undefined
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
    • SEO Q&A
    • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Agency Solutions
    • Enterprise Solutions
    • Small Business Solutions
    • Case Studies
    • 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.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • 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.

    What is your Brand Authority?
    Moz

    What is your Brand Authority?

    Check yours now
  • 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.

    • SEO Q&A

      Insights & discussions from an SEO community of 500,000+.

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
    Moz API

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

    Find your plan
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • 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.

    • Case Studies

      Explore how Moz drives ROI with a proven track record of success.

    • 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. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
  4. Thought FRED penalty - Now see new spammy image backlinks what to do?

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.

Thought FRED penalty - Now see new spammy image backlinks what to do?

Intermediate & Advanced SEO
4
6
1.6k
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.
  • plahpoy
    plahpoy last edited by May 8, 2017, 3:25 PM

    Hi,

    So starting about March 9 I started seeing huge losses in ranking for a client. These rankings continue to drop every week since and we changed nothing on the site.

    At first I thought it must be the FRED update, so we have started rewriting and adding product descriptions to our pages (which is a good thing regardless). I also checked our backlink profile using OSE on MOZ and still saw the few linking root domains we had. Another Odd thing on this is that webmasters tools showed many more domains.

    So today I bought a subscriptions to ahrefs and instantly saw that on the same timeline (starting March 1 2017) until now, we have literally doubled in inbound links from very spammy type sites. BUT the incoming links are not to content, people seem to be ripping off our images.

    So my question is, do spammy inbound image links count against us the same as if someone linked actual written content or non image urls? Is FRED something I should still be looking into? Should i disavow a list of inbound image links?

    Thanks in advance!

    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
    • Paddy_Moogan
      Paddy_Moogan last edited by May 23, 2017, 5:42 AM May 23, 2017, 5:42 AM

      Hi Zach,

      Just to quickly add to what Nicholas has said, I have seen instances where links to a site via hotlinked images can cause ranking problems. It sounds like you're on top of it with the disavow file, so just keep an eye on things and update that as you find new links.

      If you've been hit by the Fred update, that does seem like something different, but again it sounds like you're doing the right things that would help with SEO anyway. It could be worth comparing your site and it's features to other sites that seem to have been affected and see if you can spot any similarities. Here is a list from Search Engine Roundtable.

      Cheers.

      Paddy

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
      • topic:timeago_earlier,13 days
      • plahpoy
        plahpoy last edited by May 10, 2017, 10:39 AM May 10, 2017, 10:39 AM

        will do

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • seoman10
          seoman10 last edited by May 10, 2017, 6:28 AM May 10, 2017, 6:28 AM

          Definitely check the Lost & Broken links in ahrefs.

          Interested to know the outcome, I have the same question myself.

          Keep us posted.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • plahpoy
            plahpoy last edited by May 8, 2017, 5:23 PM May 8, 2017, 5:22 PM

            Thanks for the quick response. I actually already disavowed the spammy image links 'just in case' haha.

            The whole thing is weird, the spam links literally start at the exact same timeframe as FRED. However only people using our images on super spammy pages.

            We have no ad heavy pages, no good links lost.

            I'll keep updating this as time goes on.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • NickW816
              NickW816 last edited by May 8, 2017, 4:33 PM May 8, 2017, 4:33 PM

              Hi Zach, this is a tough one to give a straight answer or solution to, from what I'm reading it looks like it was more than likely Fred Update related. The spammy backlinks are concerning though as well, in theory those links should just be ignored by Google now, instead of having a negative impact on your rankings, I would check that the website also did not lose any good links in the last couple months as well (ahrefs should show this). Not sure what kind of website this is for, but make sure the product pages and homepage are not too "ad-heavy" or "affilate-heavy" (Amazon etc.) as well, as penalizing these types of websites was part of the Google Fred Update also.

              If I were in your shoes, I would use the disavow tool from Google with the really spammy, low quality links, just to be safe (as well as try to regain any good backlinks that have been last the past few months). Also, continue doing your product pages updates and optimizing potential landing pages for the website with unique titles and meta descriptions, remove some ads (if your client's website has them) and then use the Fetch and Render tool in Google Search Console and request re-indexing of the website.

              Nick White
              SEO Services KC
              https://seo-kansas-city.com/

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • 1 / 1
              1 out of 6
              • First post
                1/6
                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

              • seoanalytics

                Text over image

                Hello, I am creating an overlay on a image. Is it ok to write on this overlay in html or it is better to have the text not on a image for google and other search engines ? Thank you,

                Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Sep 1, 2023, 9:13 AM | seoanalytics
                0
              • Gavin.Atkinson

                How to maximize CTR from Google image search?

                I'm getting good, solid growth in my Google SERPs and Google search traffic now, but I do notice that 70% of my high ranking search results are images and the CTR on those is only 3-4%. All my images are illustrative and highly relevant to my travel blog, but I guess that hardly matters unless they get CTR so people see them in context. Has anyone seen or done any good research on what makes people click through on Google Image Search results? What are the key factors? How do you optimize for click-through? Is it better to watermark your images or overlay label them to increase likelihood of click-through? Thanks, Tony FYI the travel blog in question is www.asiantraveltips.com and a relevant Google search where I rank highly is "songkran 2016 phuket".

                Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Nov 12, 2015, 5:41 PM | Gavin.Atkinson
                0
              • Sam-P

                Would changing the file name of an image (not the alt attribute) have an effect of on seo / ranking of that image and thus the site?

                Would changing the file name of image, not the alt attribute nor the image itself (so it would be exactly the same but just a name change) have any effect on : a) A sites seo ranking b) the individual images seo ranking (although i guess if b) would be true it would have an effect on a) although potentially small.) This is the sort of change i would be thinking of making : ![Red ford truck](2554.jpg) changed to ![Red ford truck](6842.jpg)

                Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Mar 22, 2015, 3:32 PM | Sam-P
                0
              • Felix_LLC

                After reading of Google's so called "over-optimization" penalty, is there a penalty for changing title tags too frequently?

                In other words, does title tag change frequency hurt SEO ? After changing my title tags, I have noticed a steep decline in impressions, but an increase in CTR and rankings. I'd like to once again change the title tags to try and regain impressions. Is there any penalty for changing title tags too often? From SEO forums online, there seems to be a bit of confusion on this subject...

                Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Sep 26, 2013, 11:53 AM | Felix_LLC
                0
              • steviephil

                Best way to noindex an image?

                Hi all, A client wanted a few pages noindexed, which was no problem using the meta robots noindex tag. However they now want associated images removed, some of which still appear on pages that they still want indexed. I added the images to their robots.txt file a few weeks ago (probably over a month ago actually) but they're all still showing when you do an image search. What's the best way to noindex them for good, and how do I go about implementing it? Many thanks, Steve

                Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Jul 3, 2013, 11:57 AM | steviephil
                0
              • witmartmarketing

                Links from new sites with no link juice

                Hi Guys, Do backlinks from a bunch of new sites pass any value to our site?  I've heard a lot from some "SEO experts" say that it is an effective link building strategy to build a bunch of new sites and link them to our main site.  I highly doubt that... To me, a new site is a new site, which means it won't have any backlinks in the beginning (most likely), so a backlink from this site won't pass too much link juice. Right? In my humble opinion  this is not a good strategy any more...if you build new sites for the sake of getting links. This is just wrong. But, if you do have some unique content and you want to share with others on that particular topic, then you can definitely create a blog and write content and start getting links. And over time, the domain authority will increase,  then a backlink from this site will become more valuable? I am not a SEO expert myself, so I am eager to hear your thoughts. Thanks.

                Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Apr 18, 2013, 8:24 AM | witmartmarketing
                0
              • activitysuper

                How does Google know if a backlink is good or not?

                Hi, What does Google look at when assessing a backlink? How important is it to get a backlink from a website with relevant content? Ex: 1. Domain/Page Auth 80, website is not relevant. Does not use any of the words in your target term in any area of the website. 2. Domain/Page Auth 40, website is relevant. Uses the words in your target term multiple times across website. Which website example would benefit your SERP's more if you gained a backlink? (and if you can say, how much more would it benefit - low, medium, high).

                Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Dec 7, 2012, 5:18 PM | activitysuper
                0
              • qdigi

                Can Google read my backlink in Javascript??

                Hi SeoMoz community! I have a software product, which our clients implement onto their websites. It is like a pop up box. I know that backlinks are very important for SEO ranking, and I really want to give our clients 2 options of product: 1. you can get the free/cheaper option if you use the code which has a keyworded backlink to our site on it 2. you can pay small fee if you don't want to use the version with a link to our site on it Now, the problem is that the product is written entirely in Javascript, and I don't think that Google crawls this, do they? Is there a way around this? Thanks for your help!

                Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Feb 9, 2016, 10:40 PM | qdigi
                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
              Free SEO Tools
              • Domain Authority Checker
              • Link Explorer
              • Keyword Explorer
              • Competitive Research
              • Brand Authority 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.