Removing poor domain authority backlinks worth it?
-
Hey Moz,
I am working with a client on more advanced SEO tactics. This client has a reputable domain authority of 67 and 50,000+ backlinks.
We're wanting to continue SEO efforts and stay on top of any bad backlinks that may arise.
Would it be worth asking websites (below 20 domain authority) to remove our links? Then, use the disavow tool if they do not respond.
Is this a common SEO practice for continued advanced efforts? Also, what would your domain authority benchmark be? I used 20 just as an example.
Thanks so much for your help.
Cole
-
Awesome responses guys. Anyone else have any other insight?
-
I updated my response while you were writing yours.
I don't doubt your insight. But The Googles doesn't sleep.
When you're doing a local campaign, with strictly above the board links, you should move as fast as possible.
-
That would be bad.
You should follow the rough 10-80-10 rule, whether you are building 10 links or 10,000 links. And you should always do it slowly.
I agree there are no specific percentages. You have to look at the big picture over a long period of time.
-
Let's say someone reads this and decides to get their first 10% in the crappy category. That would not be good for them. Further, there aren't any specific percentages that I'm aware of.
Yes, The Googles does have to pick the best of the worst. I'm not in doubt of that.
Yes, sometimes you inherit a mess but it seems to work. Manual reviews happen.
-
Big picture: What a good "problem" to have!
Without taking a close look at your specific URL...
...my first instinct is that the answer to your question is almost certainly a giant...
**No.
DO THE HARD THING: NOTHING!!!!** There is a real danger of overthinking this stuff and neglecting the fundamentals.
I faced the same issue with a DA72 site for a leading SME In his field who had 450,000+ backlinks....some from major media outlets and universities, but most from "nobodies" in the field. This is good!
What you want in a classic Inverted U-shaped curve in terms of DA.
-
10 % crappy links
-
80 % middling links
-
10% super high quality links
You mess with this at your peril!!!! Beware. "Bad" links are not necessarily bad in the grand scheme of universe. Every credible and authoritative site should have some. They are part of a natural link profile.
Getting rid of the <20 DA authority links could hurt...badly.
Focusing excessively on tweaking or sculpting the middling 80% of your links is probably a mistake. You could shoot yourself in the foot.
Less is more.
It might be better to just keep doing what you're doing.
This is hard...and requires great discipline!
-
-
Happy to be contrary. Another good thing about Link Detox is that the service has been trained - mostly for the good - by users manually reviewing the quality of their links. If easylinkseodirectory4u.com has been flagged enough, it's more likely to get caught by the machine.
Once you have uploaded your list and reviewed the links, you will get a pretty accurate risk rating. It scales from shades of low to high. I don't think Link Detox has ever given me a false Toxic rating on individual links either.
I'm not a client scalper, so if you would like to PM the domain name, I can take a look.
-
Excellent, quality response. Thanks so much.
I would love to hear from any disavow experts, maybe even costs of them (of course, I don't want to break any Moz rules that may be applicable).
Cole
-
Setting a DA cut-off from the outset is a bit too arbitrary. What if it's a link from a site with low DA and a low PA now, but later the site becomes the next New York Times? You don't want to disavow the next New York Times, but that's what an arbitrary number would have you do.
Further, DA and PA can be gamed to a certain extent. I'm sure Rap Genius has a pretty solid DA, but they were penalized all the same. So it would appear that using DA as a cut-off would be less than ideal.
There's no real easy way to do a disavow. You have to think about characteristics, context and intent. If you have links that pass juice, but were obviously paid - that may be a candidate. If there's a vast preponderance of links from seemingly low quality directories with exact match anchor text - those would be candidates for closer scrutiny as well. Dead giveaways are usually 'sponsored' links that pass juice.
Low quality directories usually let everyone in. You will know them by their viagra and casino anchor text. They're usually a pretty safe disavow candidate.
Does the site have a lot of links from spam blog comments from sites that are obviously unrelated? Has there been some guest blogging on free for all blogs? Those links would require some review as well.
Definitely prioritize your exact match anchor text links for review.
I would suggest you start with gathering link data from numerous sources:
- Google Webmaster Tools
- Bing Webmaster Tools
- Ahrefs
- Majestic SEO
- Etc.
Then filter the duplicates via spreadsheet voodoo. After that, drop it into a service like Link Detox. But be careful, it still throws false positives and false negatives. So again, there's no real way of getting out of a manual review. But Link Detox will speed up the process.
Are there plenty of disavow services out there? Sure, but I've never used them. I'm far too paranoid. A disavow is a delicate and lengthy process.
Are there some great disavow pros/individuals out there? Definitely. I would be far more likely to trust them. In fact, a couple will likely chime in here. Though they may be a little bit outside the budget. I don't know.
One final, important, point: A disavow is not a panacea. They take as long as they take. Though it is good that you appear to be proactive. You never know when the next Penguin filter will land. The site may be right with The Googles now, but it might not be later.
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
-
Redirection of 100 domain to Main domain affects SEO?
Hi guys, An email software vendor managed by a different area of my company redirected 100 domains used for unsolicited email campaigns to my main domain. These domains are very likely to get blacklisted at some point. My SEO tool now is showing me all those domains as "linking" to my main site as do-follow links. The vendor states that this will not affect my main domain/website in any way. I'm highly concerned. I would appreciate your professional opinion about this. Thanks!!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | anagentile0 -
Sub Domain Usage
I see that the gap uses gap.com, oldnavy.gap.com and bananarepublic.gap.com. Wouldn't a better approach for SEO to have oldnavy.com, bananarepublic.com and gap.com all separate? Is there any benefit to using the approach of store1.parentcompany.com, store2.parentcompany.com etc? What are the pros and cons to each?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kcb81780 -
Old Sub domain removal and deletion of content
There are two questions here. I have waited for over 2-3 weeks now and they are still not resolved till now. An old sub-domain is still indexed on Google (blog.nirogam.com) of which all pages have been redirected or 404'd to main domain. There is no webmasters, no authority of this old sub-domain. Hosting of the same might be there. (this has been deleted and does not exist - we own main domain only) How do I de-index and remove them for good? _(Around ~1,000 pages)_I am trying this public tool - any better approaches?Even after removing pages and submission on the tool, 600 pages are still indexed after 2-3 weeks! We deleted a lot of thin content/duplicate pages from the domain (nirogam.com) in Wordpress - All these pages are still in Google's index. They are in Trash folder now. This is causing an increase in 404s in the webmasters etcI have served a 410 header (using wordpress plugin) on all these pages as these should not be directed to anything. However, Google does not always fully understand 410 properly and it still shows up in webmasters as read in this detailed post.All these pages are still indexed.How do I de-index these pages? Any other approach to stop the 404s and remove these pages for good?Any feedback/approach will be highly appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | pks3330 -
Multiple Landing Pages and Backlinks
I have a client that does website contract work for about 50 governmental county websites. The client has the ability to add a link back in the footer of each of these websites. I am wanting my client to get backlink juice for a different key phrase from each of the 50 agencies (basically just my keyphrase with the different county name in it). I also want a different landing page to rank for each term. The 50 different landing pages would be a bit like location pages for local search. Each one targets a different county. However, I do not have a lot of unique content for each page. Basically each page would follow the same format (but reference a different county name, and 10 different links from each county website). Is this a good SEO back link strategy? Do I need more unique content for each landing page in order to prevent duplicate content flags?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | shauna70840 -
Domain.com/old-url to domain.com/new-url
HI, I have to change old url`s to new one, for the same domain and all landing pages will be the same: domain.com/old-url I have to change to: domain.com/new-url All together more than 70.000 url. What is best way to do that? should I use 301st redirect? is it possible to do in code or how? what could you please suggest? Thank you, Edgars
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Edzjus3330 -
301 of EDM domains
If I buy a keyword EDM domain and 301 redirect it to my site, will I rank better for that keyword?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | creaturmedia0 -
Does a page on a site with high domain authority build page authority easier? i.e. less inbound links?
Is this also why people build backlinks to their BBB profiles, Yellowpages Profiles, etc. i.e. why do people build backlinks to other pages that link to them? Wouldn't it be more beneficial to just build that backlink directly to your target?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | adriandg0 -
Buying up old domains, high PR, to absorb backlinks and authority?
I'm thinking about purchasing http://employeesurveyresource.com/ .. $300 It's showing a PR5, but I'm not seeing many backlinks in Y! site explorer or open site explorer. Has anyone been successful in absorbing the PR from older domains / domains without current content? I know sometimes people can fake PR by 301'ing from a high PR site, to sell the domain and then cancel the 301, leaving you with a dud. Can someone shed some light on this please? Thank you!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CareerBliss0