Considering the Panda algorithm updates, would you recommend reducing high amounts of inbound links from a single website?
-
My website has a significant number of inbound links (1,000+) from a single website, due to a sponsorship level contribution.
Both my website and the other are authorities in the industry and in search results (PR of 5). Since even ethical websites can suffer a penalty from each iteration of Panda, I'm considering significantly removing the number of links from this website.
Do you think that measurable change would be seen favorably by Google or would the drop in links be detrimental?
-
I would say it's all about motive. We've become link-phobic now.
As others have mentioned, it's Penguin that is concerned with inbound links and not Panda. With that being said, however, Penguin is meant to penalize websites that have grossly abused anchor text. So, if you got a pile of inbound links from a bunch of different websites all containing your money keyword as anchor text then this can set off the Penguin filter.
But, one sitebound link (even if it results in thousands of links from that site) is not likely to do that. If this were the case I could easily take down my competitor by pointing a single sitebound link at their site! (Agh...don't start negative SEO debating now though.)
-
From Google's view, I would ask 2 questions:
-
How much credit points you would give to this website?
-
Are those links look natural in Google's view or not?
I saw one website ranks #2 on the first page and 50% inbound links from one single domain.
However, the single domain is owned by Google.
This may give your some tips about the "single domain".
-
-
I think the update you're concerned about it Penguin, not Panda. Panda dealt with onsite and content issues. Penguin dealt with links.
But, if you have legitimate links of this kind, listen to Dana. You're fine.
-
I agree with Dana - the only thing you would need to worry about is if the link was a direct text link using a keyword anchor that is used abundantly throughout your link profile. Even then, if its an authority site that is relevant this is not something to worry about at all. In fact its probably a great link (regardless of the sitewide instances).
-
I always like to begin my responses to questions pertaining to prediciting what Google might do with the caveat that I can't predict anything Google might do.
That being said, I think you are fine and don't need to do anything. Industry relationships like this are normal, common, widespread and accepted. For example, there was a trade publication that picked up info on hundreds of our products earlier this year and put links to them all over the place. It was an official industry magazine. It was a great thing, and we didn't even have to pay for it. Eventually, they moved on and picked up someone else, so the links gradually dropped off.
The same kind of thing can happen, say, for example, if some news about your business makes the front page of Huffington Post. Suddenly, you are going to get thousands of links because there might be a headline link to your website from every page of the Huffington Post. Then, gradually they will drop off.
Don't worry about this scenario. That's my advice. These are the kinds of relationships you want. Going around cleaning up like this is not really going to effect Google at all and it's going to cost you a lot of time you could spend building new links.
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
-
Google Penguin update
When Google Penguin update will run again. The last time was in October 2013 and I'm still really curious now. Or have they stopped this and this is now continuously just like the panda?
Algorithm Updates | | NECAnGeL0 -
Yandex Update
The traffic from my website significantly decreased from Yandex last month. Was their a major update?
Algorithm Updates | | theLotter0 -
15% Drop in Traffic. Anyone have theories about the most recent update?
Analyzing our traffic, looks like we were hit site wide, with some article pages that don't have great engagement seeing more damage than others. We've been talking to other sites, and sites that have never seen any penalties and do everything right have also seen about 15-20% drop in traffic. The sites we know that weren't affected are brands (sites you would recognize by name). The only conclusion I can draw from everything (looking at mozcast metrics 'big 10' is that branded websites saw a boost. Does anyone else have any theories about what this most recent update was about?
Algorithm Updates | | nicole.healthline0 -
Rankings Gone? Have I been effected by the Panda/Penguin Update(s)?
Our site www.alphameasure.com has been online since 2005 and currently has a page rank of 4. The site has always ranked on page one or two of Google for our primary keywords (Employee Satisfaction Survey, Employee Engagement Survey, Employee Surveys). I'm not sure exactly when it happened, but now our site is nowhere to be found. I'm thinking our ranking dropped somewhere in mid to late January? We did use an SEO company in the spring of 2012 that went on a link building campaign for us. They added about 450 inbound links over a three month period. Other than that - nothing has really change on the site. We're getting ready to release a new version of our software that was being re-written during all of 2012, so the timing of losing our rankings is just awful. Any help or ideas is greatly appreciated? Thanks in advance,
Algorithm Updates | | EngagedMetrics
Josh0 -
Why does Google Alerts call my website a blog?
Our company started a WordPress blog about 14 years ago. It has since added a third-party forum, a user-submitted photo gallery, and a huge database of searchable products. We also have almost 4000 posts. With all that said, Google Alerts often lists our content under blogs rather than websites. Sometimes it shows up in both? Does anyone know what criteria Google uses for determining the type of content, and how we can signal to them that we are a website?
Algorithm Updates | | TMI.com0 -
Website "penalized" 3 times by Google
I have a website that I'm working with that has had the misfortune of gaining rankings/traffic on Google, then having the rankings/traffic removed...3 times! (Very little was changed on the site to gain or lose "favor" with Google, either.) Notes: Site is a mixture of high quality original content and duplicate content (vacation rental listings) When traffic crashes, we lose nearly all rankings and traffic (90+%) When traffic crashes, we lose all rankings sitewide, including those gained by our high quality, unique pages None of the "crash" dates appear to coincide with any Panda update dates We are working on adding unique content to our pages with duplicate content, but it's a long process and so far doesn't seem to have made any difference I'm confounded why Google keeps "changing its mind" about our site We have an XML sitemap, and Google keeps our site indexed pretty well, even when we lose our rankings Due to the drastic and sitewide loss of rankings, I'm assuming we are dealing with some sort of algorithmic penalty Timeline: Traffic steadily grows starting in Jan 2011 Traffic crashes on Feb 19, 2011. We assumed it was due to a pre-panda anti-scraper update, but don't know. Google sends traffic to our site on March 1, then none the next day On June 16th, I block part of the site using robots.txt (most of the section wasn't indexed anyway) On June 17th, Google starts ranking our site again. I thought it might be due to the robots.txt change, but I had just made the change a few hours ago, and Google wasn't even indexing the part of the site I blocked Traffic/rankings crash again on July 6th. No theory why. Site URL: http://www.floridaisbest.com Traffic Stats: Attached I know that we need more backlinks and less duplicate content, but I can't explain why our Google rankings are "on again, off again". I have never seen a site gain and lose all of its rankings/traffic so drastically multiple times, for no apparent reason. Any thoughts or ideas would be welcome. Thanks! t8IqB
Algorithm Updates | | AdamThompson0 -
Recovered From The Panda Update?
Does anyone know if there are websites that have recovered from the Panda update?
Algorithm Updates | | dirkla0