What tools/techniques you use to check if a domain has been penalized?
-
If we think to buy expired or otherwise dropped domains, what tools or techniques you would recommend to check if there has bad SEO history?
We could of course, check with Google itself if the site is indexed and ranks, but I am asking if there is a particular tool out there that would provide more information if a website had been shady.
Thanks so much, guys!
Lily
-
Thanks Lily.
Redirecting old sites is unlikely to give you a rankings boost, especially if they have changed hands and have expired / dropped. You really need to buy them before they expire and don't change two many details.
Think about seomoz.com to moz.com - all the link juice have been transfered, and so it should, its just a rebrand, same servers, so owners, etc. But if they brought so ramdon site and redirect do they deserve the link juice? No, and google doesn't think so either.
-
That's a great explanation, Julian! Thanks for adding up.
Yes, the main idea is to redirect them at some point, that's why I want to be 100% sure they won't harm the rankings.
Lily
-
What are you trying to achieve by buying dropped domains? Are you planning to redirect them to your own sites for link juice? If you do that be very careful, there are lot better ways to get link juice.
To check a domain I would:
- search on google for the website name, e.g. "seomoz" does it rank? (doesnt too much if it doesnt the keyword might be competitive)
- search for the url, e.g. seomoz.com if it doesnt rank number 1 for this i would walk away
- does it have sitelinks under the domain name, if yes thats a good sign
- grab some text from the site and search for it (ensure you are using a clear browser, e.g. no cookie history, so personalised search doesn't kick in), if its a couple of sentences it should rank for that
- grab a few meta titles and search for them, if they dont rank for the complete title there could be a problem
- does the site have page rank - a red flag if it doesnt
- ask the site owner for the last years analytics traffic, the overall traffic graph would be fine
- look at its moz rank, does it seem to match how it ranks, e.g. if very high moz rank but not ranking for the site name there could be a problem
that should do it.
-
-
I was looking more for how to spot shady link profile. A tool for that. Anyway, I guess there isn't such tool. Thanks, guys!
-
Yes, they are for email spam blacklist.
-
These appear to be tools to check if the site has been black listed for email spam. While it's good to check for when buying a domain, it won't tell you if Google has penalised the site.
-
Here are a couple:
If you also want to check if email was blacklisted:
-
Is there a site on the domain at the moment, or has there been one recently?
If there is you could see how well indexed it is (site: command), see if it ranks for it's own brand terms, and even moderately competitive terms.
You can also run the site through opensiteexplorer and see how dodgy the external link profile is.
-
That was a great idea for checking on traffic behavior compared to the algorithm updates! Thanks, David.
However I am asking if I do not have access to Analytics and GWT. If the domain is expiring and I consider buying it. Any ideas for that scenario?
Lily
-
One of the most obvious ways is to compare organic search traffic to the dates new algorithms go live. Checkout the Google Algorithm Change History page. There is even a chrome plugin called Chartelligence that overlays the algorithm change dates over your traffic data.
Also checkout webmaster tools for messages for unnatural link warnings from Googs themselves.
Hope that helps!
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
-
What is Followed Linking Root Domains ?
Is it to just have different URLs pointing to my site? I understand that if 1 site posts 5 of my URLs, it only counts as 1. I am just not understanding how I increase this number if link building is now frowned up. Thoughts?
Link Building | | tiffany11030 -
NAP corrections without using Yext
There are certain places where my address or phone number appear incorrectly online. I have tried to fix this, but many of these services are tied in with Yext, and I don't want to use Yext. For example my phone number is incorrect on whitepages.com. Also, my phone number was incorrect on Americantowns.com, and so i contacted them with the correct number, and then they deleted my listing altogether. More and more directories are tied in with Yext. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to make these corrections without using a service such as Yext?
Link Building | | RandyHT0 -
Why does GWT still show some links from a disavowed domain?
We have disavowed a lot of spam links that were pointing to our website. We've disavowed on a domain level and a lot of links have now disappeared on GWT. However, there is a domain that we disavowed where MOST of the links have disappeared in GWT but there are STILL some remaining even a month and a half after disavowing. The disavow file has been sent in numerous times since then with new domains. Is there an explanation as to why some links still remain on this domain even though most of them have been disavowed and removed from GWT?
Link Building | | ResumeGenius0 -
What do you use to gather and build Links?
I was just wondering what do most people use for gathering and building links? Is OpenSiteExplorer enough? When I am analysing competitors, there are literally thousands of links, how do you scan them and select the ones you want to use? Any other tools?
Link Building | | moneywise_test0 -
Is Link Detox program safe to use?
Hi I have been doing some research today to help a client who has lots of links to their site but they are mainly of low or no value. The links were created by another SEO agency so we are not sure in all cases how the links came about or who to contact to get rid of them. I have come across link detox http://goo.gl/o2fKl. I wanted to suggest to my client to use this to help them see what links are bad and what should be kept I have two question's; Has anyone had any experiences with this program and have found it useful? Would there be any negative affect of us using this program with reference to my clients website? Many thanks for your help.
Link Building | | mblsolutions0 -
E-Commerce more emphasis on root domain and categories?
Hi all, I'm still in my dilema after taking over this ecommerce site. Currently running Volusion(please for your own sake never use them, 7$ for each GB over), I plan on taking the site to a dedicated server running on Magento. Should we worry too much since majority of our links are to the root domain while a small portion is to actual products? I think there should be more emphasis on the categories and root domain rather than actual product pages. I mean this is e-commerce and not a content site. Thanks!
Link Building | | William.Lau0 -
Exact match domains still work??
I'm sure this has been asked and it also has been answered but I'd like some insight from another SEO as to why this site -> <cite>www dot newhomesglasgow.co.uk/ </cite> is ranking on the first page for the keyword(you guessed it) 'new homes in glasgow' OSE shows about 4 backlinks. Is it just the content on the page(that's jammed with keywords) and the matching URL? Any feedback would be appreciated 🙂
Link Building | | DanHill0 -
Submitting my URL on web/business/service directories
Does it make sense to submit a business URL in as many relevant web/business directories as possible when kicking off a link building campaign? Submitting a free listing is obviously better than nothing, but when does it make sense to pay extra for a premium listing profile on some of these directories? There are just so many and a lot of them appear spammy, even though some of my competitors are getting traffic from them. Any advice on this would be great!
Link Building | | TheSquareFoot1