Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research
      Moz Pro

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research

      Try it free!
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Link Building
    4. Why have I lost 1/3 of my backlinks (about 5,000) in 3 months?

    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.

    Why have I lost 1/3 of my backlinks (about 5,000) in 3 months?

    Link Building
    4
    7
    2752
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • matt-14567
      matt-14567 Subscriber last edited by

      In August, my client's site (I work at a marketing agency) had about 15,000 backlinks. Now they suddenly have about 10,000 backlinks. And their Domain Authority has dropped from 48 to 40!

      Can someone please help me understand what could've happened?

      At first I assumed this had something to do with the latest Penguin update, since I knew my client's site had some extremely spammy backlinks they hadn't cleaned up yet. (The site was hacked at some point and hidden pages were created as part of some kind of link-building scheme, and there were lots of links from sketchy sites to those pages. The hidden pages have been taken down and the URLs now redirect to my client's home page.) But that would only explain a sudden drop in Domain Authority, right? How could Penguin suddenly cause my client to lose 5,000 backlinks? And if it's not Penguin, what could it be?

      Thanks in advance for any insight that anyone can share!

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • MattRoney
        MattRoney @Brian_Dowd last edited by

        It's entirely possible that indexation issues are contributing to what you're seeing, Matt. I'd also suggest reading through this Q&A thread by Rand:

        https://moz.com/community/q/da-pa-fluctuations-how-to-interpret-apply-understand-these-ml-based-scores

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
        • seoman10
          seoman10 @matt-14567 last edited by

          Mello Matt,

          If it was my site I would seriously consider getting rid of any redirects from old dodgy pages, you could force Google to consider for the content still exists.  If it goes to a 404 Google can then see clearly it no longer exists.
          But would be interesting on what others have to say on that.

          I would source my back links mainly from Google search console.

          Hope that helps.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
          • Brian_Dowd
            Brian_Dowd last edited by

            Hey Matt,

            Our site saw a massive up tick in links and then an even larger drop in links from one index to the next. Read this post below from Moz about their last index and about their not-so-great indexing over the last year. That might give you the answer you are looking for.

            https://moz.com/blog/mozscape-index-2015?mkt_tok=3RkMMJWWfF9wsRonv6TOZKXonjHpfsX56u4kXaK2gIkz2EFye%2BLIHETpodcMTctqNL%2FYDBceEJhqyQJxPr3CLtcNwMR4RhHmDA%3D%3D

            I can't remember everything in the article, so rather than try to explain it myself, I'll let them do it for me. Hope that helps.

            MattRoney 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
            • matt-14567
              matt-14567 Subscriber @seoman10 last edited by

              Thanks for the response! And thanks for the advice – I'll definitely look into all those steps.

              The redirects from the hacked pages are occurring automatically somehow. I guess that must've been set up by the agency that redesigned the client's website last year. They must've specified 301s for certain key pages and had all other old URLs redirect to the home page.

              To answer your question, I'm using Moz for backlink analysis. Could their update be the reason I'm seeing such a drop?

              BTW – Search Console shows no notifications that would relate to this issue, and no manual penalties...

              seoman10 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • seoman10
                seoman10 last edited by

                Sorry just a question, where are you getting your back links list from? It's not unknown for tools to be inaccurate.

                Another point I forgot to mention, Moz did update their index in the past few days, lots of people have seen a DA drop.

                matt-14567 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                • seoman10
                  seoman10 last edited by

                  Firstly, sounds like you do have a penalty of some sort.

                  Secondly, I would not have redirected the hacked pages back to the site anywhere, you could give yourself a penalty that way. You could be passing bad authority or worse from anywhere else on the web, completely out of your control.

                  Thirdly, don't discount the potential of a website problem. Broken script, user damage, another hack etc

                  1. Do a thorough link cleanup.

                  2. Consider taking down any pages that are not relevant or earning any value.

                  3. Check search console for any notifications or manual penalties.

                  4. Check the website for performance and functionality.

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                  • 1 / 1
                  • First post
                    Last post

                  Got a burning SEO question?

                  Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                  Start my free trial


                  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.

                  • See all categories

                  Related Questions

                  • MarketAPeel

                    Backlinks on Moz not on Google Search Console

                    google search console backlinks

                    Moz is showing thousands of backlinks to my site that are not showing up on Google Search Console - which is good because those links were created by some spammer in Pakistan somewhere. I haven't yet submitted a disavow report to Google of well over 10K links because the list keeps growing every day with new backlinks that have been rerouted to a 404 page. I have asked Google to clarify and they put my question on their forum for an answer, which I'm still waiting for - so I thought I'd try my luck here. My question... If Moz does not match Google Search Console, and backlinks are important to results, how valid is the ranking that Moz creates to let me know how I'm doing in this competition and if I'm improving or not. If the goal is to get Google to pay attention and I use Moz to help me figure out how to do this, how can I do that if the backlink information isn't the same - by literally over 10 000 backlinks created by some spammer doing odd things... They've included the url from their deleted profile on my site with 100s of other urls, including Moz.com and are posting them everywhere with their preferred anchor text. Moz ranking considers the thousands of spam backlinks I can't get rid of and Google ignores them or disavows them. So isn't the rankings, data, and graphs apples and bananas? How can I know what my site's strength really is and if I'm improving or not if the data doesn't match? Complete SEO Novice Shannon Peel
                    Brand Storyteller
                    MarketAPeel

                    Link Building | | MarketAPeel
                    0
                  • David5675

                    Can Foreign Language Backlinks Be Valuable?

                    backlinks link building

                    I've done a lot of searching on this subject, but I keep seeing conflicting answers. Are backlinks from foreign language websites valuable? For example, a travel website in English picks up a couple backlinks in Indonesian language (and other languages) from foreign sites that have a DA of 60-70 or higher. The topic is partially related, but the language is totally different. Would those links still be valuable for the English website's DA? Has this ever been answered conclusively? Thanks

                    Link Building | | David5675
                    1
                  • jpeg80

                    Do .ac.uk (UK education / university sites) count in the same way as .edu backlinks

                    With regards to link trust are backlinks from .ac.uk (wiki on .ac.uk) count in the same way as .edu backlinks ?

                    Link Building | | jpeg80
                    1
                  • Berner

                    Do citations count as backlinks?

                    Hello, So I may have a simple question- do citations such as yp and manta for an example count as backlinks? So if they do, would this be a natural link so good for seo? or a citation where it may be a backlink, but not very helpful for seo backlink profile? Thank you to all

                    Link Building | | Berner
                    0
                  • sbrault74

                    Backlinks From Press Releases - Should I Disavow Them?

                    About 2 months ago, I published a press release through PRWEB with a link back to my website of course. Now it must have been one of those morning where the coffee wasn't strong enough as my website already has a Penguin penalty I'm trying to get lifted. The intent wasn't to spam the web but rather to gain some traction in the business hosting world. Like I've said, the coffee must've been too weak that morning as it didn't even cross my mind to see if I could "nofollow" the links in the press release. I just hit the submit button... As I'm in the process of submitting a disavow links request to Google, I'm wondering if I should include the URLs to copies of those press releases? I mean, there's no way I can find all those links as it was submitted not long ago. Google and link tools will keep discovering other copies of the PR for months to come probably.

                    Link Building | | sbrault74
                    0
                  • joeko

                    Backlink from foreign language websites good for SEO

                    I was wondering if backlinks from foreign language webistes can help me in ranking? For example: I ve got website in slovak language and I would place article with backlink on the foreign language website.  In which language should be the text surrounding the keyword?

                    Link Building | | joeko
                    1
                  • SirMax

                    URL shortener and backlinks

                    Are there any SEO benefits drawn from creating backlinks with Google url shortener service(especially for the very deep links) or for the do-follow link juice I have to use a complete address?

                    Link Building | | SirMax
                    0
                  • joemas99

                    What is the best way to manage backlinks?

                    What back link management software do you guys use or recommend? Need to manage types of links on each page. Thanks

                    Link Building | | joemas99
                    0

                  Get started with Moz Pro!

                  Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                  Start my free trial
                  Products
                  • Moz Pro
                  • Moz Local
                  • Moz API
                  • Moz Data
                  • STAT
                  • Product Updates
                  Moz Solutions
                  • SMB Solutions
                  • Agency Solutions
                  • Enterprise Solutions
                  • Digital Marketers
                  Free SEO Tools
                  • Domain Authority Checker
                  • Link Explorer
                  • Keyword Explorer
                  • Competitive Research
                  • Brand Authority Checker
                  • Local Citation Checker
                  • MozBar Extension
                  • MozCast
                  Resources
                  • Blog
                  • SEO Learning Center
                  • Help Hub
                  • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                  • How-to Guides
                  • Moz Academy
                  • API Docs
                  About Moz
                  • About
                  • Team
                  • Careers
                  • Contact
                  Why Moz
                  • Case Studies
                  • Testimonials
                  Get Involved
                  • Become an Affiliate
                  • MozCon
                  • Webinars
                  • Practical Marketer Series
                  • MozPod
                  Connect with us

                  Contact the Help team

                  Join our newsletter
                  Moz logo
                  © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                  • Accessibility
                  • Terms of Use
                  • Privacy

                  Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.