Links built by previous SEO company are mostly 'dead' - will this affect me?
-
Hi,
This is my first post/question in the forum - so apologies if this topic has already been covered - or if the question seems daft!
Here's the issue:
I have started working on two websites, and have been doing a lot of on-site work, increasing valuable content, etc... I'm now slowly moving onto more off-site stuff and have noticed that a lot of the backlinks to both websites (built by SEO companies before I got here) are 'dead' and simply return 404 errors (yet they still show up in site explorer).
I'll be honest, the links aren't great; the SEO companies have taken the word 'relevant' and completely re-defined it in their books!
Will these links - from sites that aren't relevant... but are dead - have any impact on my SEO efforts from now on? Or should I treat these sites as a kind of 'clean slate' and work on building the brand naturally through social media and user experience, etc?
Also - I'm re-structuring the internal pages of the site... would it be worth re-directing the old URLs (with all the dead in-bound links - that may have suffered a -50 penalty) to the new ones, or just start fresh with the new pages?
Any advice, tips or stories to share (relevant ones, of course!) will be greatly appreciated!
Thanks,
Nick
-
I think the drop has already happened - so that's why I'm re-writing/improving the content for that area of the site and just starting fresh with it.
I'm sure with the right bit of promoting (through social media, etc.) the new section will pick up a bit of traffic.
It's a tough decision about the re-direct though - because the SEOMoz Page Authority for the affected pages is close to 50.
Thanks for your replies guys - really appreciate the insight!
-
I'll run a check over them today and find out.
A lot of the links seem to be parked domains or errors - see moldovanembassy (.org) (.uk) and ishouldknowthis (.) (com) - don't want to link to it, so do the relevant bracket removals!
The sites are completely irrelevant, which is mega frustrating. Really not focusing on link building when the profile is so 'varied', so I'm going to focus on on-site work and providing real content for people to like, share, etc.
-
- If the SEO company has the ability to easily remove those links then you don't want them anyway.
- Sadly, you may experience a slight drop, depending on your overall link profile.
- On a positive note, you likely have a much cleaner link profile now.
-
I'd check out whether Google still has the linking pages cached before making a decision (at least some of them). If Google has recrawled them since they went "dead" you may not have a decision to worry about
Are the sites completely irrelevant and spammy, or decent but completely off topic?
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
-
I'm stuck by internal linking.
What structure should a football website follow? Silo or Topic Cluster?
Link Building | | gogoanimetp
I need advice on my website. My website: https://tructiepbongda.site
I hope there are answers!
Thanks0 -
What's the difference between these 2 url's in wordpress
https://www.yourdomain.be/blog/-test-article/
Link Building | | conversal
https://www.yourdomain.be/blog/test-article/ What is the difference in wordpress with this "-" in the url? Both url's show the page like it's supposed to. Is this normal?0 -
Dead/Broken links on old blogs
Hi We are currently trying to update our blog page on our website but quickly realized there are numerous dead or broken 404 links after clicking on anchor text from past blog posts. Our blog is set up in WordPress and we recently installed an SEO plug in with it. Some of these anchor texts don't actually need links and I want to unlink them, is there a simple way to do this on WordPress? Other anchor text I would like to "301 redirect" to another page. Can i do this on WordPress or is this something my SEO plugin should be able to fix? Answers are much appreciated! Thanks
Link Building | | SapphireCo0 -
Links from sites with iffy link profiles?
So the site http://www.cadenas.de/ appears to have good decent scores from the various Moz ranks, but when I check out the site in OSE there are a lot of really sketchy links that jump out, online pharmacy/drug type links. I should also add that the negative links are seemingly going to a weird blog deep in the site and only appear when I select all links to the root domain in OSE. Everything about the site appears very legitimate except for the link profile which has me nervous. Would you guys pursue a link from this site?
Link Building | | CJ50 -
100's of .info links pointing to my site
Hi, in the past few weeks 100's of .info links appeared in WMT pointing to my site. Should I be worried about these links ? What can I do to block them ? Thanks nick [edited for proper category - Keri]
Link Building | | orion680 -
Root Domain Link for Affiliate's Link
It seems my affiliate link: http://www.hrmsplugins.com?partners=21 is not being considered as a "root domain" backlink when this link is used on their website. Is there a reason for this?
Link Building | | delphia0 -
Value of IMG links for SEO
Hello, I'm looking for some new ways to build links (IE, letitimate not spam), and I know sites featuring a site that I created would be an interesting way to do so. My question is this, the StudioPress Showcase pages http://www.studiopress.com/showcase/baltimore-print-studios link back to your site with an image, with some "Almost URL Alt text". How valuable would this link be, given that the DA is 97 and the PA is in the upper 40s Thanks Zach
Link Building | | Zachary_Russell0 -
How long does it take for crawlers to update links? As in number of back links
How long does it take for crawlers to update links? As in number of back links
Link Building | | tom14cat140