524 links from a site unknown to me - contact then disavow?
-
Hi there,
Google Webmaster Tools 'Who links the most' informs me there are 534 links from a site called econintersect.com linking to my site and 102 links from similar pages.com.
I have never requested these links and am keen to know if they are harming my site due to poor link quality?
Simon
-
Really really helpful thanks
-
That's really really helpful thanks.
-
I'm not going to lie, the /jobs/surrey/dorking page made me giggle.
You know, it might not be the links you gained, but the links you lost. Somewhere between February and July, it appears the site lost an RSS feed link from The Guardian. Which would probably account for the /blog problem. There was also a pretty good .edu link that disappeared.
With a smaller portfolio of links, if you lose a couple of good links - you'll feel it. It also looks like there may have been a little 'guest blogging' going on. It's not uncommon for the host blog to take the content and pull the link when you're not looking. Who knows, maybe they did the site a favor?
I've been reasonably assured that the UK and US versions are comparable, and Panda updated a couple of times in May. So, the more likely culprit may be the user profiles on the site. It might be a good idea to cull anything that hasn't been used in a while.
I could see where the site might look thin in places. Perhaps you could partner with some kind of video transcription service? That seems like a logical step.
-
I figured I would add a general link suggestion before I respond.
- Before you do anything, measure twice cut once.
- Plug your domain into the Open Site Explorer and see if you can find the same links that GWMT is showing.
- Head over to Majestic and verify ownership of your website and make sure you can find these links.
After those are done, if the links are indeed there, start asking yourself these questions:
- Does the potential referral benefit your website at all?
- Is the content pertinent to your website?
- Does the website make YOU uncomfortable? (My personal theory is that if it makes you uncomfortable it's going to make Google uncomfortable. That doesn't include ethics/morals etc, I am strictly referring to the website itself.)
- Check the link itself and find which page on the other website its coming from. Are the links in various comments, pictures, some block text? How are the links themselves being displayed?
At the end of the day, it's going to be your decision of how to proceed with this. After looking a bit more thoroughly and after my 2nd cup of coffee I agree with Travis wholeheartedly. With the general trend of Panda, I personally assume it's just a matter of time before those links are worthless if they aren't already. Who knows what these guys are up to, it looks to me like a project that started well and was sorta taken over by the sea of the internet!
Hope this helps!
-
Thanks, checked GWMT and all links are linking to my home page.
-
Sure thanks for looking into: www.videorecruit.com
The site was performing well organically but nose dived on May 20th and I'm struggling to get it back up.
It's the blog that was hit hardest: www.videorecruit.com/blog
-
I looked at the site. It appears to be primarily 'curated content' with citations. But this be physics. You can't hit the wall without the wall hitting back.
There are quite a few ads as well. cough scraper cough
Though I agree he should definitely wait a moment before disavowing. It's just that the site does appear to be pretty low quality. It does seem like Panda bait. But apparently content gets curated/scraped all the time.
So it really depends upon the target site.
-
Simon,
I just wanted to jump in really quick and add my 2 cents. First off, being that this is the internet a lot of times you are going to get links from sources that you don't know, or didn't ask for. In fact, it actually violates Googles TOS to write content and send it to someone for the sole purpose of getting links. In a perfect world Google world, you would be writing content/making a website for yourself/Business, and yourself/business only. You would become an expert in your field that would attract customers, referrals, etc on its on and your website would grow from there. You would gain all of these links organically. Of course that doesn't always happen, and that's why we advertise etc.
As to your original question; are these links "hurting you". This is much more in depth question that will be hard to evaluate on a forum. I say that simply because I have run into a similar problem asking questions like this on forums. Of course everybody want's to help, and motives are good, but when you start talking about removing "500+" links from a website, the potential impact is rather large, the impact could be quite small as well.
In GWMT you can see which pages are being linked by the various websites. Go to the websites and try and find how your website is actually being linked Is it in the comments? Is it in articles? Does it look like spam? Do some research on the website in question, see if it has good stats.
The backlink profile doesn't look terrible, at first glance. There appear to be some solid websites linking to it. I would have to see how that specific website links to your website.
All I'm saying, before you take any direct advice from any of us on a forum, make sure you feel confident in what it is that you are going to do. It never hurts to get a second opinion and consult with someone else who can look deeply into your backlink profile!
Hope that helps a little.
-
I would be happy to lend an opinion. Would you supply the name of the domain(s) you 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
-
Linking to AND canonicalizing to a page?
I am using cross domain rel=canonical to a page that is very similar to mine. I feel the page adds value to my site so I want users to go to it, but I ultimately want them to go to the page I'm canonicalizing to. So I am linking to that page as well. Anyone foresee any issues with doing this? And/or have other suggestions? Thanks.
Technical SEO | | ThridHour0 -
Hot Linking
We recently noticed that our website www.efurniturehouse.com is being hot linked by axsoris.com a Dutch website with many malware issue. Any suggestions how to proceed? Thanks in advance Tony
Technical SEO | | OCFurniture1 -
Quality links are beneficial, but are neutral links detrimental?
So obviously a link profile featuring quality / authoritative / relavant in-bound links is preferable, but here's my question: If I'm starting work on a brand new domain, should I build links that one would consider neutral (i.e. from a non-spammy, but unrelated site) or should I not bother and only focus on quality links? Thanks
Technical SEO | | underscorelive0 -
Nofollow links if you have more than one link on a page to the same destination.
Hi, I am wondering if someone can confirm that its best practice to have nofollow on secondary links on a page. For instance the contact page may have a link in the navigation and in the the blurb down the page have another link to the contact page saying contact us here etc.. So in this instance i would put a nofollow on the secondary link in the blurb would this be the best way to impliment this. Many thanks Chris
Technical SEO | | InteractiveRed670 -
Could a large number of No Followed links in to my site have caused a penalty?
On 22nd Feb, I placed a text ad on a respected industry recruitment website. As the site has many pages, the webmaster made a point of NOFOLLOWING the links back to my site. 6 days later, my site lost 30% of its daily traffic overnight, and it's stayed there ever since. I looked on Webmaster Tools just now, and it says that there are 125,000 links coming in to my site from the site I'm advertising on (even though the links are NOFOLLOWED). Could this have triggered the fall in search traffic to my site? Thanks for any feedback.
Technical SEO | | tofftrader0 -
Site not indexing correctly
I am trying to figure out what is going on with my site listings. Google is only displaying my title and url - no description. You can see it when you search for Franchises for Sale. The site is www.franchisesolutions.com. Why could this happen? Also I saw a big drop off in a handful of keyword rankings today. Could this be related?
Technical SEO | | franchisesolutions0 -
Will training videos available on the "members only" section of a site contribute to the sites ranking?
Hello, I got asked a question recently as to whether training videos on the deeper pages of a website (that you can only access if you are a member and log in) will help with the sites ranking. On the SEOMoz software these deeper pages have been crawled as far as I can tell with errors reported on pages from the "members only" section of the site, leading me to believe the members only pages and their content will contribute to the sites overall ranking profile. I have suggested uploading the informational videos on the main pages of the site for now, making them accessible to all visitors and putting them in a more obvious place to encourage more sharing and views, however I've also said I would check it out with some experts so any information will be greatly appreciated! Many thanks 🙂 Charlotte
Technical SEO | | CharlotteWaller0 -
Will changing our colocation affect our site's link juice?
If we change our site's server location to a new IP, will this affect anything involving SEO? The site name and links will not be changing.
Technical SEO | | 9Studios0