I use semrush for this. It can only go back a few months but does give you some incite.

Does anybody know if a link on an expired domain affects your SEO?

I'm just asking because the SEO agency we used before used to create websites and then link to our company - very spammy.

We have since ditched this agecny, however they wanted an extortionate amount to remove these links. Therefore, we decided to wait until these domains expired and then the links wouldn't exist.

However, I am now completing a link audit and some of these sites are still appearing in the results (obtained from Link Research Tools) but I cannot access the links because the domains have expired.

Can anyone help?

Thanks for your response.

For example, the link we have on Yell is saying that it is a 'Deadly Risk' because it looks 'highly unnatural'. From reviewing all our links, i think that LRT classifies all links from directories as 'Deadly'. However, we receive a lot of enquiries from Yell, so it would be silly to remove it. Perhaps it should be changed to a nofollow?

Is anyone else here a user of Link Research Tools?

I recently completed a Link Detox for my sites. However, it is saying that links from high quality press release sites are deadly and should be removed. They are also saying the same about the links from the Yellow Pages.

Obviously I know these tools are automated, but does anyone know why they are showing these links as 'deadly' and should be removed?

I have tried contacting LRT about this issue but am yet to receive a reply.

Yes, if you have a good page rank then you should be able to compete for the most competitive keywords. However, you will need to optimise your site for these keywords correctly.

The best thing to do is to each page of your website targeting at different keyword. Use the keyword tool in Adwords to tell you discover how popular keyword terms are and their competitiveness. As a rule I would never target keywords with less than 300 searches per month, as they're unlikely to give you any decent traffic. Unless your site has a PageRank of more than 5, you shouldn't be targeting keywords that are highly competitive, you should build links into your site, increase your PR and then target those keywords.

Ok since no one is recommending the link wheel strategy, what would you suggest? My company has bought about 10 domain names related to our business that we plan as using as blogs for backlisting to our other websites. I thought the link wheel would work well across these extra domains, and in fact I have been encouraged to do so.

I'm interested in starting a link wheel strategy. However, when it comes to setting up the web 2.0 sites I'm unsure as to whether to set them up in my own name or in my business name. My initial thoughts were that it would appear more natural in my own name but if I have many sites linking to the same page, isn't that bad for SEO?

Does anyone have any advice?

The best thing to do is to each page of your website targeting at different keyword. Use the keyword tool in Adwords to tell you discover how popular keyword terms are and their competitiveness. As a rule I would never target keywords with less than 300 searches per month, as they're unlikely to give you any decent traffic. Unless your site has a PageRank of more than 5, you shouldn't be targeting keywords that are highly competitive, you should build links into your site, increase your PR and then target those keywords.