Business Directories and Spammy Link Profile
-
Hi,
have been reading a lot about submissions to directories and posting spamming blogs and forums and how they're a bad idea, saw a great post on it by Rand in a white board Friday lecture, the only thing is I've been analysing a company and that appears to be what makes up its entire link profile, all the links point to their home page with their primary phrase as the anchor text.
Just wondered how a company with some 4k links the majority being follows, hasn't been penalised for what are a really bad set of back links.
Should add that this is an insurance company, they're no light weights in their industry but certainly not one of the big boys.
Thanks, Lee
-
is funny you say that, was analysing a site the other day and they had lots of links from graphical blog post, think they came from abode illustrator tutorials, commenting has been blocked now but those links were generating a lot of authority, low 70's.
Which raises an important point thats something worth considering, commenting on pages that are likely to mature in respect of PA, what might only get a little authority now might in say 3-4 years yield something worth having,
Good points thanks a lot.
-
I think considering the history and particularly the issues surrounding low quality directories, most of which who were banned are back and listed, it shows a lack of commitment by Google to stamp out this kind of low quality linking, which is plainly done to artificially inflate rankings.
Concerning the Panda update I just think this is a response by Google to fire-fight the popularity of social media. Interesting that Panda and Google+ were both introduced relatively close together.
And I guess you can understand that, I get most of my business from social sites, Facebook being my main source of work and so that's reflected in how much time is spent socialising there. More time being social less time Googling!
Thanks for your comment.
-
Agreed Opt,
I took a look at their competition (the big boys) their links profiles were spectacular lots of heavy weigh authority sites, National Press, Stock Market (75-90 PA) . I guess it all boils down to who they're employing to do their seo, hire low grade and the results will reflect that quality.
Still somewhat hesitant to adopt this kind of link building strategy myself, I have made blog comments but they've been genuine and lengthy responses to posts in my industry.
thanks appreciate your comment
-
I see this absolutely in the graphic and logo design industry. Newer sites spamming the web with directory/forum/article spam links are getting to the first page and bumping off MUCH older sites that just post good content on their websites and do not actively go after spam link building!
Very unfortunate! But it is definitely working!!!
-
Despite what a lot of people say I still feel that link building in this sense works as long as you are strict with it. If they are making sure the directories have a good authority, they have a mix of followed v no-followed and build in some sort of organic manner (consistent drip of links).
I think a lot of concern is that the search engines are working out which links are manufactured in this manner and will soon heavily devalue them, but in the here and now it works to some extent.
I guess the other thing to consider is the competition - if it is this type of link building v no link building I guess this would win...
-
Hi Lee,
I know how you feel. I feel the same when I see this happening quite often unfortunately.
What I think it is: they got their spammy backlinks before Panda update and haven't been caught. As yet.
I do hope that Google keeps improving it's algorithms and one day we won't see such cases. Or I'm just being an optimist...
Regards,
Alex
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
-
Link juice from links that are not on the page?
Hello, Thank you in advance for your help! I was doing research for backlinking opportunities by looking at competitor backlinks using Open Site Explorer and I ran into a puzzle. When I do an Open Site Explorer search for http://whatsdavedoing.com/ I find that link equity is being passed to the site from a number of pages on the http://www.travelsupermarket.com/ blog with the anchor text "What's Dave Doing" When I go to these pages and do a source code search I cannot find this anchor text. When I do a google search with the following: site:travelsupermarket.com "What's Dave Doing" I find that there are tons of items that come back with a list of blogs in their description: "Dec 5, 2013 - ... foXnoMad · Inside The Travel Lab · itravelnet · The Mad Traveler Blog · The Mad Traveler Online · Uncornered Market · What's Dave Doing?" Where is this coming from? What is going on here? Is this a linking tactic that sites use to pass link juice to contributors without linking to them directly? Any help is much appreciated! Thanks!
Competitive Research | | overlandundersea0 -
How Do You Currently Analyze Outbound Link Profiles?
So I'm looking at some potential guest blogging &/or article writing opportunities and I'm looking for a tool which will analyze the OUTBOUND links from the site....it would be handy if inbound were displayed too but not essential as there are many tools available for this. When I ask for sample sites it is clear that a number of them (all?!) have been created purely for us content purposes, however it would be good to analyze the site further. A tool that could analyze its outbound links would give me a rough idea if the site is suitable or simply a glorified link-farm. Also, if you have any useful links regarding industry averages on outbound links for blogs & article sites (eg Ezine) for benchmarking it would be good! Thanks
Competitive Research | | cmooki
C:)0 -
Best Link Analysis Tool?
Now that the Yahoo Site Explorer is not usable on sites unless they are in your Bing Webmaster Tools, what is the best tool out there to see an accurate list of inbound links to a site? Google tools are still pretty unreliable from what I can see...
Competitive Research | | Bandicoot0 -
Is there a way to establish how old a link to a site is?
I wonder if anyone has any insight on the above question.
Competitive Research | | InTouchMarketing560 -
Competitive Link Finder blank screen
Hi. I am bran-new to the site so if I am asking a daft question I apoloise 😉 When I go to the Competitive Link Builder, enter some URLS and press GO I am taking to a blank screen with no info. I've tried on different browsers & same issues. Any advice? Thanks.Christoffa.
Competitive Research | | Christoffa0 -
Link checking tool
I am trying to find the number of back links received from a partner for different pages of the site that I am currently working on. Site has several thousand pages. Does anybody know any tool that can pull the links to entire site from a particular source? Thanks.
Competitive Research | | gmk15670 -
Online checkers for Anchor Links ?
Okay, we are looking for online tools to check our backlinks, and anchor links top domains, etc. OSE is not working for us, because looks like , it gets updated in some months. We are looking for something, which can drag the statistics in fw hours and show up. Let me know.
Competitive Research | | qubesys0 -
What tools do you use for competitive link analysis?
I have been using SEO Spyglass lately but it can be very slow at times. Wondering if there are any other accurate/robust tools out there.
Competitive Research | | rmteamseo0