I knew better, but did it anyway. Should I keep these backlinks?
-
Out of desperation (lack of time and knowing we were way behind competitors on backlinks) - I went to Fivvr and ordered 50 "high quality" backlinks. I know there are no shortcuts, but this weak little voice push through and said, "Just maybe...it's so cheap, what's the harm?" Well, I should have listened to the rationale voice which is typically so much more assertive! What to do now?
*Note - I haven't had time to review them all, but at 1st glance, it appears they are off-topic, spammy blog comments - snapshot of links: https://www.dropbox.com/s/9d23c93o1ryrhv1/Screenshot 2016-09-21 11.49.26.png?dl=0
- Check each page to see if the rank suggested is correct and leave links with legit high page rank?
- They are all garbage, try to remove them immediately - is this even possible?
- Watch to see if rank is positively or negatively affected, then go about taking them down if needed?
Other suggestions? (Besides don't do that again, stupid.)
-
Oleg is right, you should disavow them. Google won't know (most likely) that you did them--unless your social media ID is tied to them. But, nonetheless, I would disavow them.
If those links are only a small percentage of your overall links (less than 1 percent of total links) then you probably won't see any changes, and they will probably not hurt your rankings. But, if they're a large percentage of your links, then you might want to get them removed completely.
-
Thank you all. Please do not think that I am not completely ashamed. Will follow advice to disavow. Punishment served in time lost... that probably could have been used EARNING 10 real quality links.
-
Oleg and Andrew beat me to it. But I would also recommend disavowing them to protect your site. Other option before going to the disavow tool, is to reach out to the sites and ask them to remove the links.
Hope that helps!
-
Google clearly states that buying backlinks breaches their guidelines and you are at very high risk for penalization. For $5 you are guaranteed to have got yourself a package of automated craplinks and you have made a pretty good case for deserving penalization. You can save yourself by disavowing the links.
Here is Google's guide for disavowing backlinks:
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2648487?hl=enAnd here is a guide for using the disavow tool:
https://moz.com/blog/guide-to-googles-disavow-tool -
I highly doubt you can remove them - best case disavow them.
At this point, if you are willing to roll the dice, see what kind of effect the links will have on your rankings. Understand that those links are textbook spammy and should be treated negatively (they are irrelevant to your website, have lots of spammy outgoing links) but Google makes mistakes.
It is probably a matter of time before those links will be considered negative/poor and likely to hurt you down the line. However, it could be months/years before that happens.
If you are already ranking well some some terms and are scared of losing rankings, i'd disavow them now.
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
-
Backlinks on Moz not on Google Search Console
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
Link Building | | MarketAPeel
Brand Storyteller
MarketAPeel0 -
Impact of distribution of backlinks across multiple pages
Community, I would be interested to see if anyone has been seeing any experiments, experience documentation, or other data that would give context around the impact of pointing backlinks not just to your money page / home page but distribute it across pages. When doing competitive research I often run into competition which has lower domain strength and page rank but a link profile that is more spread out across their domain; these competitors often outrank my site despite their individual page properties being weaker. Any reference to existing documented experiments, personal experience or guidance is welcome.
Link Building | | italiansoc0 -
Web2.0 and private sites backlinks loop hole
Let suppose i have one target page i.e video and one web2.0 blog or wordpress blog. If i keep on adding new articles on web2.0 and in each article i add one back link(with different anchor text) to my same target page. Is this create red flag in google as i will be using one domain? Do I need to keep my web2.0 like bloggers.com and weebly or wordpress blogs relevant to one topic to increase the relevancy score. If i try to keep them relevant my back links to target pages from one domain increases again. I kind of stuck up in this loop help me out!
Link Building | | Sajiali0 -
What are your latest backlinks? How can you tell?
Hi Can anyone recommend a tool (which is up to date) which shows the latest backlinks (in date order) that has been added to a website? Mainly I am planning for checking for bad links etc Many Thanks
Link Building | | ocelot0 -
Backlink's using duplicate content in article directories
I've had a link build report of all the links an SEO company have got us but a simple search for some of the content in Google with phrase match brings up about 3 pages of the same content posted to different article sites. I think it is doing something but will it just be penalised over time?
Link Building | | acs1110 -
Which Link Strategy is Better: .edus or Blogs?
Suppose you only have enough resources to execute a strategy that will earn links from 100 .edu sites or a strategy will earn 100 blogs on your industry. Which would you choose?
Link Building | | ProjectLabs0 -
Question to SEO experts about backlink tracking
Hi, could you recommend the best tool that you use to keep track of all the backlinks you have. I'd imaging there is a good software or website which lists all your backlinks with all relevant info for each link (PR of the linking site, authority level etc) thanks in advance for sharing.
Link Building | | limens0 -
Concerned about quality of backlinks - should I take action?
I regularly work on websites to which previous SEOs have built questionable backlinks. This morning I've just been analysing some backlinks - found 40 odd were coming from 20 odd websites which all had the same gentleman as personal registrant, who happens to be the boss of an SEO company. The SEO company name is mentioned in registrant details too, and often on the websites in question (including weblinks from some of these 20 odd websites to the SEO company). I did note the IP addresses / hosting for these websites did vary though, as did the postal address of the individual in question, perhaps throwing Google off the scent a bit. I should add that these websites are virtually all tourism related/themed, with up to a few dozen backlinks per page - usually articles. It's very clear they are backlinking to keyphrases. Now, this kinda thing<a></a> sets the alarm bells ringing. Firstly, this looks like an infringement of Google Webmaster Guidelines. Secondly, it doesn't sound like a White Hat technique for building links! Am I correct? I guess it might be denied they are partner pages due to the quality of content, perhaps, which isn't as spammy as it might've been. However, I suggest these are at least paid links because there is no other clear way of getting content on these pages, as far as I can see.<a></a><a></a> Should I demand these backlinks are taken down? What level of risk is posed do you think? I don't want this website to suffer a Google penalty at some point, particularly not after I've started work on it. Thanks and I look forward to hearing from you.
Link Building | | McTaggart0