Google Webmaster Tools Message regarding unnatural links - how to respond
-
I acquired a small website which was subsequently hit by Google Panda for unnatural links. Since the previous owner was involved in the link building, I'm not sure what to look for. Here's the message I received from Google:
** Message from Google **
"We've reviewed your site and we still see links to your site that violate our quality guidelines.
Specifically, look for possibly artificial or unnatural links pointing to your site that could be intended to manipulate PageRank. Examples of unnatural linking could include buying links to pass pagerank or participating in link schemes.
We encourage you to make changes to comply with our quality guidelines. Once you've made these changes, please submit your site for reconsideration in Google's search results.
If you find unnatural links to your site that you are unable to control or remove, please provide the details in your reconsideration request.
** End Message from Google **
I'm not sure how to locate "unnatural links" when there are so many pointing to the site. For example, are there specific domains I should look for that are known offenders? Or, should I look for sites that are using obvious anchor text that seems orchestrated? Any insights would be appreciated on creating an action plan.
- Jerry
-
Jerry, if it were me, I'd work my way through all the suggestions that Rand suggested over in a recent "White Board Friday"
It might well be that the previous owner had left you more than just the links to clean up and I think this would help you out.
-
You are right that the first port of call should be a link audit and a full analysis of what sites are linking to you and how.
Even though the message above is an automated one and may well have been triggered by "red flag" signals (an algorithmic penalty as opposed to a manual penalty) - you should (in my opinion) - still make a concerted effort to rectify the situation before responding to that message.
There are various tools you can use to analyze back links. If you are a member here I am sure you are familiar on using the tools on this site.
One of the first things I would look at also is what Google is saying about the links to you as detailed in GWT.
The links and anchor information in there are very helpful although the data lags quite a bit.
Still it will give you a good appreciation as to what sites are linking to you and how.
To access this, go into GWT for your site and then click on the menu option on the left that says
"Your Site On the Web" >> "Links to Your Site"
You will get a feel for what sites Google is recognizing as linking to you - which sites have sitewide links to you and the diversity of the anchor text (the text within the links).
This last point (anchor text diversity) is now a bigger point to emphasize than before.
eg: If you see 90% of your inbound links all pointing to one page on the site and all having one term for anchor text (that is not your brand name) - then you can probably guess that this is going to lead to some kind of red flag being raised.
I am not agreeing with that in terms of a methodology..... I think they have really made some miscalculations here in terms of this update.... but I am just pointing out that this may have caused some red flags in their automated unintelligent algo.
Post back and let us know what you find and I will try to assist further if possible.
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 building
I want to know is there any way of increasing DA/PA of the website? Is there any benefit in ranking if we increase PA of specific page? Recently my website DA is 6 i want to increase it 30.
Link Building | | hfameraya1980 -
I am looking for a software to keep track of the back links or link building
Hi Guys, I am very new hear. I just joined. I have a few websites that I need to manage. I am looking for a software that will allow me to manually add the links that I have been able to acquire. It would also be a bonus if it could search for the links to my site and to see if its still active. Because I have a freelancer working a few hours a week on link building and I need to keep track of the links. I am looking for something simple and good. Any suggestions? By the way, I used Raven Tools many years ago, and it had this feature. But since joining Moz, I don't want to be paying for 2 subscriptions. And I don't know if Raven still has this feature. Your suggestions would be appreciated. Thank you. Ryan
Link Building | | RyanNewman0 -
Internal linking anchor text with automated ASP.NET link building
Hi Everyone I really need some help here, the problem I have must be one that many have. I have a simple e-commerce style website so 1 product page can in fact get 40-50 internal links to it. These links come from a mixture of: 1. The parent category pages that the product sits on (Rugged PDA) and in turn the 10 filter pages of this category page (Rugged PDA, ordered by battery size). 2. Alternative product list on other product pages, So many products link to each other as alternatives. From Google analytics we can see that visitors like to browse product to product seeing 5 alternatives on each page with titles like "Smaller", "more rugged" etc. 3. Manufactuer pages, so we have a link to each product from each manufacturer home page where we talk lots about each manufacture we resell. We also have links from images used in the website. So its a nice usable website but we're finding that Google is still telling us in Webmaster tools that it thinks some links are dubious and we're trying to find out why. We only now have 190 external links to the website, most are internal and from the website or our blog on a subdomain. The problem we think is that we generate the category and products pages all dynamically so the anchor text is looking the same. Will this potentially create issues for us? Dave
Link Building | | Raptor-crew0 -
Link Relevance vs Link Authority ?
Hi guys, I have a quick question regarding some low quality links my site is getting. From the information in Open Site Explorer, the website Im talking about has a page authority of 16 while the domain authority is 11\. These are very low quality scores in my oppinion and Im thinking of removing them with Google Disavow Tool. The thing is that, although the domain is low quality, the links have relevance as they're in the same business sector as us. More exactly, the name of the domain is taxisavona and the company I work for is also a taxi company. So, now I`m thinking, should I disavow the link because of it's low scores or should I leave it because it is relevant to our business ? Thank you in advance! Best regards, Tiberiu Iavorenciuc
Link Building | | Tiberiu0 -
Do sites on the same c-block and same server count as seperate linking root domains when linking to each other?
Lets say there are 50 businesses who have their website on the same server and are on the same c-block but the owners of the individual sites are different (i.e. they are all completely different sites not relevant to each other). Each of those sites are linking to each other due to a feature on the sites. This obviously increases the number of total links to each site but does it also increase the number of linking root domains? Or does this just show up as one linking root domain due to all of them being on the same server and the sharing the same c-block?
Link Building | | cinternicola0 -
Link Building: Asking for links versus building links
I am currently delving into link building for SEO having started out from a social media marketing side. From that angle, it was always my belief building high quality links came from engaging targeted bloggers and sites in my market and related verticals for product reviews and/or providing expert advise and opinion for posts they are creating. As I am learning more the "technical" side of SEO, I've read a lot of posters on here talk about asking from links from websites. While I get the concept from a strategic stand point, are links really asking for or is better to continue to pursue the long term investment of pitching to get coverage from well known bloggers and sites?
Link Building | | joshuaopinion1 -
Links from any country?
My site is aimed primarily at the UK, 90% of the traffic is from the UK and most of my links are from other UK based and UK targetted websites. The content is actually fairly international (apart from certain terms like Plasterboard instead of Drywall, etc). My question is: Should I concentrate on gathering links from the UK, or should I widen my search and try to get links from US and European websites? Are there any particular advantages or disadvantages to keeping links "local"?
Link Building | | Jingo010 -
What is the length for Open Explorer and/or Google to pick up on Blogroll links?
I'm just a little curious about this and thought I would make use of the new Q&A system. This is my first open question. I recently acquired some blogroll links on 3 fairly popular and well trafficked sites, some with more authority and pages than mine (Get Right Music). I was wondering if anyone is familiar with the time frame in which I should start to see that affect my rankings in Google. Also, the time frame when I should start to see those domain links appear in Open Site Explorer. I'm just curious. Thanks everyone. Jesse
Link Building | | getrightmusic0