How Important is Domain Authority in Back-Link Audit
-
First off I just want to say thanks Penguin! Now I get to start the joyous experience doing a back-link audit, and removing all the negative links. Also I now have to be on constant alert for Black SEO tactics targeted at my domain due to the cut throat business I am in. I think it can only be a matter of time before Google says all backlinks do not matter. Unfortunately, I need rank now!!
So I have a couple of questions:
First how important is domain rank in a back-link audit? Should I remove myself from indexes with low domain rank, and leave ones with high? Should I remove myself from as many indexes as possible? What about obvious paid blog posts that have high domain rank? Do you leave those? What is considered a low Domain Rank for back-links, under 35 - 40?
Second, what is a good success rate for a back link audit. How can you measure improvement, other than waiting for your PR or SERP to go up?
Third, in some situations it looks like back-links are legitimate, but they all point to my home page. Is it worth pursuing for example asking these people to link to the specific product they are referring to for example children picnic tables instead of just our home page?
And, lastly what legal rights do I have to get back-links removed? Is it only on sites that copy my content that I have copy written? Is it possible to prevent Google from counting these back-links through an .htaccess file?
Thanks in advance for all of the help. I hope to take what I learn and put it into a guide of some capacity as I am sure many people are going through this same situation at the moment.
-
First how important is domain rank in a back-link audit? Should I remove myself from indexes with low domain rank, and leave ones with high? Should I remove myself from as many indexes as possible? What about obvious paid blog posts that have high domain rank? Do you leave those? What is considered a low Domain Rank for back-links, under 35 - 40?
This is a pretty open-ended question. Instead of judging your back links by domain authority, ask yourself about the nature of the link and the quality of the site. You should consider removing links from "obvious paid blog posts" regardless of domain authority.
Domain authority should not be viewed/used in a vacuum. In fact, if you're going to limit yourself to one metric, I might suggest mozTrust (although I wouldn't recommend relying solely on that either).
_Second, what is a good success rate for a back link audit. How can you measure improvement, other than waiting for your PR or SERP to go up? _
I suppose success should be measured in your ability to achieve your desired result. If you're truly facing a penalty situation, you should spend some time doing research before you begin to arbitrarily remove links. You might start here: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/whiteboard-on-googles-penguin-update
In many instances, a perceived penguin penalty wasn't actually a penguin penalty. If you truly are facing this type of penalty, you may need to clean up your profile and submit a reconsideration request. Again, before you start removing links and submitting reconsideration requests, read up on this subject.
_Third, in some situations it looks like back-links are legitimate, but they all point to my home page. Is it worth pursuing for example asking these people to link to the specific product they are referring to for example children picnic tables instead of just our home page? _
Yes.
And, lastly what legal rights do I have to get back-links removed?
This is not intended, and should not be construed as legal advice. That being said, in most cases, it's not an issue of rights as much as it is an issue of practicality. Depending on how you're links were acquired, and from where they were acquired, it might be difficult enough to get a hold of the site owner, let alone try to take some sort of legal action to have links removed.
Is it possible to prevent Google from counting these back-links through an .htaccess file?
Not that I'm aware.
Best of luck!
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
-
Domain authority
Hi I Want to know why my website domain authority drop last month it is in 20 now it is in 18 i want to know what are the reasons.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | joaozzi0 -
301 Externally Linked, But Non-Producing Pages, To Productive Pages Needing Links?
I'm working on a site that has some non-productive pages without much of an upside potential, but that are linked-to externally. The site also has some productive pages, light in external links, in a somewhat related topic. What do you think of 301ing the non-productive pages with links to the productive pages without links in order to give them more external link love? Would it make much of a difference? Thanks... Darcy
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 945010 -
Disavow Links & Paid Link Removal (discussion)
Hey everyone, We've been talking about this issue a bit over the last week in our office, I wanted to extend the idea out to the Moz community and see if anyone has some additional perspective on the issue. Let me break-down the scenario: We're in the process of cleaning-up the link profile for a new client, which contains many low quality SEO-directory links placed by a previous vendor. Recently, we made a connection to a webmaster who controls a huge directory network. This person found 100+ links to our client's site on their network and wants $5/link to have them removed. Client was not hit with a manual penalty, this clean-up could be considered proactive, but an algorithmic 'penalty' is suspected based on historical keyword rankings. **The Issue: **We can pay this ninja $800+ to have him/her remove the links from his directory network, and hope it does the trick. When talking about scaling this tactic, we run into some ridiculously high numbers when you talk about providing this service to multiple clients. **The Silver Lining: **Disavow Links file. I'm curious what the effectiveness of creating this around the 100+ directory links could be, especially since the client hasn't been slapped with a manual penalty. The Debate: Is putting a disavow file together a better alternative to paying for crappy links to be removed? Are we actually solving the bad link problem by disavowing or just patching it? Would choosing not to pay ridiculous fees and submitting a disavow file for these links be considered a "good faith effort" in Google's eyes (especially considering there has been no manual penalty assessed)?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Etna0 -
Canonical link vs root domain
I have a wordpress website installed on http://domain.com/home/ instead of http://domain.com - Does it matter whether I leave it that way with a canonical link from the domain.com to the domain.com/home/ or should I move the wordpress files and database to the root domain?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JosephFrost0 -
Sub-domain or new domain for new location
I have a small law firm in Dallas, TX. I will be moving to Austin, TX in the next 2 years. My website is doing great here in Dallas, but I have focused on keyword phrases that include the word "Dallas." I would like to leave my current website as is and maintain a Dallas office to keep the business flowing from this website. I am trying to determine the best way to get Austin business from a 2nd website. I know I will need new content that includes the use of the word "Austin". My question is: Should I put the new content on (1) a subdomain (i.e. austin.copplaw.com) or (2) a new domain (i.e. copplawfirm.com). I really want to be a player for the google local search results in both cities. I can use a different name for my law firm in Austin, if necessary. Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Regards, Zac
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seozac0 -
SEO value in baclklink from blog.domain VS domain
Will a back-link from "domain.com/abc" and "blog.domain.com/abc" have same value from an SEO perspective? Assume same article written on both sites.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | knielsen
I have been told the bots look at the domain value and the only links from blogs that have less value are in case of comments. As long as the "blog.domain/abc" page includes a full article and not a blog comment then it counts fully for SEO. Is this correct?0 -
Does using a sub-domain lessen the effectiveness of your main domain?
For example a website without a blog and is a simple html site with no blogging capabilities. We go out to Blogger or Wordpress and set up the blog portion of the website using something like blog.yourdomain.com. Does this make a difference SEO wise? Is is more effective to be sure that you are using the main domain and not a sub-domain? I have heard both sides before but can't seem to find the concrete answer. Thanks for any advise out there.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | d25kart0 -
The missing link?
Hello and Welcome Moz friends! Thanks for taking the time to look at my problem. On my website I've optimized our content to match the keywords I have selected for the site. I constantly am Re-writing articles, reading SEOMoz on tips and tricks how to make link juice flow. Yet only one of my keywords ranks decently, the rest never show up. I have the hardest time getting traffic to my site, and sales after that. Maybe I am implementing something incorrectly or there is something I am not doing. www.FrontlineMobility.com If you have any tips or anything to give me I would gladly accept it, any criticism is also appreciated. Thank you Friends, hopefully you can help me.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | FrontlineMobility0