What is the best way to remove a link that redirects to a spammy site?
-
I've got a new client and I'm trying to clean up their backlinks. There are several links that all redirect to this spam site http://www.expert-lender.com. All of the websites appear to be real, i.e. http://www.sammorganhomes.com/ but the actual links i.e http://www.sammorganhomes.com/wp-fav/backup/supplement/semitruckleasing.html are in a sub-directory and redirect to the spam site.
I don't know if these links were from the previous SEO company or if they paid someone to create these or if these sites have been hacked. Can anyone tell me what is going on here and what should I tell these site owners?
-
Thanks for the response and I appreciate the information.
-
I usually see this kind of link when I'm doing backlink cleanup for payday loans sites. Not sure how they happen, but I usually do deal with them rather than ignore them. When I come across these I usually disavow both on the domain level. So, you'd do the following:
domain:sammorganhomes.com
domain:expert-lender.comIf you don't have a manual penalty then you don't need to worry about getting the links removed. (I recommend removing what you can easily remove and then disavowing the rest.) If you do have a manual penalty, you can try to find contact info and if you can't contact them, don't sweat it...just document in your spreadsheet that you have tried to find contact info or send emails and didn't get a response. Google knows you can't contact every site that links to you.
-
Long story short, the page isn't cached in Google, but it does redirect - so odds are the actual link is gone. Your client's site content was probably scraped. In another example, whoever did this also scraped content from another site.
Scraping is pretty common, and it would result in backlinks if the scraper didn't totally remove all of the links. The scraper/hacker likely didn't choose sites strategically, rather they likely just targeted vulnerable sites.
If you run into live instances of your client's stolen content, there is always the option of a DMCA takedown.
Edit: I just revisited my response and found that even the Web Archive link redirects. I took a look at the source code after stopping the browser before the redirect, I haven't found anything in a timely manner. Suffice to say, that's odd.
-
Thanks Travis and Jane.
These links are showing up in Open Site Explorer for my client, so I don't know what is visible when crawled, but there is an immediate redirect to the spam site when I open the link in a browser.
-
Hi there,
Sorry, can you clarify - are you saying that your client supposedly has links on pages like http://www.sammorganhomes.com/wp-fav/backup/supplement/semitruckleasing.html, but that those pages redirect to the spam site?
-
If the links don't point to your client, there's little to no need to tell anyone anything - other than out of courtesy. You would do better telling their host's technical support, however. Hosts tend to hate this stuff more than site owners for some odd reason.
But yes, the example given looks like the result of a hack. Now that doesn't mean the links weren't paid, per se - but the hack is the end result. It wouldn't surprise me if whomever did the hacking later pulled the links and pointed them elsewhere.
You could follow that rabbit hole to the end of the internet. Instead I would focus on links that actually point to your client's site. And that is if it appears the links have harmed, or definitely will harm the site.
If you feel the need to continue, gather as much link information as you can from open site explorer, Google and Bing Webmaster Tools, Majestic SEO and/or aHrefs. Once you have a mess of spreadsheets in-hand, prune duplicate links. Then, feed it into Cemper Link Detox.
Link Detox should be able to flag the obvious stuff. But they also still put out some false positive/negatives, so you still have to judge links individually. During the judging phase, I always use a Linux machine. You never know when you'll hit something that executes script - then your machine is totaled.
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
-
Backlinking and Redirect links
Can anyone please explain the real difference between backlinks, 301 links, and redirect links?which one is better to rank a website? i am looking for the help for one of my website lottery
Link Building | | murataft0 -
What is the Best Way to Select a Company for Linkbuilding?
We need a few more links, who doesn't, and I've been looking at outsourcing it. Having checked out Moz posts to get an idea of best practice it seems that most link builders that responded to my Elance advert would give me links that would get me penalised either now or in the next update or two by Google. Leaving aside the frequent mentions of link wheels on potential SEOs sites, the main problem seems to be that I cannot believe that any content generated will be of any value to anyone other than as a pseudo contextual basis for the link "Bats are a flying mammal. They use sound waves to navigate. Sound is used in hearing aids. blah blah. blah." So how do you find decent link builders? How do you validate them? What are the key questions to ask? What are the red flags?
Link Building | | Zippy-Bungle0 -
Should I remove links that are not related to my niche and could be spammy?
Our site ranks #2 for our primary search term. Compared to our competition in position #1, we out score them in all of moz metrics except in Moz trust- which we only trail by .3. I've read a lot about Google reducing the impact of backlinks and specifically the influence of anchor text for keyword ranking. However, many state that to increase domain authority you need to get more quality backlinks. Here is my dilemma: Do we remove backlinks from our link profile that are not in our niche in an effort to increase our moz trust score. Some of our backlinks are from unrelated businesses that could be considered spammy like a poker site - even though the page still has a high page authority. Currently, we have a significantly higher number of linking domains compared to our competition. Would it be beneficial to "clean up" our link profile or do we risk losing domain authority from a reduced number of links?
Link Building | | ffreesr0 -
Getting Links Removed From ArticlesFactory.com?
I've tried to contact the staff through the online form at http://www.articlesfactory.com/contact.html but never got any reply. Any idea?
Link Building | | sbrault740 -
Mobile sites link strategies
Hi, I am working for a large mobil-site (+200.000 pages), to improve their SEO, and am trying to figure out the best way to set up a linkbuilding strategy for the site. The urls are very dynamic and often rather long so deep linking is difficult. Any input/ideas would be welcome 🙂 Jens Peter
Link Building | | jpndk0 -
I am seeking a high quality sites to submit articles for free in order to get links. Can you recommend me on those sites?
I am seeking a high quality sites to submit articles for free in order to get links. Can you recommend me on those sites?
Link Building | | yoavm0 -
Linking to root domain or specific sub-site
Hello, When optimizing for multiple keywords, should I try to get links back to the root domain of the company I work with, or would it be better to link back to sub-sites specific to the keyword I am optimizing for? Does 'getting the root up' help all keywords I work with? Cheers, Mike
Link Building | | Malarowski0 -
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