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  4. Would you consider these domains spammy or at risk for penguin penalty?

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Would you consider these domains spammy or at risk for penguin penalty?

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  • Deacyde
    Deacyde last edited by May 6, 2016, 3:56 PM

    I'm doing a bit of competitor backlink auditing and am curious how you view these domains?

    I also am doing this for others as a comparison and growing reference maybe of domains that they can crosscheck with their own backlink profile and make sure these aren't on there, in preparation for penguin algo release to core.

    Either chime in with known domains to be spam, and I will create a live list based on answers here.

    Domain                     Domain Rating

    directoryworld.net     64
    prlog.ru                     60
    torchbrowser.com     60
    jzip.com                    58
    localbiznetwork.com 58
    gimpsy.com               54
    pageonepower.com  52
    nashvillelife.com       49
    2thetopdesign.com   49
    seocounsel.com       48
    healthywealthyaffiliate.com 48
    hollinslegal.com        48

    On a working Disavow list either in root domain or extended url form

    seocourt.com
    wldirectory.com
    onpaco.com
    lostdirectory.com
    ligginit.comligginit.com
    alivedir.net
    tiptopdirectory.com
    onemilliondirectory.com
    submittolinkdirectory.com

    I've read that sitewide footer links even from parent company sites will only count as one, regardless of how many links they have, I was wondering if that was true as well?

    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
    • HashtagHustler
      HashtagHustler last edited by May 6, 2016, 4:20 PM May 6, 2016, 4:17 PM

      Matt Cutts on Sitewide Backlins That pretty much will tell you everything you want to know.

      As far as the domains being spammy, really that's going to have to be a personal decision. Just because the word directory is in the name, it isn't a spam site. Just because there is a hyphen, doesn't make it spam. Google is progressively becoming more and more powerful, and more and more capable at telling what is real, and what isn't.

      Visit those websites, do they look like spam to you? Do they look like a directory listing site do you? If you worked at google, and had to do a site audit, would you ding someone for linking those sites?

      Really for all intensive purposes wikipedia was a directory, and then it started getting powerful, and gaining traction, and then it was being abused.

      Anyway, I guess to answer your question, you will have to look at the websites to actually know the answer. Is the website functioning as merely a place to gather links? Then yes, it is probably spam.

      EDIT: Also, at first I thought this was a competitor analysis, but considering that you are mentioning disavow, I will presume this is for you. The disavow tool is VERY powerful, and I would use it very sparingly. Do what you can to organically remove the links before disavowing them. Not only that but if you still have links from these sources, you are still getting some sort of juice, so build a bridge before burning a bridge. Replace those links with new ones, from legit sources. Write some press releases, post some solid social media, reach out to bloggers etc.

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