the disavow file.
Cheers!
-
Agree, coffee does make a difference. 3pm here in Europe so I already had my daily dose
-
Excellent point Dirk there can't be a direct relationship between Google Disavow and Moz's index.
Haven't had my coffee yet this morning.
-
Hi,
I don't really agree with the answer of Verbinteractive: disavowing links in WMT only concerns Google - there is no way Moz OSE is able to know that these links have been disavowed.
If these sites no longer exist than it's quite possible they will disappear in OSE, but not because of the disavow. If the links are from crappy sites it's quite possible that Moz crawled them once, but is not crawling them again (while the number of pages they crawl is huge - it's still limited).
Wait for the next crawl (Sept. 9th) & if these links are still present I would contact Moz directly.
rgds
Dirk
-
Usually i receive the confirmation in WMT site messages the same day.
"http://www.taobao.nl/: Disavowed links updated"
-
You disavowed 6-7 weeks ago, is that when you submitted the disavow file or when you receive the notification in webmaster tools that the links were disavowed?
-
Hi,
I disavowed them for the 1st time 6-7 weeks ago. Since then new links emerged (i also see them in webmastertools) that i also disavowed.
The strange thing is that these domains that link to my platform (all adult crap) seem not to exist.
If someone can shed some light on this: much obliged
Sander
-
Hi Sander,
If you just recently disavowed these links you are going to have to wait for Moz to reindex in order to see your results change. The next crawl is scheduled to be completed for Sept 9th.
See: https://moz.com/products/api/updates If you don't see a change in your Spam Score at that point I would dig deeper at that point.
Link Analysis data
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
-
MOZ link explorer is not showing any result
Whenever I am searching in link explore, it is only showing the blanks with default zero value. It was showing data for my website 1 hour ago but now not showing. SYphSNw
Link Explorer | | gb.select4you3 -
Domain Authority Historic Differences?
Moz Team, We are again seeing shifts on how we report on Domain Authority. When Moz moved from OSE to LE, domain authority scores changed (which is fine because our direct competitors in LE also saw similar changes). The problem is it looks like domain authority trends have re-calibrated to show a long term decline instead of a long term increase, which changes the narrative entirely. Please see IMGUR link. Is this a temporary issue, or has Moz again changed the scale in which DA is measured? Is anyone else seeing disparities in their data? Thanks All! NfnM4dk.jpg
Link Explorer | | MetaPaul4 -
Help :New Spam Score
Hello Moz Community, I am a bit confused with the new spam score of Moz Link explorer. My website has a spam score of 17%. How bad is it? How can i know which factors are contributing to the spam score? in the OSE there were flags, but i cannot find any flags in the new link explorer or any info about the contributing factors. i have 90% of my backlinks from sites that are having less than 30% of spam score, but still my website is having 17% spam score.. i have checked my competitor, they are having 78% of the backlinks from domains that are having less than 30%, their spam score is only 1%..how is it possible? what are the other factors other than backlinks that affect the spam score of website? Thank you
Link Explorer | | sne79790 -
How can I tell what pages have links TO this page?
Hello, Mozzers! My client has a rather messy situation, with redirects for HTTP vs. HTTPS, and two different home pages, both in subdirectories. I could explain the whole setup, but I don't think it's relevant for my question, which is this: OSE is showing three links to the page in question, but doesn't tell me WHAT those links are. Am I just missing the information somewhere? Please see screenshot for details. Thanks so much! ~ Scott view?usp=sharing
Link Explorer | | measurableROI0 -
Open Site Explorer and Expired Links?
Hi guys, I've been checking a few domains for SEO purposes and it appears that OSE is indexing a lot of links which no longer exist, this has been the case for over 6 months - does OSE cleanse expired links? As I'm sure they will be contributing to authority in the eyes of Moz?
Link Explorer | | lotterybase0 -
Why does facebook, twitter, pinterest show up for links?
Hello, As I have used site explorer on competition sites, I am curious what I need to do to have my facebook, twitter, and pinterest links to shop up as a backlink? I see some other sites have it, even if its a nofollow, but curious if I am doing something wrong? I have had accounts since last year. Just curious if I am doing something wrong, Thank you Chris
Link Explorer | | Berner0 -
Inbound links export report link redirect to OSE
Hi there, I have received email notification that my new inbound links CSV report is ready to export and download. I follow the OSE link but I am redirected straight back to the main page of OSE not the download. Is there a problem? Are the access problems due to the Moz.com and Research Tools Outage. reported on Moz Health? David
Link Explorer | | David-E-Carey0